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DP1 Students: IA Engagements!
What to write about?
What to write about?
One of the great challenges of Paper 2 is that the questions are open-ended. There is no implied, accepted answer. There is often a lot of room to highlight different arguments, use different key concepts, and draw upon a range of examples to support your points. The challenge for you is in deciding what to write about, and sticking with it -- do not throw everything at a wall just to see what sticks!
Plan, Plan, Plan
Plan, Plan, Plan
You have 5 minutes of thinking/reading time before exam time officially begins. You should use this time to select the questions you'll respond to and begin mentally planning a response. Once time officially starts, you should begin writing down your plan so you can refer back to it. It's recommended that you continue to use approx. 5-10 minutes to plan a response to the question.
You shouldn't begin writing until you know what your main idea will be, what concepts are relevant and useful, what examples or case studies you might use, and what you could do for a counterclaim or counterpoints to your main idea. Strong, detailed plans lead to strong, detailed essays.
"Selection"
"Selection"
Here, this refers to deciding what to include. Often, there are so many possibilities that you just can't write about everything. Also, writing about everything makes essays unfocused and disjointed, so it's not recommended.
Instead, ask yourself the following...
What concepts and examples are most helpful for what I want to say?
What is the question demanding or implying that I should write about?
Organization!
Organization!
Yes, you should absolutely think about organization. A response to an essay question that just looks like a wall of text will not score well (and examiners will be predisposed to think little of it, just based on appearances alone.)
Remember that paragraphs are the building blocks of essays, and every paragraph should have a purpose. Take the basic 5-paragraph essay format, for example. The first paragraph would be the introduction, ending in a thesis. The purpose of this paragraph is to introduce the topic and highlight what your main idea is. The next three paragraphs would be the body paragraphs, which each paragraph offering a different point in support of your thesis statement. The final paragraph is the conclusion, which aims to wrap everything up. You could use the basic 5-paragraph essay format for a GloPo Paper 2 response, but it will also limit you.
The organization of an essay should be based on what you are trying to communicate. The structure of an essay asking you to evaluate a claim should be different than one asking you to discuss a claim, since those two command terms have different demands.
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