Naming Devices Versus Explaining Effect in a Prescribed Poem
In a Unit Test on prescribed poetry, students answer a 5-mark question on Gieve Patel's 'On Killing a Tree': 'How does the poet present the killing of a tree as a deliberate, almost ritual act? Support your answer with two poetic devices.' One student writes: 'The poet says the tree cannot be killed by a simple jab of the knife. It takes much time. The tree has a root and it is pulled out. The poet uses personification and alliteration. The tree is like a human being. This poem is about gardening and how to cut trees.' The answer is 95 words. The marking scheme awards 2 marks for the process being deliberate or ritualised, 2 for two devices with effect, and 1 for coherent expression. The teacher notices the student has identified devices but not linked them to the question, and has read 'anchoring earth' as a nautical image. The class has been taught the poem's eco-critical reading.
1. Diagnose the student's answer against the marking scheme. What mark out of 5 would you award, and why?
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Suggested award: 2/5.
- Deliberate/ritual process (1/2): The student says the tree 'takes much time' and that 'the tree has a root and it is pulled out'. This gestures towards effort and a sequence, but it does not explain ritual: the poem's careful stages - hacking, roping, pulling, scorching, choking - make the killing a prolonged, almost ceremonial procedure. The student lists one stage without framing the process.
- Two devices with effect (0/2): 'Personification and alliteration' are named, but no phrase is quoted and no effect is explained. The statement 'The tree is like a human being' is a general observation, not an analysis of how a device works in the poem. There is also a misreading: 'anchoring earth' is treated as a nautical image rather than as the earth holding the tree's roots like an anchor.
- Coherent expression (1/1): The sentences are readable and mostly accurate in grammar, even though the final sentence - 'This poem is about gardening and how to cut trees' - reduces the poem's eco-critical concern to procedure.
The mark reflects partial process and clear expression, but no genuine device analysis.
2. The student asks: 'If I name the devices, why don't I get the device marks?' Explain what examiners mean by 'effect' and show how one of the named devices could be analysed in one sentence.
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Naming a device is only identification; 'effect' means showing how that device shapes meaning, tone, or the reader's response in this specific poem. The examiner wants a quotation plus an explanation of what the device makes us see or feel.
For example, if the student names alliteration, the phrase 'white and wet' can be analysed: the repeated w sound slows the line and makes the exposed root seem vulnerable, almost pure. That is an effect because it links sound to the poem's attitude towards the tree. If the student names personification, the phrase 'the bleeding bark' can be used: the bark is given the human capacity to bleed, so the hacking is made to feel like an injury to a living body rather than a botanical procedure.
A practical formula: device + quoted words + what it suggests + how it answers the question. Without the middle two steps, the label earns nothing.
3. Give a 60-word model revision that would turn the student's answer into a 4- or 5-mark response.
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Patel presents the killing as a ritual with stages: the tree must first be hacked, then roped and pulled out, then scorched and choked. The simile 'leprous hide' makes the bark seem diseased skin, so the violence feels surgical; the alliteration in 'white and wet' slows the exposure of the root, making it seem vulnerable and sacred. (60 words)
This revision answers the 'ritual' part through sequence, and it pairs two devices with quoted evidence and effect.