How to Write a Perfect A Christmas Carol Essay (OCR GCSE English Literature)
Revision Note
How to Write A Christmas Carol Essay
Paper 1 of your OCR GCSE will contain questions on a modern prose or drama text and a 19th-century prose work. Section B offers you a choice of two questions about a 19th-century prose text you have studied. You will have 50 minutes to write an essay on one of the following options:
Question 1 is based on an extract from the novel or novella you have studied
Question 2 is a “discursive” essay question and doesn’t contain an extract
Examiner Tips and Tricks
Your OCR GCSE exam is “closed text”, which means you won’t have your copy of A Christmas Carol with you. Therefore, it is important you know the novella really well, so make sure you are confident about the plot, characters and themes, and that you have revised a range of quotes and references to use in your essay.
The OCR examiners want to see a range of evidence from right across A Christmas Carol, even for the extract-based question: for a Grade 9 essay, your analysis should link the evidence from the extract with other parts of the novella. For some great suggestions of quotations to learn, check out our A Christmas Carol Quotations and Analysis page.
How Do I Start My A Christmas Carol Essay?
Writing a whole essay in 50 minutes is a considerable challenge, so this advice may sound strange, but instead of putting pen to paper, don’t start your essay yet. Spend at least 10 minutes making an essay plan.
The number one most effective way to get the highest marks is to plan your essay first. It is like making a map, so you know where you are going. Then, you can start writing with confidence about your overall argument and the evidence you are going to use to support it. For the highest marks in both the discursive and extract-based essays, OCR examiners look for writing that “focuses on the question”, contains a “coherent line of argument” and maintains a good “critical style”. Here is a breakdown of what those requirements mean and how you can achieve them:
Examiner comment | What this means you should do |
|---|---|
“Focus on the question” |
|
“Coherent line of argument” |
|
“Critical style” |
|
Creating a plan before you start writing means that you can be certain that your essay covers all these requirements.
Here is an idea of what your plan could look like:
How Do I Structure My A Christmas Carol Essay?
The highest marks go to students who produce a “coherent line of argument” in their essays. Making a plan is the best way to ensure your argument is logical and consistent, so use your plan to structure your essay and enable you to move from one point to the next smoothly and clearly. To get a Grade 9 in your OCR exam, you need to include an introduction, clearly focused paragraphs and a conclusion.
Look again at the example plan above. It includes a “thesis statement” and “topic sentences” at the beginning of each paragraph. Here is how to include these in your essay:
Top tips for structuring your A Christmas Carol essay
Always set out a clear thesis statement in your introduction:
Your thesis statement should only be one or two sentences long
Begin every paragraph with a topic sentence:
This sentence should indicate the focus of the paragraph clearly
Your topic sentences should always link directly with your thesis statement
All the evidence (quotations or textual references) in the paragraph should focus on supporting the statement you make in your topic sentence
Finish your essay with a short conclusion:
Do not include any new evidence; just sum up how you have proved your thesis statement
How Much Should I Write?
Aim to develop your argument in two or three paragraphs of evidence and analysis. Any more than that can make your essay lose focus and wander away from the question. Remember: less is more — concise writing produces a clearer, more coherent essay.
Examiner Tips and Tricks
You may have been taught a method for writing essay paragraphs. Perhaps you have been told to structure your paragraphs like this: Point, Evidence, Explanation (or something similar).
These days, OCR examiners advise against such strict structures, because they make it harder for students to be flexible and explore different interpretations and contexts or present their own opinions.
For an example of how to include elements like contextual analysis, differing interpretations and personal opinion in your essay, take a look at our model answers for the OCR A Christmas Carol discursive essay question and the A Christmas Carol extract essay question.
Exam Tips For A Grade 9 A Christmas Carol Essay
Students who get top grades | Students who do not do so well |
|---|---|
Choose whichever question will enable them to best produce a coherent response supported by multiple pieces of evidence | Choose the extract-based question even when they do not understand the extract or the focus of the question |
Plan their essays before writing them, so their argument is clear and consistent | Do not plan their essays and produce rambling, unfocused writing |
Start with a clear thesis statement, setting out their overall argument | Write an essay they have memorised that is not directly relevant to the question |
Focus their writing on the question throughout, using clear topic sentences and relevant evidence | Do not use topic sentences to focus their response and use random evidence that does not address the question |
Include relevant evidence and quotations from the whole text that supports their argument | Include irrelevant quotations or descriptions of events in A Christmas Carol, just because they have learnt them |
Present some developed analysis of language, structure and form over more than one sentence | Present simple, one-sentence statements of analysis that aren’t developed or analysed |
Consider different interpretations and achieve some complexity in their analysis | Retell the story of A Christmas Carol without analysing Dickens’ choices |
Integrate relevant contextual knowledge and understanding into their argument | Include irrelevant contextual information and do not relate it to their analysis of Dickens’ language, structure or form |
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