The CAPE Literatures in English essay

The CAPE Literatures in English essay – handout

The Question

1.      The questions at this level are certainly more complex than at the CSEC level. They comprise of a statement on Senior’s work and an instruction:

Statement:     “In Gardening in the Tropics, Olive Senior uses the resources of poetry to

 explore experiences of trauma in the Caribbean.”

Instruction:    With reference to at least THREE poems, discuss the extent to which you agree with this statement.

2.      In most cases the statement requires that you look at the relationship between two things, for example:

a)      Literary devices/ techniques and themes: “Senior uses the resources of poetry to explore experiences of trauma in the Caribbean.”

b)      Motif and the reader’s experience of her work: “Senior’s excessive use of the nature motif limits the reader’s enjoyment of Gardening in the Tropics.”

3.      Pay attention to key words, and also verbs, adjectives and other qualifying words: “excessive”, “clever”, “is distinguished”

4.      Each question has a component (the instruction) which requires the student to form an opinion on the given statement. This is where your informed personal response is required. In most cases, the student has to decide whether or not a statement is valid, the extent to which it is valid, whether or not he/ she agrees with the statement, or the extent to which he/she agrees with the statement.

Structure

A basic essay has five (5) paragraphs: an introduction, three body paragraphs and a conclusion.

A solid essay at the advanced level should have between six and eight (6-8) body paragraphs.

Depending on the question, there are quite a few ways to organize your body paragraphs:

1.      2 paragraphs on each of the three poems

2.      2 paragraphs on each of four poems

3.      2 paragraphs on each (3-4) devices/ techniques etc., in which at least three poems are dealt with in detail. This is the most difficult to accomplish well since you still have to ensure that at the end of your discussion the examiner can identify clearly that you have detailed knowledge of at least three poems.

Introduction

Your introduction must include:

1.      General information about the author and/or context. For example, biographical information about Senior or if the question is thematic, the history of colonization in the Caribbean.

2.      A relevant link between the general information and the question.

3.      A thesis statement, which lists the main poems, the devices/ techniques and your position on the question.

Body Paragraphs

Your body paragraphs must include:

1.      A topic sentence which tells what the paragraph will focus on: “Senior uses metaphor to explore the traumatic experience of genocide in the Caribbean.”

2.      A transition: “In addition to metaphor, Senior also uses imagery to explore another experience of trauma in the Caribbean, which is slavery.”

3.      A discussion of at least three supporting points. Find three examples of the use of imagery which explore slavery. Present each and explain their context, impact and/or link to another element of poetry, for example mood, tone, diction, etc.

4.      An ending or concluding sentence: “Therefore, metaphor is a crucial resource that Senior uses as she grapples with the Caribbean’s colonial history of violence and exploitation.”

At this level you will find that one paragraph may not be sufficient to completely discuss an issue. You may spend two paragraphs on your discussion of a poem, technique, device or theme; therefore, it is important to use transitions. Example: “Not only does Senior use imagery in the first section of “Meditation on Yellow” to explore the genocide of the Tainos, but also in the second section to discuss the Middle Passage and enslavement of Africans in the Caribbean.”

Conclusion

Your conclusion must include:

1.      A restatement of your thesis (in other words).

2.      Your personal response

3.      (Optional) Your relevant, general feelings about Senior, the poetry volume or theme.

Content

Synthesis

You have to use various types of knowledge in writing your essay. They include:

1.      Textual

2.      Genre-based

3.      Extratextual

Extratextual knowledge includes historical, sociological, geographical knowledge etc. the most important to creating an informed personal response are essays by established literary critics and theorists about the text. You synthesize by linking all three in a paragraph/essay.

For example:

1.      Textual: You can quote from the poem, explain what it means and give details from it. You can also make reference to another poem that may not be discussing detail. Example: the garden is used in “Seeing the Light” to show how colonization was detrimental to the land (deforestation) and native peoples (genocide, slavery)

2.      Genre: The garden is used as a metaphor and a motif.

3.      Extratextual: General history of the Caribbean or JordanStouck on the garden as a place of semantic or ideological resonances or of a major post-colonial impasse.

Two or more of these can be merged in a sentence or two:

“When the speaker contends that the colonizers found “other people to hack and burn through”, a metaphor is introduced which shows the symbiotic relationship between the land and the Africans, and their shared experience of colonial violence. This metaphor not only reinforces the speaker’s critical tone, but also Denise deCaires Narain’s assertion that nature is “imbricated with history” because it is bones that “remains as testament” to the ironic attempt to bring “light” through colonization.”

The student can continue by exploring how this metaphor is used in section three of the poem: “You/ set it alight, you disemboweled it, you forecefully/ established marks of your presence all over it.”

Using Lines from the Poem

1.      Paraphrasing: the speaker states that bones are evidence of the violence of colonization.

2.      Quoting:

a)      According to the speaker in the poem, “our bones/ will remain as testament to this effort to bring/ light.” (nb. The / indicates a line-break)

b)      The line which states, “he’d/ have ordered some hits himself” suggests that the leader used nefarious means to maintain control of his people.

c)      The speaker asks, “why did He make us chop/ The Tree of Life down?”

Do not use a line from the poem as a sentence on its own.

X “Had I know I would have brewed you up some yellow fever-grass and arsenic.” This shows that the speaker was upset.

Rather, the quotations have to be framed with your sentence:

a)      The speaker’s resentful tone is demonstrated in the lines, “Had I know I would have brewed you up some yellow fever-grass and arsenic.”

b)      The speaker’s angry tone is revealed when she intimates that she would have offered the colonizers yellow fever-grass tea mixed with arsenic.

Using Extratextual Sources

a)      Quoting:

According to Denise deCaires Narain in her essay, “Landscape and Poetic Identity in Contemporary Caribbean Women’s Poetry”, “earth becomes an archive, which , with patience and humility, can be read.”

Senior states: “The concept of voice is crucial to my making.”

b)      Paraphrasing:

Elizabeth Deloughrey contends that because nature and culture have been separated in the Caribbean situation by colonialism, the Caribbean remains on the margins of modernity.

Vocabulary

Sophisticated vocabulary and more complex (not confusing) sentence structure distinguish a mediocre essay from an excellent one, and an advanced level essay from a general proficiency one.

c)      Use vocabulary from theory

d)     Use vocabulary from extratextual sources you read.

e)      Find synonyms for words you use too often.

Use:                             Instead of:

Contend                      Say

Posit                            State

Postulate

Argue

Theorize

Interrogate

Suggest

indicate