Creating your own questions

How to use this resource package to set questions for Paper 2A, Section C, for the Elements of crime writing component of A-level English Literature B.

If you have used the relevant questions from the specimen assessment materials or want to set a question on a different text combination or a different element of crime writing, you can use these documents in the following way:

1. Look at how the relevant questions from the specimen assessment materials are constructed, for example:

'In crime writing there are always victims.'

Explore the significance of the ways that victims are presented in two crime texts you have studied.

The question wording (Explore the significance of the ways that…are presented in two crime texts you have studied) can remain unchanged, with the exception of the area to be explored (here 'victims'). You will need, however, to construct a different 'view' depending upon the element of crime writing you want the students to explore.

2. Read the relevant text overviews to help you construct a different 'view' to debate. Look for elements of crime writing which occur in both texts 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 writing 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 on another crime writing text 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 two texts they have studied.

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