Q4

1. How to write an
effective response to
question 4
AO4: EVALUATION

2. The aim of this resource is..
 To de-mystify the question. That is, to clarify the ambiguous question wording
and explain what you need to do
 To help you understand what is required to ‘pass’ on this question at level 4
 To help you identify writers’ methods (techniques) in texts and consider their
effects
 To support you in writing a level 4 response
You will have the opportunity to write your own response at the end. When
you have completed this submit it to your tutor via email or MS Teams. Take
no more than 25 minutes on writing your response. A clean copy of the
extract is on the final slide. Your tutor has the mark scheme.

3. To write a level 4 response you must be able to:
Critically evaluate the text in a detailed way
Select a judicious range of quotations to
support your views convincingly
Analyse the effects of a range of the writer’s
choices
Use subject terminology accurately when
referencing writers’ methods.

4. What does this mean?
 Critically evaluate the text in a detailed way
Use evaluative words and phrases such as adverbs (successfully, skilfully, precisely,
persuasively) to show your are thinking critically about how the writer has produced a
particular effect - in your opinion. ‘Detailed’ usually means write a lot about a little
 Offer examples to explain your views convincingly
Use short quotes and single words that accurately support your points as examples - and
give your opinion on the effects of writer’s techniques such as imagery, dialogue,
sentences, description
 Analyse effects of a range of writer’s choices
What is achieved by the specific word/phrase? Why did the writer choose this method?
What does it bring to mind or suggest?
 Select a judicious range of relevant quotations
Aim for at least 3 well-judged (relevant) quotes and remember to keep them focused on
the student’s comment. Here your quotes will be about feelings. You need to use words
and phrases to indicate the extent to which you agree (I completely agree, I accept the
view that, I feel, I recognise that…).

5. What do I need to start?
1. The extract: from The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey
and question
2. A bank of evaluative adverbs to describe how an
effect has been created (effectively, successfully,
deliberately etc.)
3. Words and phrases to express agreement/
disagreement (with the student) effectively
4. A dictionary to check unfamiliar vocabulary

6. Read the question. Take note of the lines stated in
the question and the focus of the question
4] Focus your answer on the last part of the text, from line 20 to the end .
A student, having read this section of the text, said: “The writer makes it really
clear how Mabel is feeling. It makes me feel the emotions she is feeling too.”
To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you could:
 Write about Mabel’s/your own feelings on reading the passage
 Evaluate how the writer created these feelings
 Support your answer with quotations from the text. [20 marks]

7. Mabel was too long at the window. The raven had since flown away above the treetops. The sun had slipped
behind a mountain, and the light had fallen flat. The branches were bare, the grass yellowed grey. Not a single
snowflake. It was as if everything fine and glittering had been ground from the world and swept away as dust.
November was here, and it frightened her because she knew what it brought - cold upon the valley like a
coming death, glacial wind through the cracks between the cabin logs. But most of all, darkness. Darkness so
complete even the pale-lit hours would be choked.
She entered last winter blind, not knowing what to expect in this new, hard land. Now she knew. By December,
the sun would rise just before noon and skirt the mountaintops for a few hours of twilight before sinking again.
Mabel would move in and out of sleep as she sat in a chair beside the woodstove. She would not pick up any of
her favorite books; the pages would be lifeless. She would not draw; what would there be to capture in her
sketchbook? Dull skies, shadowy corners. It would become harder and harder to leave the warm bed each
morning. She would stumble about in a walking sleep, scrape together meals and drape wet laundry around the
cabin. Jack would struggle to keep the animals alive. The days would run together, winter's stranglehold
tightening.
All her life she had believed in something more, in the mystery that shape-shifted at the edge of her senses. It
was the flutter of moth wings on glass and the promise of river nymphs in the dappled creek beds. It was the
smell of oak trees on the summer evening she fell in love, and the way dawn threw itself across the cow pond
and turned the water to light.
Mabel could not remember the last time she caught such a flicker.
Key: Language features
Feelings
Senses

8. Feelings – where and how have they been created?
Fear Imagery - simile ‘Like a coming
death’
Makes readers
understand the intensity
of her emotion and how
she is all-consumed by
dread and doom. Death
is final. It is also dark
and cold, like winter
Apathy
(lack of interest,
enthusiasm, or
concern)
Imagery –
personification
‘The pages would
be lifeless’
Mabel’s perspective on
things has been affected.
She can’t be bothered.
She has a negative
outlook and everything
looks and feels dull, bland
and unexciting

9. Complete the table of evidence for feelings..
Emotion (Point – P) Method
(technique) T
Evidence - E Effect - E

10. Features of a level 4 response
 On the next slide there is a response that demonstrates the key features the
examiner will be looking for to award a level 4 – the features we looked at on
slide 3
 These features have been marked in different colours – identify what they are:
Yellow:
Red:
Pink:
brown: Critical evaluation (your judgement of the writer’s success)

11. I strongly agree that the writer makes you feel how Mabel feels. The writer uses descriptive techniques and
sensory language to create a very strong impression of Mabel’s attitude and emotions.
Mabel is ‘frightened’ by the winter, and the writer uses imagery to show and emphasise this feeling. For example
the writer compares the winter to ‘a coming death’ to show the dread Mabel feels, then reinforces this
impression of fear and danger using words that represent violent sensations such as ‘choked’ and ‘stranglehold.’
This use of powerful descriptive vocabulary helps me to clearly imagine myself in Mabel’s position and to feel
her fear and sense of foreboding. The bleak description of winter helps the reader to empathise with Mabel as
we can relate to the ‘ darkness’ and ‘cold’ but then the focus of the passage shifts from the exterior to the interior
to reflect Mabel’s personal depression.
The writer successfully shows that Mabel feels vulnerable and powerless in the face of her fears. ‘She entered last
winter blind’ indicates that she now knows what to expect. The verbs, ‘would struggle’ and ‘would stumble’
show how winter makes her sluggish but also point to her negativity and depression, highlighted by her state of
‘walking sleep’ and the emphasis that she finds it ‘harder and harder’ to get up. The writer has powerfully
conveyed Mabel’s feelings through pathetic fallacy and sensory language which help me to experience the same
sensations as Mabel and recall similar feelings about winter.

12. Checklist for success!
 Begin by stating your opinion clearly – it is best to agree!
 Use PTEE – Point, technique (method), evidence, evaluate
(effect)
 Keep focused on the student’s statement
 Make sure you use evaluative vocabulary
 Make sure you give your opinion
 Try to evaluate the methods used rather than the quotes
themselves.

13. Now it’s your turn…
Focus your answer on the last part of the text, from line 20 to the end .
A student, having read this section of the text, said: “The writer makes it
really clear how Mabel is feeling. It makes me feel the emotions she is
feeling too.”
To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you could:
 Write about Mabel’s/your own feelings on reading the passage
 Evaluate how the writer created these feelings
 Support your answer with quotations from the text. [20 marks]

14. Mabel was too long at the window. The raven had since flown away above the treetops. The sun had slipped
behind a mountain, and the light had fallen flat. The branches were bare, the grass yellowed gray. Not a single
snowflake. It was as if everything fine and glittering had been ground from the world and swept away as dust.
November was here, and it frightened her because she knew what it brought - cold upon the valley like a coming
death, glacial wind through the cracks between the cabin logs. But most of all, darkness. Darkness so complete
even the pale-lit hours would be choked.
She entered last winter blind, not knowing what to expect in this new, hard land. Now she knew. By December,
the sun would rise just before noon and skirt the mountaintops for a few hours of twilight before sinking again.
Mabel would move in and out of sleep as she sat in a chair beside the woodstove. She would not pick up any of
her favorite books; the pages would be lifeless. She would not draw; what would there be to capture in her
sketchbook? Dull skies, shadowy corners. It would become harder and harder to leave the warm bed each
morning. She would stumble about in a walking sleep, scrape together meals and drape wet laundry around the
cabin. Jack would struggle to keep the animals alive. The days would run together, winter's stranglehold
tightening.
All her life she had believed in something more, in the mystery that shape-shifted at the edge of her senses. It
was the flutter of moth wings on glass and the promise of river nymphs in the dappled creek beds. It was the
smell of oak trees on the summer evening she fell in love, and the way dawn threw itself across the cow pond
and turned the water to light.
Mabel could not remember the last time she caught such a flicker.