 So let's discuss how to approach the unseen poetry exam and more specifically how to write a model answer for the January 2022 exam, okay? So remember, as I've mentioned, we're going to look at unseen poetry and more specifically how to answer the question that appears in this paper. More specifically, the poem that you're going to be given for this paper, especially if you want to practice and I will definitely suggest practicing these questions, is it's called Brendan Gallacher, okay? So this is Brendan Gallacher or Brendan Gallacher, all right? I'm not that great with the pronunciation of this name. However, this is a poem that appears, okay? And remember that in terms of context, you're not supposed to have ever seen this poem before, okay? This is the whole point and the whole nature of unseen poetry. I've never seen these poems before. Now, let's quickly talk about technique before I show you how to write a model response for this particular exam question. Now, as I've mentioned in my introduction to unseen poetry, remember you've got around 35 minutes that you should allocate to this part of the question. It's worth 20 marks. How do you approach this question? Firstly, remember that you need to spend the first 10 minutes of your 35 minutes reading and planning and selecting the different terms and the different examples that you're going to take from the unseen poem. As I mentioned, you want to aim for at least three or four paragraphs, so four responsive essay paragraphs, meaning you want to take a quotation from the beginning, two quotations from the middle, you know, early middle, maybe later middle, and then something from the end, okay? What you're doing, especially when you take that approach for your different paragraphs, is you're showing your examiner and your teacher that you're not lazy, you've read through the entire poem, and you're also now selecting different parts of the poem to analyze and to discuss. Allocate one of your paragraphs, of course, talking about form. Form relates to standard types, okay? So for example, is the poem laid out in quatrains? Is the poem laid out in, you know, five stanzas? Is it written, for instance, in free verse and so on? Also, of course, dedicate at least another paragraph, make it, say, a structure paragraph. So this is where you're talking about things like sentence types. You're talking about things like listing. And of course, dedicate another paragraph to language analysis, okay? Remember, this is all touching on your AO2 skills, okay? AO2 means are you able to illustrate an awareness and an understanding of language, form, and structure when you're approaching an unseen poetry question. For me, I would suggest trying to do this four times, okay? So for instance, let's say you have one paragraph dedicated to form, one paragraph dedicated to structure, and then say two on language or one paragraph in form, two in structure, one in language. However you want to mix it and chop and change it, try to just make sure you write enough, okay? I would suggest minimum should be three paragraphs. Or ideally, so of course in my model response, I'm going to show you how to write four detailed and really, really good, pure paragraphs for unseen poetry. Final thing is the approach, as I've mentioned, will be the pure paragraph structure. Point, evidence, explanation, link. Point means you're answering the question directly using keywords from the question. Evidence is you're just taking a bit of evidence, a quotation from the poem. Explanation, this is where you now show your awareness of form and structure. This is where you go into analytical depth. This is also where you talk about reader effects and of course link is you're linking it back to the question. Also in your link you can mention reader effect. So now that we've got a bit of this background, let's have a look at how to answer this particular exam paper and I will show you a model answer that I've prepared and I'll walk you through it. So let's discuss how to approach this particular exam question. Now, when answering this question, remember as I mentioned, you will be presented with the poem that you've never seen before and then you need to answer a question based on this poem. Now, as I mentioned, I have pre-prepared this question and also of course a model response. So I'm going to walk you through what my process would be as I'm reading and answering this. Now, of course, make sure you always have your highlighter handy as well as the pen that you're going to be using to write your response. Now, let's have a look at the question first. Within this question, as you can see here, I've already highlighted the keywords. So I actually sat it and wrote it out as if I were in your shoes as a student doing my exams. So here you ask, Explore how the writer presents Brennan Gallacher in this poem and your answer you should consider the writer's descriptive skills, choice of language, form and structure. Remember, of course, language, form and structure, this is your AO2. Remember, this question tests your ability to express this assessment objective. So the more AO2 and the more kind of language points you can rack up, the more form points you can rack up and the more structure points you can note, then, of course, you are really positioning yourself in terms of getting, you're really positioning yourself well in terms of maximising the amount of marks that you can get. So let's quickly read through this poem. I'll show you what I would highlight and, of course, I'm going to show you the model response that I have prepared. So let's have a look. Read the following poem, Brennan Gallacher, for my brother Maxi. So all of this is included within the title and it's in parenthesis, in brackets, okay? He was seven and I was six. My, Brennan Gallacher. He was Irish and I was Scottish. My, Brennan Gallacher. His father was in prison. He was a cat burglar. My father was a Communist Party full-time worker. So now here we can see that the speaker is juxtaposing the different dads. He had six brothers. I had none. My, Brennan Gallacher. So, of course, as we can see here, even in the first verse, there's this constant reference to this Brennan Gallacher, okay? So this constant use of repetition, which is a structural technique, makes us, as readers, really focus on this particular individual, okay? This individual is so important that even the poem is titled after his name. So let's have a look at the second verse. He would hold my hand and take me by the river, where we talk about his family being poor. So he comes from a troubled poor family. He gets his mom out of Glasgow when he got older. A wee holiday someplace nice. Here we can see that there's a little asterisk, a star, which means, and of course, also there's a little asterisk here, a star, which means that these are words that you're not expected to be familiar with. So here cat burglar means a thief who climbs buildings to gain entry, and wee is a Scottish language, or Scottish dialect, an informal Scottish dialect, meaning small. So he says, he would take his mom out of Glasgow when he got older, a little holiday, a wee holiday, someplace nice, someplace far. I tell my mom about Brendan Gallagher. So now the speaker is talking about how, you know, he's so proud of this friend, he would tell his mom all about him. How his mom drank, and his daddy was a cat burglar. And she'd say, why not have him run to dinner? So the mom is now wondering, hey, why don't you have him run to visit us? You know, you love this guy so much and you're talking about him. You know, his mom drinks and his dad is a cat burglar. You know, we've been fighting around. No, no, I'd say he's got big holes in his trousers. I like meeting him by the burn in the open air. Burn means a small river or stream. So here, actually, what's interesting is even if the speaker seems really obsessed with this Brendan Gallagher, actually they're hiding them from the mom, okay? So there's also maybe an element of embarrassment here. So they're saying, no, no, no, no, you know, he's really poor, he's got big holes in his trousers. So obviously already this should strike you as a reader, as a little bit bizarre. You know, you're so obsessed with this person, yet you're embarrassed to show them to your mom. I like meeting him by the burn in the open air, a small river by the stream. Then one day, after we'd been friends for two years, one day, so here it's repeated in the fourth verse, one day after we've been friends for two years, one day when it was pouring. So this is pathetic fallacy, the rain. And I was indoors. My mom says to me, I was talking to Mrs. Moir, who lives next door to your Brendan Gallagher. Do you say his address was 24 Nova? She says there are no Gallagher's at 24 Nova. Interesting. So now there's a shift here. The speaker is being told this person, there's no one that lives in the address that you're saying he lives in, that Brendan Gallagher, he doesn't live in this address. There never have been any Gallagher's next door. And he died then. My Brendan Gallagher, flat out on my bedroom floor. His spiky hair, his impish grin, his funny flapping ear. Oh, Brendan, my Brendan Gallagher. So now of course, the first three verses are really powerful in showing this close relationship that the speaker has with this Brendan Gallagher. However, I think this kind of last two verses are really interesting in the sense that there's a sudden shift, right? So as a reader, you're supposed to maybe perhaps be a little bit surprised because it seems like, you know, this person is obsessed with this Brendan Gallagher. It seems like they're best friends. And then suddenly, firstly, it's really strange that they refuse to introduce this person. But then at the end, we find that there is no such person as a Gallagher. And then suddenly this person dies once the mum outwardly recognises that there is no Brendan Gallagher. So then we realise, actually, this is an imaginary friend. And of course, even here, where there's this repetition of one day, one day when it was pouring, this is really powerful because up until this stage, right, we're only seeing the speaker's perspective. The speaker and Brendan Gallagher were in their own world. And then suddenly an outsider, the mum comes in, asks about Brendan, does a little bit of digging around, and then finds that this Brendan actually, there is no Brendan Gallagher. So this repetition could serve as a turning point in the poem, okay? Because it's one day, suddenly, okay? So this speaker is really happy about this relationship and then suddenly it shifts, right? After we've been friends for two years, this repetition, which is a turning point, we call it in poetry, Evolta, meaning there's a sudden shift. First three verses, it's all about Brendan Gallagher. They're in this kind of, you know, close friendship. The mum is asking, they're saying, why don't you have him around? This person's coming off of excuses. And then suddenly the mum outwardly tells the speaker, hey, there's no such person as Brendan Gallagher. And then suddenly this really dramatic ending, okay? So here, there's all of this, there's a caesura that's used here. He died then. And then we have this listing of all these features of Brendan Gallagher. His spiky hair, his impish grin, his funny flapping ear. And we can see here that perhaps the mum outwardly recognising that there is no such person as Brendan Gallagher, right? Maybe that amounts to the death of this person's imaginary friend. And of course, we're even told that something terrible is going to happen here because the speaker and the poet, of course, uses pathetic fallacy. The weather reflecting the mood. And of course, and in this case, it's the mood of the speaker. The speaker's really, really sad, okay? So what I'll probably think about is firstly, in terms of form, we've got one, two, three, four, five verses, okay? So this is form. You have five verses or stanzas, all of which are five lines, okay? So here, these verses are written in what we call quintains, okay? So a quintain is just a five-line stanza and it's really regular, right? So of course, there's some kind of predictability that's established, but then suddenly that sense of predictability is completely disrupted by the end. Of course, as I mentioned, what I'll probably also talk about is this use of my Brendan Gallagher, even, for example, the possessive pronoun, my. Show the speaker is so close to Brendan, right? They really love this guy, you know, this is their best friend. And then we also can see here where the speaker is saying, look, you know, we'd meet where we'd talk about Brendan's family being poor, right? And we've got alliteration here. And, you know, we can also see that Brendan, supposedly comes from a fairly troubled background because the mom drank too much whilst the dad was a cat burglar, right? So of course, here we can also see, even through these repetitions, and here's of these pronouns that Brendan comes from a fairly troubled background. However, as the poem progresses, there's a turning point and then suddenly we realize actually this Brendan doesn't exist. He's totally made up by the speaker. So probably when I'm answering this, I'm probably selecting something from the beginning, two things from towards the middle and then something from the end when structuring my response. And of course, I will not, I will ensure to not lose sight of the question. Just to reiterate the question asked to discuss how the writer presents Brendan Gallagher and you've got to talk about language, form and structure. So let's have a look at a model response that I prepared using the full paragraph structure and also the peel paragraph technique point evidence explanation link. And I'll show you how you can layer in some really complex points using such a simple framework. So let's begin with the first paragraph. To begin with, the writer presents Brendan Gallagher as playing a pivotal role, in the speaker's life. It's clear that Brendan is a close friend and companion. That's my opening point. As you can see here, I've made sure that I'm alluding back to the question how the writer presents Brendan Gallagher, but equally, I've developed that point, right? So I'm basically saying Brendan is really important in the speaker's life. Of course, they keep on repeating them and their name and what we can gather is that this is a close friend and companion. Let's have a look at the first E in my peel paragraph, the evidence. The narrator makes repeated reference to my Brendan Gallagher and each quintains now making a point about form and each quintain in all five standards mentions him. Okay, so here I've talked about Brendan Gallagher, the evidence, but also I've mentioned form. Here's now my explanation and in my explanation, this is where I'm going to add technique. The writer uses repetition structure of Brendan Gallagher to show how the speaker's life is dominated by their friend. The possessive pronoun, this is now a language technique. As you can see here, what I've done is I'm adding, I'm layering in lots of stuff, okay? So I'm actually killing lots of birds with one stone. Rather than just saying that I'm only going to keep structure for one paragraph, I've literally added a little bit of each, okay? You can do that, but of course, if you want to keep it even more simple and just keep like say, for example, just one structure point here, you can do that too, okay? But I'm just showing you what it takes to really write at a grade eight, grade nine level, okay? Try and add some of that information but weave it in in a nice and sophisticated way. So let's look over the explanation. So this is now the second E. The writer uses repetition of Brendan Gallagher to show how the speaker's life is dominated by their friend. The possessive pronoun, my, illustrates how attached and devoted they are to this individual. K, this is the poet's surname, okay? So this is Jackie K. So I'm going to say either the poet, the writer, or I could also talk about the surname K. K uses a tight predictable poetic structure. This is a form point. As the poem is written in five stanzas which are quintains and this reflects the structure and predictability, the relationship offered the speaker. All of this is my explanation. In my explanation, what have I done? I've included language, form, and structure discussion. But equally, I've also talked about how this structure, the form really reflects the relationship that the speaker enjoys with Brendan Gallagher. So now here's my link back. Hence, Brendan Gallagher is presented as a crucial character. The speaker is committed to their friendship. This is now me linking back to the question and ensuring that I use keywords from the question to show the examiner that I totally understand what I'm supposed to be talking about. Let's now move on to the second point in rather the second peel paragraph where I make an additional point. Moreover, as the poem progresses, Brendan Gallagher's life is portrayed as being troubled. Although he was only seven, we can see he had a difficult life as his family was impoverished. Again, I've started off by making a point relating it to the question. And of course, also, I've included just a little bit of information here showing that he's really young to be going through all of these problems. Let's have a look at the evidence. The narrator admits to going where we would talk about his family being poor. His mother drank and his father was a cat burglar. I've included my evidence taken from now towards the middle of the poem. So I've mentioned that I did that they were poor with the mom drinking and the dad being a cat burglar. As you can see, I'm making my way through the poem. Here's my explanation. Kay uses alliteration language to emphasise how much Brendan is confided in the speaker about being poor. Confided means you're talking, you know, your innermost thoughts, your deepest thoughts to somebody. The verb drunks and I'm zooming in on one particular word. Creates a strong sense of pathos, which means sympathy, within the reader. So now I'm mentioning reader effect. Who worries that Brendan was exposed to terrible things at a young age? That's my explanation of added technique, alliteration, I've also zoomed in on one word and also talked about reader effect. Now here's my link. Consequently, the writer presents Brendan's life as being full of troubles. The speaker evidently sympathises with him as they look like they want to comfort him. Here's my link back to the question. Once more, I'm making sure that I'm talking about the keywords within the question. How's Renan Gallica shown and presented within this poem? Never lose sight of the question. As I mentioned, now I've taken something from kind of early in the middle. I'm now going to probably talk about something from towards here later in the middle. I'm walking and progressing through the poem. So here we've got now the Volta, the turning point. Volta is a really powerful structural device to point out if you do see a key point within the poem that shifts. So now let's have a look at my third Peel paragraph. Nonetheless, as the poem progresses, the writer begins to cast out about Renan Gallica. The speaker's mother is presented as an intrusive outsider who asks unwelcome questions that serve as a turning point in this poem. That's my opening point. Let's have a look at the evidence. The narrator remembers evidence one day after we'd been friends for two years. One day when it was pouring. So now that's my evidence. Here's my explanation. Kay's repetition of one day structure is ominous and it acts as a Volta, a turning point which is structure. The Pathetic Fallacy, Pathetic Fallacy's language which informs us it was pouring is climactic. It's really important. It's the climax of the poem. The narrator is forced to step out of the small world they have built around my Brendan and they are forced to talk to another person about their friend. So now that's my explanation of really packed in. Lots of interesting structural observations but also I've gone one step further and basically said, look, now this is my interpretation as somebody that's just read this poem. What I'm basically trying to interpret and this is what you want to now start factoring in into your writing. Take it one step further and think, okay, if they add something like one day, this sudden turning point, what's that supposed to do? In my perspective, it's supposed to take this speaker out of their own world and suddenly they now realize they're forced to confront like the actual outside world. The mum is forcing them to do this. Here's my link. As a result, Brendan Gallagher is suddenly presented as a questionable figure to us as readers. We begin to sense the character, the speaker's reluctance to talk about Brendan to their mother. Here's my link back to the question. Now that I've written three-pill paragraphs, something from the beginning, two things from the middle, I'm now going to select something from the end. Of course, this is a sudden, unexpected shift, okay? Suddenly, Brendan Gallagher doesn't exist and this is supposed to be, I would argue, at least for me when I was reading this, I found it quite surprising and really shocking. Definitely something I didn't anticipate. I thought Brendan was a real person. So let's have a look at the fourth point. Finally, as the poem concludes, we are astounded to realize that Brendan Gallagher is a figment of the speaker's imagination. The writer presents Brendan Gallagher as an imaginary person who never existed. Here's my opening point or rather my final opening point. When the speaker is forced to accept that Brendan does not exist, they admit here's my evidence. He died then, his spiky hair, his grin, his funny flapping hair. That's my evidence. Here's my explanation. Kaye combines listing structure with alliteration, language to portray how harsh and sudden this realization was for the narrator. The childlike adjectives, impish and funny, so now I'm zooming in on particular words, are especially poignant, which means sad for us as well as the speaker. The mother's affirmation that there are no Gallagher's is a disquieting revelation. Disquieting means really shocking, really troubling revelation. So it's a disquieting revelation. This acknowledgement that he was imaginary amounted to the death of Brendan's persona and we are devastated for this speaker. So now here I'm talking about reader effect. Let's have a look at the link back to the question. Thus the writer presents the melancholic, the sad and abrupt death of Brendan Gallagher. We are shocked to realize he is the speaker's imaginary friend and we're sad as his death leaves the speaker in solitude and isolation. So that concludes the fourth and final peel point relating to this poem. So as I mentioned guys, make sure when you are answering this question you need to demonstrate your AO2 skills within your different essays. Try to also separate your points out and my approach and my suggestion in terms of approaching this question is pick something from the beginning, something from the middle or two things if you're going for the four peel paragraphs and then something from the end. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read this through one last time. I'm not going to make any pauses so that you can just be clear what this essay is about. To begin with, the writer presents Brendan Gallagher as playing a pivotal role in the speaker's life. It's clear that Brendan is a close friend and companion. The narrator makes repeated references to my Brendan Gallagher and each quintane in all five standards mentioned him. The writer uses a repetition of Brendan Gallagher to show how the speaker's life is dominated by their friend. The possessive pronoun, my, illustrates how attached and devoted they are to this individual. K uses a tight predictable poetic structure as the poem is written in five standards which are quintanes. And this reflects the structure and predictability this relationship offered the speaker. Hence Brendan Gallagher is presented as a crucial character. He is committed to their friendship. Moreover, as the poem progresses, Brendan Gallagher's life is portrayed as being troubled. Although he was only seven, we can see he had a difficult life as his family was impoverished poor. The narrator admits to going where we would talk about his family being poor. His mother drank and his father was a cat burglar. K uses a literation to emphasise how much Brendan confided in the speaker about being poor. The verb drank creates a strong sense of pathos within the reader who worries that Brendan was exposed to terrible things at a young age. Consequently, the writer presents Brendan's life as being full of troubles. The speaker evidently sympathises with him as they look like they want to comfort him. Nonetheless, as the poem progresses, the writer begins to cast doubts about Brendan Gallagher. The speaker's mother is presented as an intrusive outsider who asks unwelcome questions that serve as a turning point in the poem. The narrator remembers one day after we'd been friends for two years, it was pouring. K's repetition of one day is ominous and it acts as a vulture. The pathetic fallacy which informs us it was pouring is climactic. The narrator is forced to step out of the small world they have built around my Brendan and they're forced to talk about another or to talk to another person about their friend. As a result, Brendan Gallagher is suddenly presented as a questionable figure to us as readers. We begin to sense the speaker's reluctance to talk about Brendan to their mother. As the poem concludes, we are astounded to realise that Brendan Gallagher is a figment of the speaker's imagination. The writer presents Brendan Gallagher as an imaginary person who never existed. When the speaker is forced to accept that Brendan does not exist, they admit he died then, his spiky hair, his grin, his funny, flapping ear. K combines listing with alliteration to portray how harsh and sudden this realisation was for the narrator. The childlike adjectives impish and funny are especially poignant for us as readers as well as the speaker. The mother's affirmation that there are no Gallagher's is a disquieting revelation. This acknowledgement that he was imaginary amounted to the death of Brendan's persona and we are devastated for this speaker. Thus, the writer presents a melancholic and abrupt death of Brendan Gallagher. We are shocked to realise he is the speaker's imaginary friend and we're sad as his death leaves the speaker in solitude and isolation. And that concludes how to answer and how to approach this particular exam question. Our suggestion is literally download this paper and try and answer it for yourself. That's the best way to improve when it comes to unseen poetry. Thank you so much for listening.