Task 1: Re-creative Writing: What The Question Is Asking (OCR A Level English Literature)

Task 1: Re-creative Writing: What The Question Is Asking

The non-exam assessment (NEA) is a compulsory component of the A Level English Literature qualification. It is worth 40 marks and counts as 20% of the total A Level. The NEA comprises two pieces of work, totalling approximately 3000 words, and you are required to study three literary texts: one prose text, one poetry text and one drama text. The texts must have been first published or performed in 1900 or later, and one literary text must have been first published or performed after the year 2000. The choice of texts must be different to any of the core set texts for this specification.

In Task 1, you should choose one of the following tasks:

• A close, critical analysis of a section of your chosen text or poem:

  • Your selection should be a small section of text, three to four pages of prose or drama, or up to 45 lines of poetry

  • You are required to include a copy of your chosen passage when you submit your coursework folder

• An item of re-creative writing based on a selected passage of your chosen text or poem, with a commentary explaining the links between your own writing and the original passage selected:

  • Again, you are required to include a copy of your chosen passage when you submit your coursework folder

The guide below will enable you to approach the second option of Task 1 (the re-creative writing exercise) with confidence. This is divided into:

• Overview

• Breaking down the task

• Top tips

Overview

For the re-creative writing task, you are required to produce a piece of writing on a selected passage or poem from your chosen text, with a commentary explaining the links between your own writing and the original passage. The recommended word length for the re-creative piece is 300–350 words, with a commentary of 650–700 words, excluding quotations.

The task is worth 15 marks and you are assessed on:

• AO2: analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in literary texts:

  • This is the dominant Assessment Objective

• AO1: articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using associated concepts and terminology, and coherent, accurate written expression

The task itself can ask you to write an addition to a poem, play or novel, such as an additional scene, soliloquy, chapter or poem, recreating the style of the original, and then a commentary explaining how your writing is characteristic of the poem, play or novel.

The most successful responses show awareness of form via the imitation of verse patterns, narrative structures or characteristic stage directions and then comment on them. Sophisticated and plausible recreations develop from close analysis of the writing of the source text, and successful commentaries balance the recreation and the source text, making specific links between them to show an analytical understanding of the original author’s work and how that has been recreated. It is therefore important to keep the recreated passage to no more than 350–400 words to allow sufficient space to develop the commentary.

Candidates should:

• Keep the recreated passage or poem relatively brief in order to allow for a detailed and developed commentary

• Explore the methods and concerns of the original text in the commentary

• Discuss how you have reached your choices of language and structure in your own piece of writing

Breaking down the task

Your centre (or you) can choose to write your own task, or choose from a list of pre-approved tasks using OCR’s Text and Task Tool. Whichever method you select, it is important that the wording of the task allows you to write a recreated piece, directly related to the original text, which reflects the style and concerns of that text. It also should enable you to write a commentary where you discuss what you have attempted and how your piece of writing demonstrates aspects of the original text. The recreated piece is normally an addition to the original text, such as another poem in the style of the chosen work, or an additional scene or chapter of a longer text.

Therefore tasks should:

• Ask for a recreative piece of writing, reflecting aspects of the style and concerns of the original text

• Ask you to write a commentary that evaluates ways in which the recreated piece of writing imitates features of the original text

For example:

Top tips

• While you will not be specifically penalised for exceeding the suggested word length, any response that significantly differs from the word count is likely to be self-penalising by either not demonstrating the AOs to the required level or through lacking coherence and concision:

  • Therefore, try your best to stick to the word count! 300 words is usually plenty

• If quotations from secondary sources are used, these must be acknowledged by the use of footnotes (these do not form part of the word count)

• All work must be accompanied by a complete bibliography – again, this does not form part of the word count

• Candidates who do well in this task:

  • Demonstrate an understanding and familiarity with the requirements of the task

  • Are able to explore and pursue their own interests in terms of tasks and/or texts, producing lively, engaging and thoroughly researched essays

  • Engage with language, structure and form, whether that be poetic, narrative or dramatic

  • Show highly skilled imitation of appropriate lexis, imagery and structure in poetry, and in stagecraft and the patterns of dialogue in drama

  • Structure a clear and well-developed commentary, with explicit reference to which techniques and concerns they have imitated from the original writer

  • Draw clear links between their own work and that of the original writer, with analytical commentary on both

• Candidates who do less well in this task:

  • Do not clearly make links between their choices and the choices of the studied author

  • Do not demonstrate their awareness and understanding of the Assessment Objectives in their response