Breaking Down English Prompts

[Karapl13]

Hi everyone

I am having trouble breaking down English prompts in general. The text that I am doing is Frankenstein and I often struggle to come up with ideas.

The prompt that I have is "Both Victor and The Creature are motivated by revenge, do you agree?"

I have come up with some ideas (such as Victor and The Creature are not motivated by revenge, as Victor is motivated by glory and the Creature is motivated by seeking connection, but it is revenge that is the eventual outcome of their isolation), but I cannot think of any more or how to extend that to 4 body paragraphs.

Could someone present me a strategy as to how to break down English prompts, please?

Thanks
Luke

[patriciarose]

hi (:

does it absolutely have to be four paragraphs? from what you’ve said, you seem to have two pretty clearly articulated, or even three:

I have come up with some ideas (such as Victor and The Creature are not motivated by revenge, as Victor is motivated by glory and the Creature is motivated by seeking connection, but it is revenge that is the eventual outcome of their isolation), but I cannot think of any more or how to extend that to 4 body paragraphs.

that’s three body paragraphs right there, though if you’re set on four maybe someone here will have studied the text more recently than year ten (three years ago for me, oops) and be able to give you another idea!

in more general terms of how to break down prompts, i always look for the nouns (people, places, things, etc), because if it’s made it into the prompt as more than allusion, you can be pretty sure that the marker wanted it mentioned.

after that, check the key words, which for you are ‘motivation’ and ‘revenge.’ these are fairly straightforward, but there’s still room for exploration: is your character solely focused on revenge or are there other motivations? if so, which is most paramount? and what even counts as revenge? in the case of the creature, you could almost make the argument that he seeks justice for his mistreatment and has simply realised that for there to be any such dispensation, he’ll have to take care of it himself. asking yourself questions, even if they seem stupid (eg. ‘what is revenge?’) at first glance, is a good way to get to the crux of a prompt and often you can do the initial bit in your head, so you won’t waste time on the whole mindmappy thing.

i tend to pick my stance on the prompt last, because you don’t want to do all your thinking afterwards and realise it lines up badly with your argument. a good way to do this is by seeing it on a spectrum: 1 is totally agree, 3 is on the fence, 5 is totally disagree. you want to be aiming for 2 or 4, because that shows you can recognise nuances in the prompt and the text. if you get a prompt that seems totally one way, asking questions until i found something that presented a different view would generally work for me!

all that aside, if the noun-key word-question thing doesn’t float your boat, ignore it and do whatever feels right for you because you’re the one who has to do it in your test/SAC/exam! hopefully some of this is helpful though! (:

[Karapl13]

Hey I'm so

hi (:

does it absolutely have to be four paragraphs? from what you’ve said, you seem to have two pretty clearly articulated, or even three:

that’s three body paragraphs right there, though if you’re set on four maybe someone here will have studied the text more recently than year ten (three years ago for me, oops) and be able to give you another idea!

in more general terms of how to break down prompts, i always look for the nouns (people, places, things, etc), because if it’s made it into the prompt as more than allusion, you can be pretty sure that the marker wanted it mentioned.

after that, check the key words, which for you are ‘motivation’ and ‘revenge.’ these are fairly straightforward, but there’s still room for exploration: is your character solely focused on revenge or are there other motivations? if so, which is most paramount? and what even counts as revenge? in the case of the creature, you could almost make the argument that he seeks justice for his mistreatment and has simply realised that for there to be any such dispensation, he’ll have to take care of it himself. asking yourself questions, even if they seem stupid (eg. ‘what is revenge?’) at first glance, is a good way to get to the crux of a prompt and often you can do the initial bit in your head, so you won’t waste time on the whole mindmappy thing.

i tend to pick my stance on the prompt last, because you don’t want to do all your thinking afterwards and realise it lines up badly with your argument. a good way to do this is by seeing it on a spectrum: 1 is totally agree, 3 is on the fence, 5 is totally disagree. you want to be aiming for 2 or 4, because that shows you can recognise nuances in the prompt and the text. if you get a prompt that seems totally one way, asking questions until i found something that presented a different view would generally work for me!

all that aside, if the noun-key word-question thing doesn’t float your boat, ignore it and do whatever feels right for you because you’re the one who has to do it in your test/SAC/exam! hopefully some of this is helpful though! (:

Hey sorry for the late reply, but this really helps! Thanks a lot!