Why? Why? Why, Delilah, are you inferring?

A question of summary – Question 2 on Paper 2

Over the years I have blogged about the different exam questions on the AQA exam paper, exploring what strategies I use in the classroom. With remote learning, I have really had to really hone my teaching of a question. Clarity has been the big thing when there is just you and a sea of quiet circles on Teams. All that silence has made me review some aspects of Question 2 but it has also made me question  some aspects of how we teach.

My first point in lessons for Question 2 is that the exam board lie. The word ‘summary’ is a complete hoax. The examiner doesn’t want a summary. They want an inference. Summary and inference are two separate things. Tell students to summarise and they will simply reword the texts and put it all in their own words. That’s the last thing the examiners want. That is a paraphrasing. The word summary makes students automatically paraphrase things which is a low-level skill.

Students need to make an inference. They need to form an inference. To help students to understand this, I make it clear that an inference is a conclusion. An idea they have formed that isn’t explicit in the text. I have used a sentence stem of ‘we can infer that X is Y’. It does grate me to use infer as a verb and it makes me feel dirty. But, it does put the emphasis on inferring. I have used an equals symbol to help student to understand that there is a total / conclusion / judgement. Here's an overview of how I teach Question 2. 

Like others, we use two photographs as a starter to help students build up inferences. Initially, students struggle, but I have found it helps to have a human element to the pictures. Give students two pictures of different bedrooms and ask them to make an inference about the person who lives there. This, in the first instance, helps students to make a conclusion. They are so judgemental. Well, aren’t we all. Then, we use the pictures to help see the value of evidence to support a judgement. Using a picture, it helps students to use more than one piece of evidence to support their conclusion. We can infer the person in the house has no taste because they have Crocs on the floor  and ‘Let Loose’ poster on the wall.  The connection between judgements and evidence isn’t one explored enough. That’s why I spend time looking using different bits of evidence. Students need time working on forming inferences and linking them to evidence. Using more than one piece of evidence helps to ensure that the inferences are not spurious. I have used an plus symbol to help students recall what to do this part, linking two pieces of evidence to the conclusion.

Then, we come to the most important thing and the area that I have changed my thoughts and teaching to over the years. Question 2 is very much a question that is used again in other subjects. It is a question that is used in History, Geography, RE and Science. There is a commonality between all these subjects and it is one that, I think, we should make explicit to students. I refer to this stage as rationalising or reasoning. Both words convey the same thing. For years, we use the verb ‘explaining’ and noun ‘explanation’ to convey what we want students. Give reasons. But, the more I teach Question 2 the more I see that there’s something we can all work on together: rationalising a point.

There’s three parts of rationalising. What are the causes? What is the reason it is relevant now? What is the consequence?  Thankfully the excellent ‘The Writing Revolution’ have given us some words to help us develop this rationalising.

Causes – This is because X

Relevance – This relevant now as X

Consequence – This happened so  then X

The before, during and after are all aspects of building up a picture and a judgement. Previously, I have always taught ‘why, why, why’. This worked for a bit but it never really helped students to form a picture of what is really going on in the text. It tended to make students scramble for an idea.  Getting students to think of ‘why why why’ doesn’t get them to see things conceptually.  

Now, if we take the 2017 paper from AQA we can apply some of this thinking to the text. The exam paper ask students to make an summary (lie – an inference) about the activities a child enjoys.

Take this as an example. Again, it has that yukky verb ‘infer’! Sorry.

We can infer that the boy prefers activities which are physical and involve interaction adults.  

What are the reasons that cause the child to be physical in play? What are the causes for a child to want interaction with adults?

Causes

·     *  Had a positive response before and wants to repeat it

·      * Early stage of development and cannot talk

·       *Seen parents interact and wants to copy them

What could be a consequences of this? What will this lead to if things don’t change?

Consequences

·       *Will annoy adults if this happens continuously

·       *Child might start to mimic more of the adults behaviour like speech

·       *Child will explore the other ways to get the same attention as the parents get tired of doing the same thing

 

Why is this relevant now?

 Relevance

·     * Child is at a stage where he cannot interact fully and lacks the tools to articulate

·      * Child is at a stage where they view attention as positive thing and they crave more of it

·       *Child lacks full independence so want regular contact with adults – wants to be near them

 

Then, when we have the inference rationalised conceptually you can start pulling things together. Like Scrooge in ‘A Christmas Carol’, you can see the past, present and future all at once and you can build up a strong rationalisation .

 We can infer that the boy prefers activities which are physical and involve interaction adults. [Insert Evidence Here]  Because the child is in the early stages of development, he isn’t able to convey thoughts or ideas directly to the adults. Therefore, the child relies on simple physical interaction with adults. Making noises could be an early form of communication which the child has seen his parents do, so he is mimicking them and interacting in the same way.  This could lead to adults getting tired of this because it is a repetitive process and there is not variety. Or, the child might change the level of interaction as he learns words and is able to use sounds to interact rather than rely on physical interaction.

I think some subjects lead to more focused rationalisation of things. History is clearly focused on the causes and consequences of events and actions. Science and Geography are possibly more like English in they start with a conclusion and work backwards to get this sense of whole understanding. It isn’t enough to ask students to give us a reason. That reason often is something more complex. There’s a bigger picture. Not a simple case of spot the causes. You need to consider the consequences and the causes and the relevance. Past. Present. Future.

We don’t work hard enough, in English, on this rationalising element. We know knowledge is important, but it is actually the linking of knowledge that is key. How that knowledge all fits together. Do we rationalise literature texts or characters enough?

What causes Scrooge to be an ‘oyster’?

·       What is its relevance now to Scrooge?

·       What’s the consequence of him not changing or changing?

Understand the thinking behind this and you understand what Scrooge is about and what is Dickens is doing. You could even go further. There’s character rationalising, but also writer rationalising.

What caused Dickens to present Scrooge as an ‘oyster’?

·       What is the relevance to now for Dickens?

·       What are the consequences for Dickens writing this?

There’s even rationalising the reader's thoughts and feelings. 

What causes the reader to like Scrooge? 

What is it important they Scrooge at this moment? 

What would be the consequence of liking Scrooge? 

Of course, this way lies madness if we give students all these question all the time and if we give the sentence structures. It is about the connecting of ideas. Tethering what they know to the past, present and future. The relational connections with a choice. 

We’ve all read essays by students who have just dumped contextual information into an essay. Why do they do that? They do it because they know it is important and the examiner wants to see it. Maybe, what they need to do instead is see how that contextual information links to the past, present and future. How is it tethered to things? The best students tether disparate things together seamlessly. The others struggle. We attempt to give them structures for writing paragraphs, but maybe we need to give them conceptual structures for exploration rather than simple sentence structures to work with.

Simply, we need to get students to think. Not to think of why all the time, but think conceptually how things link together. The causes. What caused Dickens to present Tiny Tim as disabled? The consequences. What would be the consequence of Dickens’ readership identifying with Scrooge? Relevance in the now. What was relevance at that moment in time for Dickens? Yes, some of the knowledge might need to be researched, but most times students can come up with an idea. A thought.

Thanks for reading and if you’d like to read some other blogs on answer the AQA exam questions then have a look at these blogs.

Exam Structure Strips 

Paper 1 Overview

Paper 1 Overview Developing Meaning

Paper 1 Question 2 Spotting Techniques

Paper 1 Question 3 and 4

Paper 1 Question 3

Paper 1 Question 3

Paper 1 Question 5 Structure

Paper 1 Question 5 Writing Style

Paper 1 Question 5 Writing Hacks

Paper 1 Question 5 Building Up Character

Paper 1 Question 5 Planning

Paper 2 Overview

Paper 2 Question 5 Structure

Paper 2 Question 5 Writing Style

Paper 2 Question 5 Writing Hacks

Paper 2 Question 5 - Cohesion

Paper 2 Question 5 Planning

Xris

Plugging in the gaps in Literature - pulling a thread and seeing what you find

Teaching literature texts is both a joy and a problem sometimes. Deciding what to focus on and what not to focus on is fraught with difficulties. There is never really enough time to do texts justice. Most English teachers would love to do A-level style teaching with the GCSE texts. A slow, methodical read where teacher and students unpick the subtleties of a text. We all want to teach the text well and we are all trying to work on how to do that.

The latest lockdown has highlighted this even more to me. We now have a situation where we are studying texts, yet we can’t guarantee if the student is listening to our lesson or not. Knowledge, that we felt safe to assume was imparted to the whole class before, is now hazy and vague. Of course, knowledge is like a box of kittens. Several of the things jump out and disappear as soon as you turn your back. You have to keep finding them and putting them back in the box.  Don’t ask me why I am putting kittens in boxes. A new lockdown hobby. That and trying the different brands of peanut butter available.

One of the problem with literature texts is 'whole text knowledge'. Students are usually good on the plot of the story and they are usually good on a few key moments. And,they are probably really good on that one technique the writer uses, which you keep banging on about. But, their knowledge of the whole text is weak. I’d be bold to say that we don’t do enough to work on that whole text knowledge. How do I know that? Well, look at how students write about other parts of the text. They might be good at analysing a quotation, but their development and links to the rest  of the text tend to be limited to plot points. Dickens also show us this in Stave 2. We also see it when X does Y.

Literature essays are about formulating an argument, yet lots of analysis I see are not forming an argument. It is 'add fancy word here', 'crowbar obscure historical fact there' and 'squeeze a dollop of critical theory here'. When I explore the strongest Literature responses in our exam results, none of the things above are evident. In fact, they are absent. They, instead, formulate a strong argument. A case with reasoned thinking. A case with explored evidence.

A good student will form an argument that is able to deal with the big ideas across a text and  narrow it to precise evidence and specific points, linking them together. Reasoning and rationalising points are things that I think we have to put at the foreground of thinking in the classroom. That’s why I think we need more work on this whole text knowledge. Once a student has a better concept of the whole and the components that make up the whole, then they can make a detailed and reasoned argument.

Take this skeleton for a paragraph.

Dickens presents Tiny Tim as symbol of how life is fragile and precious.

Dickens uses repetition of the adjective ‘tiny’ to suggest how small, weak and insignificant the character is.

Dickens teaches us that we should care for the children because they represent the future.

More recently,  I have started using the words 'strand' and 'threads'. Where else to we see this idea? Where do we see this thread? This, for me, has really helped students. It is about the interconnectivity of things rather than find and search examples. How many essays have we read with the phrase ‘and another example’ repeated numerous times? Students need to look at the relationship between the choices.

Using the example above, we could look at the thread ‘how small, weak and insignificant the character is’. Where else to we see that idea? This thread?

·       Bob Cratchit has a tiny fire in comparison to Scrooge’s in Stave 1

·       Scrooge as a child was insignificant in the family

·       Ignorance and Want are hidden under the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present

Then, this allows us to reason with the idea. Build up an argument. We could use Bob Cratchits fire to reflect that this insignificance is hereditary. We could say that Scrooge’s insignificance as a child is material for Scrooge to emphasis with Tiny Tim in the present. They are both connected by experience. We could say that Tim, Ignorance and Want are all viewed as insignificant by society, but love makes their personality better. All ideas. All threads in the text which allows a student to explore and reason.

The use of a double choice helps to extend the thinking and explore layers of meaning. We don’t need hundreds of references to the text, but two choices helps to extend the thinking. It shows a wider knowledge of the text and the ability to develop an idea. It is the relationship between choices that needs discussion and exploring, rather than ‘here’s another example’. A second choice in a discussion helps build a thread of its own.  That’s why I think we need to help students build up threads in literature texts. Build up connectivity.

I share the following grids with students to help them explore threads and connections across a text. We expect a lot from students when we expect them to remember tiny, micro choices in the text. We want precision from students, but we don’t support them to be precise with evidence. We ask so vague questions that supports vague answers. Can you think of a character that is also weak? Can you think of an event that shows weakness? In the final exam, we can give them vague questions, but we need precision and we need to teach precise things when building up a student’s knowledge of the whole text.  

I give the grids to students at the end of studying a text. We then look at formulating arguments. We look for threads. We make connections between choices. Like the Tube map, we are finding the different routes to an argument. The great thing is that it builds student’s confidence at talking about choices across the text and it helps students form original ideas. Here is a link to the grids.

I don’t make students learn all the choices on the grid – CRAZY stuff – but I do get students to add choice and think of other things to include. We are looking at building meaning and exploring how meaning is formed across the whole text. When you look at the high grade students, it is their argument and the precise use of evidence to form that argument that gets them that grade.

We need to help students build their knowledge of the whole text and all to often we rely on plot summaries. Let’s give them the tools to see the whole text as a whole and not just a tension graph. 

A novel or play is a rich tapestry. Let’s show them that richness and let’s help them pick at a thread and pull it.

Thanks for reading,

Xris