Today,me and my classmates learned about unseen poems. At first, it was really difficult, but the key to getting marks on unseen poems is to understand it rather than reading it. If you read it without understanding it, you will never get to answer the questions about the poem. To answer this, we also need to dig for the meaning. To do this, we need to use who, what,what,when, how and how. Who, means who is doing the speaking in the poem. When, is when was the poem written. What, means what is the poem about. What, also means what is the poet trying to say. How, means how does the poet convey meaning to you. How also means how do you respond to the poem.
When answering the question, you could be asked to, explain, describe in your own words,comment on, give evidence, compare and/or contrast and give your opinion. There are seven things you SHOULD do and five things you should NOT do. The seven thing you should do are, read the poem or passage carefully, read the questions carefully and underline keywords so you do not forget the point of the question, plan your answer, use the PEEL method, quote from the text, use your own words whenever possible and finally, express your feelings and show the relevance of your feelings to the text. The five things you should not do is, rush through the poem or passage, start answering the questions before reading ALL the instructions and questions,quote long passages,make general statements without explaining why and finally just say what is happening, even if the question asks you to do just that.
The method, PEEL, means point,explain or elaborate, give evidence or example and link. Point means, what do you want to say. Explaining or elaborating means, why did you say that. Giving evidence or example means, why did you say that. Giving links means,how is this connected with the question or the previous paragraphs and your main point.
