WW1 and its aftermath: specimen question commentary, Paper 2A, section A

This resource explains how a question taken from the specimen assessment material addresses the assessment objectives, with some suggestions of how the task might be approached. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every point that could be made but it gives teachers and students some guidance that will support their work on this paper.

Sample question

Examine the view that women's attempts to write from a male combatant's point of view are unconvincing.

How the question meets the Assessment Objectives

In this question, as throughout the paper, the assessment objectives are all assessed. As a result, all the key words in the question should be addressed, indicating either focus (women's attempts to write from a male combatant's point of view) or direction (examine the view, unconvincing).

AO1 is tested through the way students organise their writing and express their ideas as they are examining the view.  Value is placed on technical accuracy, appropriate terminology and quality of discussion.

AO2 requires detailed analysis of the methods used by the poets to achieve their effects. This is an open-book examination, therefore students are expected to illustrate their answers with as much textual detail as possible – with quotations and other close reference – to support the points in their discussion.

AO3 is addressed when students demonstrate an understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which Scars Upon My Heart is written and received. In exploring the importance of the idea of the presentation of women's role in and experience of war, students will be engaging with not only the specific context of WW1 and its aftermath but the contexts of when texts were written and how they have been received. In their exploration of meanings and interpretations, they should demonstrate their awareness of how the text is constructed and written.

To address AO4, students, in exploring women's attempts to write from a male point of view, will be connecting with the representation of one of the central issues of the literature of WW1. Answers to this question should be framed by a wider understanding of the concept of the role of women gained from their connective reading in this area.

AO5 tests students' skill in debating what they perceive to be the truth or otherwise of the proposition or 'view' expressed in the question, by exploring alternative interpretations of how convincing or unconvincing women's attempts to write from a male combatant's point of view are.

Possible content

Students might choose to write about the following and thereby address AO2:

• structural features such as use of contrast between: the trench and home, life and death in 'From a Trench'; the role of men and the role of women in WW1 in 'Non-Combatant'; the role of the mother and the role of the munitions worker, life and death in 'Women at Munition Making'; the young innocent boy and the brave soldier in 'Pluck'. The use of first person in 'From a Trench' , 'The Convalescent', 'Christ in Flanders', 'Over the Top' , 'Non-Combatant' and 'The Lament of the Demobilised'; the use of the third person in 'Pluck' and 'Women at Munition Making'. The use of rhyme in 'Over the Top', which helps to convey the idea of a countdown to battle, and in 'The Convalescent' and 'Non-Combatant'.
• Use of figurative language methods such as: similes in 'Over the Top' to show the anxiety of the soldier waiting to go into battle and in 'From a Trench' to convey the conditions in the trench; religious imagery in 'Over the Top', 'Christ in Flanders' and 'Women at Munition Making'. The inclusion of the language of death and destruction in 'From a Trench', which arguably does not fully/convincingly capture the horror of battle; language which even plays down the horror such as in 'The Convalescent'.
• Language features such as direct speech in 'The Lament of the Demobilised' which sarcastically conveys attitudes of people to soldiers and in 'The Convalescent';  alliteration in 'Pluck' and in 'Non-Combatant' and sibilance in 'Pluck' and 'Women and Munition Making'.

To address AO3 students might explore:

• how the presentation of women is embedded in a specific historical context, i.e. that of the Home Front in WW1.
• how this presentation is also determined by the different occupations, roles and attitudes to war adopted by women including poems such as 'Women at Munition Making' which suggests that women should not be working in the war effort but instead should fulfil what was widely considered by society to be their primary role of motherhood; poems such as 'Non-Combatant' which expresses a humiliation that women cannot go into battle and so a feeling of inferiority to men and a sense of being a burden on them; poems such as 'Pluck' which give voice to the nurses' first-hand observations of the consequences of war.
• how attitudes to the idea of women as essentially powerless in WW1 have changed since the poetry was written and how this reflects changing attitudes over time to WW1.

AO4 will be addressed if and when candidates explore the roles of women within WW1, so connecting with the representation of one of the central issues of WW1 and its aftermath:

• they may cite examples of poems which can be seen as authentic compared to others, for example those poems written as from the point of view of the combatant ('From a Trench', 'Christ in Flanders', 'Over the Top') or of the injured soldier ('The Convalescent') or the returning soldier ('The Lament of the Demobilised')
• conversely students may cite examples of poems which can be seen as inauthentic compared to others, for example those written in the third person and/or from the point of view of nurses caring for injured soldiers ('Pluck').

AO5 is addressed when students construct a debate around the notion of the women's attempts to write from a male combatant's point of view as unconvincing. They may focus on some of the following: poems written in the 1st person and/or in a trench setting where an attempt to create an authentic 'male' voice is made through the use of trench slang, military language etc.  In addition, they might like to consider poems which attempt to present the graphic reality of battle as if from direct experience. Students might conversely focus on poems where women use their own voices; they might also consider those written in the third person but which nonetheless establish sympathy with and/or appreciation of combat experience.

This resource is part of the WW1 and its aftermath resource package.