Prose and Poetry Criticism Details

If you are an International Baccalaureate (IB) student following the A1 English course the Help Book will be invaluable to you as you prepare for the important Unseen Commentary part of the final written exam. It makes use of many passages from past IB exam papers, and will give you the opportunity to look in depth (with lots of assistance) at some of the trickier pieces of writing IB candidates have had to deal with in previous exams.

If you are preparing for Advanced Placement (AP) the book will help you develop the skills of close textual comment in preparation for both the Multiple-Choice and Free-Response parts of the examination. Work on each passage leads towards an AP-style essay question.

If you are a GCE A Level (AL) student the Help Book will give you structured practice in writing commentaries on poems and prose passages you haven't seen before. It will help you with your course work and also with commentary and essay questions in the written exam.

Whichever course you are following, the study guide will extend your reading and critical skills so that you can more easily understand and make judgements about all the texts you are studying.

If you are a teacher the Help Book will give you a clear framework within which you can organise your Unseen Commentary lessons. It provides what amount to one-lesson teaching units, and you could if you wished teach 'straight from the book'. It will also be a major resource for students who want to do independent study, beyond what you yourself have time to offer in class.

If you are an undergraduate student or a general reader you will find that the Help Book looks at a wide variety of engaging poems and prose extracts in a refreshingly different way, and will lead you to new insights into how writing 'works'.

Writing Unseen Commentaries is now available both as a Teaching Copy and in a Student Edition. The only difference between the two is that the Teaching Copy has suggested responses to the study tasks built into the text, whereas the Student Edition carries them in a separate Answers Booklet at the end.

Whatever your particular needs, there is an added bonus. Writing Unseen Commentaries provides a system for organising your thinking and writing about literature, whether you're analysing brief extracts or studying whole texts.