Approaching different essays and debating
TRY TO STAY WELL INFORMED ON CURRENT AFFAIRS BY WATCHING THE NEWS AND READING A RANGE OF NEWS SOURCES ON THE INTERNET
The 2017 Paper 1 demanded a lot of opinions from Leaving Cert English students. Each of the comprehensions featured an opinion question based more on a student’s own knowledge than on the text and the Question B on Text 2 was ‘an opinion piece, for publication in a national newspaper’. Students who debate or have an interest in history, current affairs or politics will have no problem here but how can less opinionated students prepare for questions like these?
Some of the topics that required a viewpoint on the 2017 paper included: whether the student had benefitted from engaging with poetry at school, the promotion of free speech in society, what the ‘best age’ is and people’s reliance on the online world as a source of information. A range of topics were on offer and students could choose which ones suited them. As always read your questions on each text carefully before choosing your Question AandB.
Some of these tasks require a knowledge of the topic and as you can’t do research during an exam you need to be doing it now! It really is worth keeping a notebook for jotting down facts, figures, relevant examples and quotations. Try to stay well informed on current affairs by watching the news and reading a range of news sources on the internet, eg guardian.co.uk, bbc.co.uk, cnn.com and reuters.com.
If you hear an interesting piece of research from a reliable source make a note of it – watching Blue Planet and you hear a statistic about sea levels rising? – write it down! See a particular topic trending on Twitter that you know nothing about? Take a few minutes to take a look – you might learn something new and useful for your exam. Practice past exam questions that require taking a side on an issue be it writing speeches, articles or comprehension questions. With each one you practice you’ll be brushing up your knowledge on a new topic.
In an exam situation, however, it is more important to demonstrate the techniques of having an opinion than to actually express your deeply held beliefs or to have accurate research done. The examiner is testing your communication skills above all so don’t hesitate to add a statistic or research study to back up your argument.
The other key techniques to use include those you learned when studying the languages of argument and persuasion:
■ A logical approach – argue step-by-step using inductive or deductive reasoning if you want to.
■ Refuting counter arguments – consider arguments against your viewpoint and counter them.
■ Repetition - used to emphasise a point or create drama. Eg ‘I have a dream’, ‘Yes we can’.
■ Rhetorical questions - a question where the answer is so obvious that there is no need to respond – these grab attention and emphasise a point.
‘Is that what you want for your children?’
■ Imagery - can help the reader or audience visualise what you are describing. Eg children joining hands in ‘I have a dream’ speech.
■ Appealing to the emotions - you want to make your reader or audience feel something in order to get them on your side.
Include the techniques in your essay plan so you don’t forget to use them. If you want to read some examples read the Opinion or Comment pages or the Letters to the Editor in national newspapers. Generally it’s the people with the strongest opinions that get published in newspapers, not the moderates who try to see both sides of an issue. If you find your blood starting to boil as you read an opinion piece then it’s probably having its desired effect! Da Vinci may have been right when he said: ‘The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions’!