A-LEVEL CREATIVE WRITING CREW3 From Reading to Writing Report on the Examination 2750 June 2016 Version: 2.0
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Principal Examiner s Report CREW3 Introduction This was the second A2 examination of Creative Writing. Students responded to the whole range of texts offered using all four forms available to them. Again, examiners very much enjoyed reading a variety of imaginative and engaging responses from many talented young writers. It is indeed a very rewarding examination to mark. It was pleasing to see that many students had been thoroughly prepared for the exam and had taken on board advice from last year s report, particularly for the commentary. Students, on the whole, used the time given to them wisely, although some are still not planning and drafting. The best responses showed clear evidence of thinking, planning, drafting and editing and this allowed students to reflect fully on their own writing process in the commentary. Students who did not engage in the writing process, often writing a first draft with little thought given to the creative possibilities of the prompt and stimulus text fared less well. The exam offers students freedom of choice of writing form and creative approach to each stimulus text and they should be advised to spend appropriate time thinking through possibilities and making informed creative choices. There is no word limit allotted to creative responses in the exam and some of the best responses chose to produce shorter pieces that had been clearly thought through and crafted so that creative intentions were fully realised. It is essential that students engage with the process of their writing in order to write a genuinely reflective commentary. Those students who simply responded to the prompt and ignored the stimulus text inevitably wrote underdeveloped commentaries which brought final marks down. Question 1 The best creative pieces showed a clear thinking, planning, drafting and editing process. Such writing was mature and sophisticated and informed by wide reading. Most students this year made it clear to the examiner which stimulus text they were responding to and which was their final draft. Drafts are not assessed but are obviously a necessary part of the process. It is perfectly acceptable to put a line through drafts to highlight them as such. It should also be noted that a draft is not necessarily a full draft but could be a range of starting points or even free writing to generate ideas. Where students had spent time generating a range of ideas at the outset, the final creative pieces were more successful. AO1 Texts B, C and E were the most popular choices of prompt this year. The most convincing responses handled their subject matter sensitively, using subtle but effective devices to engage the reader and where possible, challenge cliché. This was especially the case for text E where the most outstanding responses were clearly influenced by Proulx s style but applied it to a different idea/context rather than choosing one similar to the original text. Less convincing responses featured predictable storylines and clichéd imagery to address the prompt, which often had the effect of unintentional melodrama and/or anti-climax. 3 of 7
AO2 There were many well-crafted responses which did not fully respond to the prompt and so resulted in a much higher mark for AO2 than AO1. The importance of the stimulus text and prompt should be reinforced to students when preparing for the exam as there was evidence of students writing a piece they had perhaps already drafted or had in mind before entering the exam which they tried to recreate using a best fit approach to the prompt. Text A: Pennies from Heaven Dennis Potter: Write a text in which one person uses language to deceive another. This prompt, along with that of Text D, encouraged students to foreground technique rather than plot. Consequently, successful responses demonstrated a much wider range than those to some of the other texts. The best responses used dialogue effectively to show deception taking place in contexts as diverse as Speed Dating and a Politician s Walkabout. Less successful responses produced prose fiction about deception taking place but did not show language being used by one person to deceive another. Text B: Kylie from Moranthology Caitlin Moran: Write a text where you observe someone who is centre of attention This was a very popular choice of text and prompt and the one that produced the most obvious use of creative strategies employed by the author. Students should be encouraged, as always, to think and plan and not simply to take the first idea that comes to mind in order to produce imaginative responses. Too many students simply transposed Kylie as a Prom Queen/Most Popular Girl at School. Those students that thought harder fared better. Most students fulfilled the requirement to observe someone but others made first person narrators their focus. There were some very impressive non-fiction responses, where students recounted a favourite gig in highly convincing journalistic fashion. Text C: The Girl Next Door Helen Mort: Write a text where someone behaves in an unusual way This was another very popular text and prompt that produced a wide range of responses. There were a pleasing number of interpretations of the poem. There were some particularly effective pieces where assumptions about unusual behaviour were challenged and the reader was left with an unsettling sense of ambiguity. Examiners report that some students were presenting behaviour that could not really be regarded as unusual (vampires avoiding daylight/teenagers sulking). Again thinking and planning would counter this. Text D: Us David Nicholls: Write a text where a situation is conveyed through speech. One of the less popular choices but generally very well handled. Many students took this as an opportunity to write script, others deftly took Nicholl s style as a model for their own work. Students should be reminded that first person prose does not automatically equal a monologue. Students that wrote predominately narrative with some dialogue included could not be highly rewarded for this prompt. 4 of 7
Text E: 55 Miles to the Gas Pump: Annie Proulx: Write a text that involves a secret being uncovered. A very popular text and prompt with many students actively engaging with Proulx s writing style. There were inevitably many accounts of bodies in attics, behind walls, adoptions and coming out and a good number were handled well but students should again be advised to consider subtlety and imagination when planning their responses. It was pleasing to see that a good number of students did not rely on the big reveal in their pieces but adopted more creative approaches to the problem solving challenge this presented. Question 2 Although there was marked improvement in commentary practice this year, the commentary was still generally less well realised than the creative pieces. Teachers are advised to ensure that reflective practice is embedded into the delivery of the course. Some students are still adopting approaches that reflect literary criticism or language framework analysis rather than creative writing practice. Students who wrote about their writing as readers rather than writers were the least successful. They should be encouraged to take full ownership of their writing and explore their writing process fully. Third-person, passive, objectified accounts of the creative pieces did not demonstrate critical awareness of the writing process. Good commentaries demonstrated explicit engagement with the writing process and demonstrated how published texts can be used for the purposes of creative writing. The reflective commentary is a challenging task and students are advised to pay particular attention to the specific demands of the assessment objectives. The most impressive commentaries, again, came from students who reflected as writers, discussing their writing choices in light of their strengths and weaknesses as practitioners in the field. Those who referenced workshop experiences also stood out pleasingly. Such commentaries also explained the reasons and effects behind their own creative choices and the creative strategies analysed from the stimulus text. Weaker students tended to feature spot from both their own piece and the stimulus text with no engagement with how and why strategies were used and whether they were successful. Teachers are advised to refer to the AQA suggested reading list and introduce students to a variety of writing about writing. Too many students adopted a similarities and differences approach, highlighting how they decided not to use creative strategies from the stimulus text. The best students were those who had really considered the techniques and devices used in the stimulus material and reflected on how and why they used and adapted them for their own work. The least successful were those who failed to refer to techniques and strategies in any detail and those who made generalised comments on the stimulus text and failed to provide specific examples or analysis of the effects of choices made by the writer. It must be stated that extended reference to wider reading cannot be rewarded in the CREW3 commentary. This is a demand of CREW4. Some students spent far too much time discussing the reading that has influenced them rather than the stimulus text. The stimulus text must be the focus. Brief mention of other writers is fine if illustrating process (AO3) but will not be credited under AO4 and is not a requirement of this examination. AO3 The most successful commentaries were written by students who took ownership of their writing and used language of personal reflection to consider their choices and processes. They reflected 5 of 7
on the influence of workshopping and the forms and styles of writing they wanted to explore compared to what was their normal preference. These students also demonstrated a critical awareness of their own work in considering the strengths and weaknesses of their writing process and evaluating the success of the finished product in relation to their original aims. It was unfortunate that students who had done significant drafting of their pieces did not specifically mention this in the commentary. AO4 In considering the stimulus text, successful students selected creative strategies that had clearly influenced their own work rather than relying on a pre-prepared framework to analyse strategies. There was evidence of some centres using a scaffold to produce the commentary with a prescriptive range of strategies to analyse. The result of this was that strategies were not convincingly analysed or discussed in terms of their influence on students own work. Less successful commentaries also adopted a comparative methodology, placing their own work side by side with the stimulus to produce a lit-crit style analysis. This had the effect of distancing themselves from their own work rather than showing a direct, purposeful engagement with it. Although technical accuracy is not assessed here, it should be pointed out that the spelling of simile still proved problematic for many students. Students should also be reminded not to refer to authors by their first names only. Some Comments on the Use of Form Prose Fiction This was by far the most popular choice but it was not always developed or crafted. Students who employed a range of creative strategies: dialogue, varied sentence structure, interesting narrative voices, non-linear narrative structure for example, clearly evidenced that they understood a range of approaches to crafting prose-fiction. There was an over reliance on the revelation at the end. Overwriting was a common feature and students should be reminded that over use of descriptive devices does not generally lead to effective writing. This year many students chose not to give their characters names, sometimes influenced by Mort s poem. This is fine as a strategy if it works but too many narratives were rendered unnecessarily confusing. As with poetry, an unskilful attempt to create ambiguity can conceal rather than reveal meaning. Prose Non Fiction Students who chose this form did it well and had clearly read widely in journalism and life writing. Non-fiction is as creative as any other form and allows students to demonstrate their writing skills and strategies highly effectively. Poetry There was less poetry produced this year. Students producing poetry had clearly taken on board advice to do with form and content. For some, however, it continued to prove a problematic choice. The weakest students allowed their writing to be dictated by rhyme, often resulting in awkward syntactical choices and the obscuring of content. Students need to be aware of the importance of line breaks and enjambment if they are attempting to write in a particular poetic form. Free verse was often the more successful choice but students need to be aware of the techniques involved and to read widely in this genre. There was also a tendency for students to conceal meaning rather 6 of 7
than create it and to resort to clichés that were not being used for deliberate effect. Teachers are again advised to remind students that, as with the other forms, to write poetry if you have to read it. Lots of it. Script Yet again, there were a good number of scripts produced this year. The best were by students that were fully engaged with the concept of stage craft and employed a wide range of dramatic techniques to express their ideas. Less successful scripts gave little sense of staging or did not distinguish effectively between voices. It was pleasing to see that most students had taken on board the need to give titles to their pieces. An effective title can guide or unsettle and provides the reader with a clear starting point. There were a number of creative pieces submitted where it was unclear what form had been chosen (poetry that looks like prose for example). Students are advised to make this clear at the beginning of their piece. Conclusion There is real evidence of students having engaged fully with the writing process over the course of two years and it has been a genuine pleasure to read such a range of effective writing, produced within the constraint of an examination. Students clearly enjoyed engaging with the stimulus texts and reflecting on the process. Wide reading in all four forms and an embedded understanding of the writing process enables them to produce very effective work in response to what should be a familiar writing exercise. It is also clear from student commentaries that extensive Writing Workshop practice is of great benefit to our young writers. Mark Ranges and Award of Grades Grade boundaries and cumulative percentage grades are available on the Results Statistics page of the AQA Website. Converting Marks into UMS marks Convert raw marks into Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) marks by using the link below. UMS conversion calculator 7 of 7