Crime writing: creating your own questions

How to use the resource package to set questions for Paper 2A, Section B, for the Elements of Crime Writing component for A-level English Literature B.

Elements of Crime Writing: Paper 2A, Section B

If you have used the relevant question from the Sample Assessment Materials or want to set a question on a different element of Crime, you can use these documents in the following way:

1. Look at how the relevant questions from the Sample Assessment Materials are constructed, for example:

‘In Oliver Twist Dickens presents criminals as products of their society.’

To what extent do you agree with this view? Remember to include in your answer relevant detailed exploration of Dickens’ authorial methods.

The question wording (To what extent…authorial methods.) can remain unchanged. You will need, however, to construct a different ‘view’ depending upon the aspect of Crime you want the students to explore.

2. Read the relevant Text Overview to help you construct a different ‘view’ to debate. Look for elements of Crime which occur in the text but don’t forget that the absence of elements in a text is equally valid for debate. Other sources can be used to construct a view:

• look at the list of elements of Crime in the specification and make up a critical view around one of these
• take a view from one of the writers in the Critical Anthology around which to structure a debate
• research critical views about Crime writing, on this or other Crime texts, and adapt the quote in a more general sense so that students can consider how far this can be said to be true of the text they have studied

This resource is part of a Elements of crime writing resource package.