A LEVEL ENGLISH LITERATURE -- UNDERSTANDING AO3
Hello and welcome to the fourth video in the series, Looking at AOs in English Literature.
Today we're going to look at AO3.
The key words with this AO really are 'connections' and 'contrasts'. You are looking at connections
and contrasts between the text you're reading -- that's your set texts -- and other
texts that link to them. So AO3 focuses on exploration of connections and comparisons
between texts and it also expects you to utilise critical interpretations of other writers;
that's people who have read those books; other authors maybe, academics; that's professors
who study these books and any other critics of these works and using these to draw similarities
between texts and the differences within those similarities. It's part of the analytical
process. Of course here, because it's comparing and you are meant to explain and explore,
analyse and evaluate those comparisons, it means that AO1 again plays an essential part
in planning your responses to any essays that you've been asked to write.
For Examiners AO3 poses the most difficulty to most candidates. It requires a depth of
understanding regarding the text studied from AO2, which focuses on language, form and structure
to AO4, which looks at contexts under which those texts were written. This means that
the candidate must have a very strong grasp of these areas in order to compare the texts
that they're being asked to look at and in some cases have to have a good grasp of
the genres of poetry, prose and drama in order (that's the AO2), in order to make those
comparisons, in particular when addressing the AQA syllabus where there are unseen texts
to analyse, compare and contrast.
In relation to AO3, Examiners identify three major problems:
* Failing to connect texts. * Obsession with details -- which means getting
bogged down in the comparisons and maybe becoming too narrative, maybe too plot driven and
* The careless use of quotations that don't help to draw similarities and contrasts and
differences between the texts.
So looking at the first area then -- failing to connect texts -- what often happens is
in a written response candidates may fixate on just the one text, write very much about
that but forget that they are meant to be comparing it with another, using the different
genre elements to compare one element with the next, not really addressing the question.
They should be using AO2 to make those connections that help them identify similarities and differences
in relation to how the text is written or the themes it is employing or the way that
the authors are presenting certain ideas. Candidates can become bogged down with detail
and what that means is that they carry out a line by line analysis rather than making
focused analytical comparisons between different texts under consideration. If they are becoming
bogged down in particular parts of each of those texts, they're not seeing the bigger
picture, the bigger ideas that they are meant to be engaging with. They need to get that
bigger picture in order to succeed in AO3.
And then finally, the careless use of quotations. As mentioned in the previous video, the use
of quotations will be gone into in more detail in a separate video but it's really important
that the use of evidence -- either as quotations from critics or academics or quotations from
the texts themselves -- they are employed critically, that means they are used to analyse
what you are comparing, not just thrown in with no relevance whatsoever, so it's really
important. Quotations must be critical and focused and they must be relevant.
We can see in this example of an A grade candidate's use of AO3 there are specific things going
on where the candidate meets the requirements of the assessment objective.
Firstly in this block we can see that the candidate has a very strong understanding
of where 'The Rape of the Lock', that's Pope's poem, fits into a continuum featuring
other texts from Virgil's 'Aeneid' to Milton's 'Paradise Lost' and here we
have this focus on a contextual background that is also used to compare one text with
another. So here we have a very good understanding by the candidate of where the text is coming
from but also what it's linked to.
The candidate also uses AO2, talking about genre difference, in order to link 'The
Rape of the Lock' to Sheridan's play, 'A School for Scandal' and again this
is rather well done using very good AO1 here with the use of the semi colon to link the
two texts and talk about how they are similar in the way that they look at weaknesses in
human nature and are trying to highlight human pride and foolishness.
Moving onto the last paragraph because these are merely taken out of a longer essay but
you're just given an example here of how AO3 is working, we can see again, AO2 is used,
this idea of technical language, OK? And also the idea that certain quotations are embedded
to show an understanding of how Hope's poem links with that of Sheridan's and we have
a critical reading from an academic Ellen Pollack here that explains the point of view
of the candidate and supports it and so here again, linking back to the previous paragraph
where we have this idea of egotism pride, in this sense using the term 'self-enclosed
narcissism' to support the point of view being made by the candidate.
So here then AO3 works in a number of ways. It links to an overall context or how the
text is produced and its links to other texts in time, which also brings in AO4 -- contextual
understanding -- which we'll be going onto in the next video. It also brings in the idea
of AO2 to make comparisons, where we're talking about genre differences and then finally
linking the two texts together using AO1. So we have a very good use of AO3 here on
a number of different levels.
AO3 then. It's quite a complex idea of comparing and contrasting texts, looking for similarities
within differences and differences within similarities; however, if you have an overall
understanding of the different types of texts, the genres, the technical analysis which comes
from AO2 and you have a strong grasp of AO1 in order to structure your points and build
your analysis, building them up point by point, taking into account other peoples' views
but also representing your own, you can see AO3 can be dealt with in quite a clear way
as long as responses are planned and well thought out beforehand.
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