Planning an essay

1. Planning an essay Monday, 29 June 2015 Jonathan Peel JLS 2015

2. A coursework essay needs • Accuracy • Precision • Concise language and explanation • Clarity of purpose or argument • This does not happen by accident and time must be taken to organise and clarify your thought processes Jonathan Peel JLS 2015

3. Where do we start? • I make a “long plan” – usually bullets – in which I lay out the spine of the essay: • In the essay: “explore the presentation of love in 3 poems with reference to 3 more”, this will involve stating not just the key topic of each paragraph but also the relevant poem. It will not yet have detailed quotation or discussion. Jonathan Peel JLS 2015

4. Idea • Love is everlasting – sonnet 116 – • Love is a guide and protection • Love is not bound by Time and is an independent power • Contrast with Sonnet 71 – love should end at death • Comparison of 116/71 with Remember on theme of “everlasting”, picking up the idea of Rossetti seeming to shift her position… • Rossetti presenting love as protecting by avoiding harsh reality (euphemism) • And so on through the essay until the whole thing is set out in note form. Jonathan Peel JLS 2015

5. At this stage • To test your plan, try to write a short outline of the argument, using one or two sentences at the most to represent each paragraph and still using no evidence or analysis. • “Love is presented in a wide range of ways, for a thing of joy to a medium for inflicting great pain and from an everlasting power to an element which has to be laid aside to avoid sorrow. • In Sonnet 116 love is presented in didactic verse as being everlasting and having the quality of protection and guidance for humans leading an otherwise formless life. • This contrasts with the view presented in sonnet 71 which requires love to be left aside and no mourning to take place for a dead lover, Ideas which Rossetti picks up in Remember. • Here she seems worried that her lover should forget her, before finding a generosity of spirit and suggesting that he should be able to forget her for a while to avoid pain. She shows her love in her wish to soften the blow of death by the euphemisms and generally soft tone to the poem – though the comment about “our future which you planned” might suggest some unevenness in the relationship. • DH Lawrence looks at the idea of love being revisited form the perspective of a son recalling his mother and suffering pain as the memories and the love comes flooding back. He feels unmanned by this and might prefer the model of Sonnet 71 as a result. • Another son/parent relationship is shown in Do not go gentle… where Thomas reflects on his love for his dying Father by begging him to continue ot fight and rage util the very end of his life – feeling blessed if this happens. • In mother in a refugee camp, this attitude is seen by the mother who will not let her child die by simply giving in to illness but seeks to maintain a pride in life by her care for him. • The language is stark and scatalogically obscene, possibly suggesting that this is love in the 116 mold – it surely is surviving the kind of storm mentioned by Shakespeare. • The fact that love for the dead is so painful means that the mother will need to forget her child after his death – Something not foreseen by Shakespeare, but which DH Lawrence supports by reference to the pain that “love-remembered” can produce. Jonathan Peel JLS 2015

6. OK, now to develop my thinking • We need to add the evidence and the analysis to this frame. • Try to plan each paragraph • I will show you my format which can be printed and stuck on a wall to help with the writing process Jonathan Peel JLS 2015

7. Based on PEARL technique Jonathan Peel JLS 2015

8. Link to 71 and Remember by way of contrast Paragraph 1 Link to MIRC as evidence of this point Possible links to DHL and Rossetti in content Edge of doom suggests beyond the grave with doomsday reference. Half rhyme doom is given strength and portentousness. Echoes the antithetical pairing of the wedding service and suggests a constancy despite changes in age and situation of either party in the couple. Suggests the brevity of life span of humans against the duration of the world and nature • love is not love/Which alters when it alteration finds • In its brief days and weeks” Jonathan Peel JLS 2015

9. Further thinking • Many of us like to begin writing before our thoughts have gelled • Try to avoid leaping in and planning “on the hoof” • You could draft a paragraph on a separate sheet if you wish, but don’t get tricked into starting before you know where your argument is going to lead. • The better the detail of your work at this stage – the easier it will be to write a coherent essay. Jonathan Peel JLS 2015

10. Introductions and conclusions • These need not be long. • The introduction should lay out the thesis in simple terms and make reference to the texts being considered in the essay. • The conclusion might simply summarise the thesis again – it should not contain any analysis or any new material • The argument draft form the long plan will help here. • There is little obvious danger in waiting until the end to write both these elements. Jonathan Peel JLS 2015

11. Draft and improve • I will be asking for a first draft to be submitted. This will receive formative marking. • NB just because I call it a first draft, this should not be your first version! Too many first drafts are ruined by careless SPAG and paragraphs which do not make sense. It should always have been proofread and improved prior to the first submission. • If you are not familiar with Austin’s Butterfly, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqh1MRWZjms • This is the best possibleexample of howdraftingand grit canproduce the best possiblework. • GOOD LUCK! Jonathan Peel JLS 2015