ASSESSMENT AND SUPPORT

Linking analysis to context and the writer’s perspective

Assessment Criteria and What A Good One Looks Like

Below you will find the Skill Check assessment criteria for this skill, and underneath you will find an example of what a good one looks like, with a brief explanation of how it fits the criteria.

Assessment Criteria for Linking analysis to context and the writer’s perspective

minus
any of these things

No links made to the context or the writer’s perspective

Links made are factually incorrect (wrong time period or cultural information, wrong intentions, etc)

equals (just) to plus (secure)
all of these things

At least one factually accurate link made to the context or the writer’s perspective

Links made are at least somewhat relevant to the argument in the paragraph

star
all of these things

All the + criteria

Links are made in the analysis part of the paragraph and not the point or evidence

Links made are well expressed and flow naturally within the paragraph

Link(s) made are at least somewhat interesting or detailed

What a good one looks like

Example task

Read the following PEA paragraph and then complete the task underneath.

Throughout the novel, Dickens offers a strident critique of the mid-19th century. For example, when Scrooge and the Spirit encounter Ignorance and Want at the end of Stave 3, Scrooge asks if they have any refuge, and the Spirit replies with Scrooge’s own words: “Are there no prisons?” it says. “Are there no workhouses?” This is the last of Dickens’s purposeful echoes of Stave 1, which he uses throughout the first half of the novel to highlight the injustice of the positions which Scrooge articulates before his redemption. Though these views seem extreme to us today, even the first time we hear them, to Scrooge (and to those in Dickens’s society who thought like him) they were all too commonplace and acceptable.*1 By repeating these views here, with the added context provided in the middle part of the novel (in this case the symbolic representation of terrible child poverty), Dickens shows how cruel and absurd the social policies of his time were *2.

At present this paragraph includes methods analysis and links to big ideas, but it lacks proper links to the historical context of the text. Where could you add this AO3 content to the paragraph in such a way that it would make the argument in the paragraph more detailed and convincing? Choose 1 or 2 places where contextual links could be added, and write *1 or *2 in the paragraph above. Then write the contextual links you would add in your book, with 1 or 2 in the margin. You need to phrase them as if they are part of the paragraph above.

Example response

  1. During the industrial revolution, urban populations skyrocketed, creating vast urban poverty in cities like London. Rather than provide collectivist care programs to support all the new poor people, the Poor Law of 1834 made falling into poverty even worse in order to force people to work longer and harder. Though Dickens abhorred it, many people supported this policy.

  2. — policies that affected his own father, and, for Dickens, ruined his childhood.

Notes on this response

  • IMPORTANT: The *s have been added to the task above (in red). Normally you would need to decide where to put these yourself — they’re not included on the task.

  • The *s have been put in the analysis part of the paragraph, not in the point or the evidence.

  • The information is specific and detailed and well expressed. It also relates to the point.

  • Both links flow naturally on from the rest of the content in the paragraph.

  • The first link is longer and more detailed — you should never make them any longer than this — this is pretty much the max length.

  • The second link is much shorter — just a phrase added to the end of the sentence. This is good practice for this task — often your links to context will be very brief, like this.