Transcript How to succeed in your OMAM examination

How to succeed in your
‘Of Mice and Men’
examination
Assessment Objectives
 AO2 Explain how language, structure
and form contribute to writers’
presentation of ideas, themes and
settings.
 AO4 Relate texts to their social,
cultural and historical contexts; explain
how texts have been influential and
significant to self and other readers in
different contexts and at different
times.
AO4
 Because the text you are studying is a
text from a ‘different culture’ you have
to relate to the context in your
response.
 You must therefore write about the
context of the text making sure that
what you write is relevant to text and
task.
 It is not enough to show that you know
about the setting of the novel – you
must relate what you know to the task.
What is ‘context’?
 Context = the SETTING of the text i.e.
where and when the action is set.
 How is the setting significant in the
narrative of the text?
 How does the setting relate to the ‘real
world’?
 How do these things influence the way
we respond to the text?
Setting and the narrative
 How is the setting significant to the
narrative of the text?
or
In the text, to what extent do things
happen as they do because of when/
where the story takes place?
In the text, to what extent are the
characters like they are because of
when/where the story takes place?
Setting and the ‘real world’
 Setting becomes ‘context’ when you link
the setting in the text and the setting
of the ‘real world’.
 Setting becomes ‘context’ when you
start to explore the relationship
between them.
Exploring context
 Exploring context helps us to
understand/ think more carefully
about/ alter our view of characters and
their relationships.
 It also helps us to understand more
about what happens in the novella.
The context of the reader
You may also like to consider:
 How or why responses to a text may
change over time
 How or why a text may provoke
different reactions in different readers
Linking text and context
 Select from your contextual knowledge what
is relevant
 Explain how the contextual material helps to
shape the text itself
 Explore how the contextual material helps to
shape the way we respond to the text
 Integrate all this into a response to the task
set
 Bolt-on background’ will not get you any
marks