securing a grade n in GCSE English literature is not as hard as you think it is and this video is going to take you right from knowing nothing about your text to being able to get grade NES in every single essay you do but before we get into anything comment your current GCS English Literature Grade and either me or someone who's getting a better grade than you will come give you some advice so we can all get NES let's go this video is going to be split into a six-step framework you can either skip to the bit you need most or in order to get the most value watch throughout the whole thing make notes and maybe come back to it as you go through your GCC English literature Journey the first step you're going to need to make in order to start achieving NS in English is really understanding the text now I'd suggest you do this by either rereading the whole book or watching a summary and I don't think you need to reread it because I'll let you into a secret I hadn't read a full English literature text since year eight and so I know you definitely don't need to in order to achieve a nine what we need to do is understand what's going on you need to know why the character is doing certain things at certain times and so watching a summary and making notes is probably the best way to do this with the least amount of effort and I know a lot of people don't like putting a lot of effort in so this will give you a fundamental understanding of the text that's going to build the basis of your essays allowing you to get those higher grades in GCC English so you cannot skip this moving on the second part of this six step framework is going to be mastering your literary devices this is because a large fraction of both AQA and Ed EXL GCC English literature requires you to first of all recognize and then secondly analyze various literary techniques now this might be be form techniques structure techniques or language techniques and you must Master these and be able to recognize them very quickly to do well in these exams CU if you don't even know what a metaphor is how you even going to be able to find one in the exam going to a quiz or watching YouTube videos first of all learning what each of the different techniques are and getting better at finding them in every single extract you do I'd say you first start with the common techniques these will be your metaphors similes or your sound techniques such as gutal explosives and freenes and once you've done this you can then start progressing to the more complex techniques that very few students will be able to get for example epis or anadiplosis once you've gotten to that stage and you're able to recognize them consistently I want you to practice your analysis on these you can't always just say it's going to interest the reader because that's so boring and generic and you're never going to get the top grades with that the way you can do this is by first of all thinking and trying to develop your own analysis that's specific to each quote or asking your teachers or YouTube to help you once you've done this you can then move on to the next step of the framework the third step in this gcsc English literature framework is quotes now so many people get tied up in memorizing loads of quotes they create quote banks for each of the characters and just start memorizing instead of really learning the importance of quotes and how to use them properly I'd say the way you're supposed to do this is first of all keep all your quotes on the shorter side you shouldn't be memorizing long Poes because you might make mistakes when you're memorizing and you're not going to be able to analyze your quotes properly and so so you're just wasting time and secondly you have to make sure that you are able to fully analyze your quotes this would be either you're in the long form analysis or the close technical analysis on Word level now once you're able to do this this is when you can start memorizing different quotes that you know you're definitely going to use in the exam this fourth tip is arguably the most important thing you're going to do to improve your gcsc grade now it's learning the right paragraph structure the one I used was p r t e z e l and then C this might sound confusing but let land the structure follows the point this is where you put your initial line of argument to give your paragraph a sense of direction you then have your reference which will be your evidence from the play or text this is a quote usually then your Technique where you'd recognize the technique however you don't always have to do this but I'll get on to it later you then have your effect which is where you analyze it and don't always put interest the reader because that's boring try to learn many different effects that you can use and try to make it specific to the quote and that instance in the play but this is what many students miss out on that stops them getting grade NES you know have to zoom into that link zoom into it and pick out close text analysis these will be individual words then give the effect of this and Link it back to your original line of argument and anywhere between these points you can interv with context and I think context is what separates the good from the great in GCSE English having context means you're able to recognize the situation which the play or text was written meaning you're going further out of the book understanding why the writer has done certain things like maybe is the book of didactic that has a certain message and backing this up with historical evidence once you do this examiners will just see that you're a top grade student and they'll have to move you to the top band this is how you get those grade nines another important point for essay structure is learning connective words these are your words like Advocate or encapsulate or display things like that that replace the word shows you have to use this because you can't simply repeat shows throughout your essay it shows that you have a really limited capacity to actually write and the examiner is just not going to move you to the top band if you keep using simple words like shows and so I'd say learn a few that you could use regularly throughout your essays and that should put you in a good position and lastly is your actual essay structure this will be whether you do an introduction three paragraphs in a conclusion or whether you don't do an introduction I say the best way to decide this is if you're a fast writer that's confident with English already and you're not going to Simply repeat your lines of arguments in the introduction then you should do one however if you're a slow writer and all you do is list your lines of argument again in the introduction you should do this because this adds no benefit to your overall Mark and it's just a waste of time that might stop you from actually getting to the important part and in terms of paragraphs I think you should always aim to do at least three main body paragraphs and if you're able to make that four whether remember it's much better to do three very well-developed paragraphs than four decently developed paragraphs the fifth part of this framework is that you have to understand and know what each question wants you to do the mistake I was making throughout year 10 was that on every single question I was just recognizing literary devices and analyzing them consistently doing that however some questions just don't want you to do that on Ed EXL I know that the poetry and extract analysis definitely want you to recognize these literary techniques and analyze the effects on the reader however some of the 40 markers aren't looking for this they're more so looking for a progression of different motifs and ideas throughout the play or the text and so what you should do is go to your specification and look at the assessment objectives that are being examined once you know this you know exactly what to write about that's one thing that I did that set me apart from many other students instead of writing very linearly in your essay and just focusing on one moment you should have a progression or movement throughout the whole text and this is what will show that you're really considering the whole text in your essay and this is what will make sure that you're able to get those grade nines consistently and the last step in this six-part framework is going to be creating those adaptable essay plans that I used and that you can use as well to achieve grade NES in GCC English so the way you do this is first of all trying to find an exhaustive list of all the different characters and major themes within the text or the play and once you've ticked off all the ones that already appeared this is when you have a list of essay plans that you need to make and what I mean by adaptable essay plans is that you first do your structure the PRT Z LC and then do a line for each of them explaining what you're going to do in the essay if that was to come up you then create three paragraphs for this but what you're going to do is make sure that each of the paragraphs you make can also be used for a separate theme for example in my Romeo Juliet my paragraphs for youthfulness could also have been used for either Juliet herself Romeo himself or for the importance of Parental figures or the importance of time now that's one paragraph that covers five different essays and if you do this this drastically decreases the amount you have to memorize meaning you can Master the plans you've already made and make sure they're at the grade n level analysis this also benefited me a lot in the exam given that the question that came up was something I hadn't directly planned but because I was very adaptable and versatile in the spot I was was able to twist some analysis of a different paragraph and just slot it right in there fully memorized the last little point I'm going to make is on the use of AI and chat GPT so obviously I'm sure you know chat GPT can just make plans for you and make essays for you on the spot however I think you should do this carefully I do think you should use chity for your essays but only once you've reached a high enough skill level where you can recognize when CH is just making up analysis or making up random things once you're at this level you know that when it uses words like d to me whether it's using it in the right instance or it's just putting it in there to impress you and once you've done this you'll be able to use your own skill level and chat GPT to create the best grade n essays and English will be a breeze thank you for watching and also thank you for 2,000 subscribers if you like this video subscribe and you should probably also watch my gcsc English language video to help you get a grade nine in that as well so you can have two NES in English thanks for watching