Analytical Writing: The GCSE Character Essay

This optional GCSE supplement gives students the opportunity to engage with one of the characters from An Inspector Calls and write a character essay on Priestley’s presentation of that character. This is fundamental preparation for the English Literature GCSE.

This GCSE supplement is not a lesson, and does not need to be taught as such. It is structured in such a way as to ensure that the various steps necessary for writing an effective essay are outlined in an appropriate order: 

1. Brainstorm ideas and generate claims
2. Select the evidence
3. Annotate the evidence
4. Read a model essay
5. Plan and write an essay
6. Reflect on the essay writing process
7. Respond to feedback and redraft

Engage with the supplement in the way that works for your class, adapting it to their needs and skipping out any steps they will not benefit from completing. 

This lesson is placed at this point in the scheme of work as, by now, students have discussed and studied all of the main characters: Eva Smith, Mr Birling, Mrs Birling,  Sheila, Eric, Gerald, and Inspector Goole. They will, therefore, have the full range of characters to choose from when selecting the focus of their essay.

Before teaching this GCSE supplement, please review the following information to help guide your preparation process.

Step One Brainstorm Ideas and Generate Claims

• Inform students that when they are writing an essay about character, they will need to make a selection of claims about that character. 
• To generate ideas about their character before they start making claims, have students respond to the following questions in their journals. Project the questions one at a time so students have time to develop their ideas. 
  • Who are you most interested in writing about and why?
  • In what ways do you relate or not relate to this character?
  • What lessons can you learn from this character that you can apply to your life? 
  • How does Priestley present this character in the play?
• Next, have students move into groups of three or four based on their character. You might have more than one group with the same character. Invite them to share ideas from their journals, adding any new ideas about their characters to their journal responses. 
• Then, have students move back to their seats and explain that they will be writing an essay about Priestley’s portrayal of their chosen character in the play, responding to the following question: How does Priestley present the character of [insert character’s name] in An Inspector Calls?
• Ask students to generate 4–5 claims about their chosen characters. Each essay will contain an introduction, two or three paragraphs that explore one claim each, and a conclusion, so if students write more claims than they will need, they can choose the strongest ones for their essays.
• Circulate around the room as students write their claims either under their journal entries or in their exercise books. 
• Once students have identified claims, they will need to consider how they might link together to form a central argument that will thread through the essay. This central argument can be straightforward. For example, if students think that Sheila is presented in a range of ways, their central argument might be that Priestley presents the character of Sheila as complex. Students should then choose three claims that can link to this central argument throughout the essay.

Step Two Select Evidence

• Once students have identified the three claims they are making, they will need to find the evidence to support these claims. Students should be aiming to find two pieces of evidence per claim, and their evidence should not all come from one part of the play. 
• To help students select appropriate evidence, you may wish to guide them through the Relevant or Not? teaching strategy. This should help them to distinguish between evidence that is relevant to support an argument and evidence that is not relevant to support an argument.
• Alternatively, your students may be ready to start selecting their evidence. Remind them that they want evidence that they can do a lot with and that will be easy to remember. Let them know that it is best to avoid very long quotations. Have them select two pieces of evidence for their claim. Project the following questions on the board to help students during the evidence selection process: 
  • How does this piece of evidence support my claim?
  • Is it short, but rich? How can it be analysed in multiple ways?

Step Three Annotate the Evidence

• Once students have selected their six pieces of evidence, explain that for each one, they must outline how their evidence supports their claim.
• To do so, it is useful to first annotate the evidence, identifying any words or phrases to zoom in on and/or thinking about whether or not the evidence links to the sociohistorical context. Doing such a process can also help them identify the sorts of quotations that facilitate rich, in-depth analysis. 
• First, model an annotation of a quotation on the board, thinking out loud to highlight the annotation process. You may wish to use the following questions to guide your verbalisation of the annotation process:
  • How does this piece of evidence support my claim? 
  • Is there a word or phrase that can be analysed in depth to support my claim further? 
    • What does it mean? 
    • How does this word or phrase support my claim about ______________________  [character’s name]?
  • Is this evidence relevant to the sociohistorical context of the play, either when the play was set (1912) or when the play was written and first performed (1945)? If so, how?
  • How might the audience respond to this evidence? 
  • Is there anything else that stands out about this evidence? 
• Then, ask students to follow the same process. It might be easier if they tackle one claim and its two pieces of supporting evidence at a time, rather than annotating each piece of evidence in no particular order, as this may help them think about how they will link these claims together.
• If your students would benefit from developing their analysis further, you may wish to give them the Developing Analysis Grid handout and ask them to fill in the sheet using their annotations to help them. Please note, if students are analysing two pieces of evidence for each of their three claims, then they will need three copies of this sheet.

Step Four Read a Model Essay

• Explain to students that before they will write an essay on how their character is presented in An Inspector Calls, they will read a model essay to help see how someone else has structured their essay and linked their ideas together.
• Divide students into groups of three or four, and give each group an essay from either the handout Mr Birling Essay Models or the Mrs Birling Essay Models (both have an intermediate and an advanced model, so use whichever fits your class’s needs). Ideally, students should not read model essays for the character they will be writing about.
• Ask students to read their essay in their groups using a Read Aloud strategy.
• Then, once they have read the essay, ask them to discuss the following questions in their groups, annotating their ideas onto their handouts: 
  • What information is presented in the introduction?
  • What is the central claim made in each paragraph and what evidence is used to support each claim?
  • How are additional pieces of evidence incorporated? Can you identify any specific linking words?
  • What different messages does the author of the essay identify in the play? How do they link these messages to the context?
  • What does the author do in the conclusion? Why is this effective?
  • What is the central argument threaded through the essay concerning the representation of the character?
• Next, lead a brief class discussion using the above questions or fielding ideas from the students about any confusions they had or what they thought did or did not work in the essay.

Step Five Plan and Write an Essay

• Ask students to sketch out the vague plan for their essay, which will respond to the question: How does Priestley present the character of [insert character’s name] in An Inspector Calls?
• Project the following structure for them to follow as a guide: 
  • Introduction: contextual references?/summary of theme and/or claims and/or central argument? 
  • Paragraph one: claim + two pieces of supporting evidence
  • Paragraph two: claim + two pieces of supporting evidence
  • Paragraph three: claim + two pieces of supporting evidence
  • Conclusion: summary of essay/message concerning Priestley’s portrayal of the character 
• Give students the handout Essay Structure and Sentence Starters and, if desired, model writing an introduction on the board to help get them started.

Step Six Reflect on the Essay Writing Process

• When students have finished writing their essays, put them in pairs to complete the Read Aloud Peer Review strategy, in which students read out their essays and then share feedback on how to improve each other’s essays.
• Finally, ask students to journal on the following prompts: 
  • What was the biggest challenge for you? How did you deal with this challenge?
  • What tools or activities helped you write your essay?
  • What could you have done to help yourself write a better essay?
  • What other support would you have liked from your teacher or classmates?

Step Seven Respond to Feedback and Redraft

• When students give you back their essays, consider using the Marking Criteria Codes teaching strategy to give in-depth feedback and to boost student engagement with marking.
• Then, give students an opportunity to redraft their work, taking on board the suggested improvements. If your students write particularly impressive essays, consider asking the students for permission and using them as models in future lessons. This can make students feel very empowered and proud of their work.