How to mark a GCSE Literature essay

Grade 6 student essay on An Inspector Calls

Here’s an essay that was sent to me by a student marked with feedback. It’s about a grade 6 and is quite typical of your average essay.

In my feedback, I explain how the student can take their essay from a grade 6 and bump it up to a 7 or 8 which is something student have asked for recently.

To get the most out of this article, I would suggest you read the student essay and mark it for yourself using the official mark scheme provided.

In the mark scheme, you’ll notice that students aren’t graded 1–9 but put into 6 levels.

You want to familiarize yourself with the assessment objectives (AOs) and the individual criteria (bullet pointed) for each.

When evaluating this essay and your own essays, don’t worry about allocating marks for each AO, just ask yourself if all of the criteria is met for each bullet point.

If the essay hasn’t met all of the bullet points, then keep moving down the table until you reach a level where all of the criteria are met.

This is slightly harder than it sounds, however, because the language is a little abstract and you’ll scratch your head thinking ‘what makes a comment “thoughtful”?’

Well, here’s a crude interpretation of the language which might be more helpful:

L3 = makes little sense

L4 = makes some sense

L5 = makes more sense

L6 = makes total sense

Student essay

How does Priestley present the character of Inspector Goole in An Inspector Calls?

Write about:

• The importance and impact of the Inspector and his visit

• How Priestley presents the Inspector by the way he writes

AO1, 2 and 3 [30 marks]

AO4 [4 mark]

Priestley uses the character of Inspector Goole to show the attitudes of the upper classes during the Edwardian Era. He delibrately crafts the inspector in this way to demonstrate how society could be improved through reducing the ignorant capitalist mindset and replacing this with a socialist one. By trying to encourage a more communal sense of responsibility, Priestley uses the inspector as his proxy.

At the start of the play, he is presented as a character that is an imposing figure who carries an air of mystery as he is dressed in a simplistic way which could suggest that he does not belong to a particular class. His “impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness” highlights the inspector’s sheer importance and power. The use of the three solid adjectives heightens the idea that the inspector’s power is rooted from his composure and omniscience that will bring down the family into accepting responsibility due to the shift in power despite him not being from an established social class. In fact, the inspector could be seen as someone who already introduces pivotal socialist ideas in Act 1 in an attempt to undermine the attitudes of the Birling family. This is shown when he tells Mr Birling in response to his action of sacking Eva Smith as he says “he had better ask the Earth than to take it” The use of the verb ‘take’ suggests that the Inspector feels that it is important for Society to be collectively responsible instead of ‘taking’ benefits to oneself.

As the play progresses, the inspector is presented as a character that becomes more supernatural. His phantom-like presence is suggested through his name ‘Ghool’ which suggests that his ghostly conscience will hopefully cause the family to ‘share their guilt’ and behave as respectable citizens. Therefore, Priestley reminds the audience through the mouth of the Inspector that ‘we are all members of one body’ in which the Inspector’s final message promotes the union of society and togetherness. This could link to the theme of context in which Christian teachings were thought highly of. Therefore, the biblical reference here directly relays this idea of baptism and his message can be seen as a sort of salvation for the Birling’s.

At the very end of the play, the Inspector leaves telling the Birlings that they will suffer in “fire, blood and anguish” if they do not learn their lesson. This could perhaps suggest that Priestley is relaying the message of social responsibility throughout and his prophetic message makes this message seem quite daunting. He strongly believesbelives that Eva Smith was treated “as if she was an animal, a thing, not a person” which highlights her blatantblatent disregard of her by humanity through their exploitative treatment of her. Therefore, Priestley ensures the inspector ends in the way to instil a strong emotional reaction from the audience as Eva Smith was treated as a ‘thing’ as if it does not belong to their society class.

Feedback

Priestley uses the character of Inspector Goole to show [criticise] the attitudes of the upper classes during the Edwardian Era. He deliberately crafts the inspector in this way to demonstrate how society could be improved through reducing the ignorant capitalist mindset and replacing this with a socialist one. By trying to encourage a more communal sense of responsibility, Priestley uses the inspector as his proxy.

Your thesis statement is good, although it would be better if you suggested Priestly is criticising specific attitudes and articulated the specific messages his play communicates. For example, ‘Priestly criticises the prejudiced attitudes the Edwardian upper classes had towards those who were lower class, treating them as socially inferior and unworthy of their respect, kindness and generosity.’ And then you can explain how Priestly illustrates the way the upper class collectively make the world miserable for ordinary people like Eva with the Birling family serving as a microcosm of the wealthy.

At the start of the play, he is presented as a character that is an imposing figure who carries an air of mystery as he is dressed in a simplistic way which could suggest that he does not belong to a particular class. His “impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness” highlights the inspector’s sheer importance and power. The use of the three solid adjectives heightens the idea that the inspector’s power is rooted from his composure and omniscience that will bring down the family into accepting responsibility due to the shift in power despite him not being from an established social class. In fact, the inspector could be seen as someone who already introduces pivotal socialist ideas in Act 1 in an attempt to undermine the attitudes of the Birling family. This is shown when he tells Mr Birling in response to his action of sacking Eva Smith as he says “he had better ask the Earth than to take it” The use of the verb ‘take’ suggests that the Inspector feels that it is important for Society to be collectively responsible instead of ‘taking’ benefits to oneself.

Your second paragraph then focuses on 3 interesting word choices but your analysis lacks precision: not all of the adjectives obviously relate to solidity and what does it mean to have power rooted in composure? There is a good attempt at language analysis in this paragraph but at this point the analysis is all a bit confused so it’s L4 at most.

As the play progresses, the inspector is presented as a character that becomes more supernatural. His phantom-like presence is suggested through his name ‘Ghool’ which suggests that his ghostly conscience will hopefully cause the family to ‘share their guilt’ and behave as respectable citizens. Therefore, Priestley reminds the audience through the mouth of the Inspector that ‘we are all members of one body’ in which the Inspector’s final message promotes the union of society and togetherness. This could link to the theme of context in which Christian teachings were thought highly of. Therefore, the biblical reference here directly relays this idea of baptism and his message can be seen as a sort of salvation for the Birling’s.

You start this paragraph with an interesting topic sentence but you don’t argue your opinion. The argument is very poorly structured and difficult to follow. You’re making relevant comments but you don’t explain how ideas are clearly connected so in regards to AO1 at this point you’re also in L4 or below. You have to make sure that you really defend or argue your topic sentences.

Here are my thoughts as I’m reading your essay in square brackets.

'As the play progresses [a little general. Are you referring to the whole play?], the inspector is presented as a character that becomes more supernatural [interesting opinion, although it isn't obvious to me how]. His phantom-like presence is suggested through his name ‘Ghool’ [is his phantom-like presence suggested through his name or does his name suggest he's a phantom?] which suggests that his ghostly conscience [what is a ghostly conscience?] will hopefully cause the family to ‘share their guilt’ and behave as respectable citizens. [So his 'ghostly conscience' will 'cause'–a bit vauge–to share their (the Birlings') guilt? How so?]

You see how once I really start to try and unpack what you're saying your ideas are unclear.

The main problem with your analysis is that it's lacking clarity and precision: your ideas are not developed.

Additionally, you're making bold claims without supporting your opinions

So first, you should be a lot more critical with your own work and really scrutinise the validity of every statement you make as I've just modelled.

Second, you need to ensure that every opinion is supported with textual references. It isn't enough to simply refer to the inspector's name to support the opinion that he becomes more supernatural throughout the play, and you don't explain the homophone. You could explain how the inspector's name is a homophone for ‘ghoul’ which suggests that the inspector is not even real but rather a spirit like the ghosts in ‘A Christmas Carol’. You could then consider why Priestly wants to suggest the inspector is a kind of spirit?

There is a relevant comment about context after but it’s poorly integrated and articulated.

At the very end of the play, the Inspector leaves telling the Birlings that they will suffer in “fire, blood and anguish” if they do not learn their lesson. This could perhaps suggest that Priestley is relaying the message of social responsibility throughout and his prophetic message makes this message seem quite daunting. He strongly believesbelives that Eva Smith was treated “as if she was an animal, a thing, not a person” which highlights her blatantblatent disregard of her by humanity through their exploitative treatment of her. Therefore, Priestley ensures the inspector ends in the way to instil a strong emotional reaction from the audience as Eva Smith was treated as a ‘thing’ as if sheit does not belong to their societyial class.

This last paragraph is better but you don’t explain how the quotes relate to each other. Additionally you end with the underwhelming point of Priestly inspiring a ‘strong emotional reaction from the audience’. Okay, but why? What specifically does Priestly want the audience to think or feel as the curtains are drawn?

AO1+ AO2+ AO3 = 18 marks

AO4 =2

Total= 20/34

Overview

On consideration of its merits and weaknesses, this essay is not ‘thoughtful and developed’ to use the terminology of the mark scheme. To ensure it is ‘thoughtful and developed’, I would suggest you really narrow the scope of your essay in your introduction and that you fully argue the opinions given in your topic sentences.

Further judiciously choose quotes for each main body paragraph which support each other and the opinions in your topic sentences–and close read more of the language!

Lastly, try to reference more of the play and provide a broader overview of the play at some point in your essay. For example, you can summarise the way that the inspector interrogates the Birlings one by one to slowly build a picture of how they’ve all contributed to the death of Eva. You can then explain how he encourages them to acknowledge their part in Eva’s death and persuades them to change their attitudes.

Responding to all of this feedback will help you move into L5 or 6.

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If you’ve made it this far, then thanks for reading. I really hope you found this post helpful.

Let me know if you have any questions on the feedback and like this post to see more newsletters like it.

Best wishes,

Morgan