“Bayonet Charge / Charge of The Light Brigade” -
Comparison Essay
19/30 L6 B grade
Here’s an essay completed by one of my students taking the ‘AQA Power and Conflict’
poetry module. It was his first comparative essay and his first poetry essay, so he did
amazingly well! However, there is also clear room for improvement - I would expect
the same student to be on a minimum of an L7 / A Grade by the time he takes his
exams. I have given detailed feedback underneath to help him improve, plus a
breakdown of the mark scheme and grade boundaries to show how his essay would
convert to a specific grade.
Feel free to use this essay to boost your own knowledge of the poems, you may also
want to copy down any good essay vocabulary or techniques that it uses. Train
yourself to be critical - understand what is really great about it and try to copy that in
some of your own writing; understand what could be improved about it and try to
avoid that in your own writing. The ‘feedback’ section will help you with this.
The essay has some small grammar or punctuation errors - in particular, it doesn't use
commas as much as it should! So watch out for those too.
Question:
Compare how both poets present the effects of war in “Bayonet Charge” and in one
other poem.
The Essay:
Both poets in “Bayonet Charge” and “Charge of the Light Brigade” present the effects
of war as horrific experience for the soldiers. However Hughes explores the individual
effects whereas Tennyson shows the effects on the soldiers as extremely negative as
the soldiers “King, honour, human dignity, etcetera” are “dropped like herries in a
yelling alarm.” This shows that even the positive luxuries of the soldiers have been
abandoned as the danger of war is more damaging. The use of the verb “dropped”
Comparison Essay
19/30 L6 B grade
Here’s an essay completed by one of my students taking the ‘AQA Power and Conflict’
poetry module. It was his first comparative essay and his first poetry essay, so he did
amazingly well! However, there is also clear room for improvement - I would expect
the same student to be on a minimum of an L7 / A Grade by the time he takes his
exams. I have given detailed feedback underneath to help him improve, plus a
breakdown of the mark scheme and grade boundaries to show how his essay would
convert to a specific grade.
Feel free to use this essay to boost your own knowledge of the poems, you may also
want to copy down any good essay vocabulary or techniques that it uses. Train
yourself to be critical - understand what is really great about it and try to copy that in
some of your own writing; understand what could be improved about it and try to
avoid that in your own writing. The ‘feedback’ section will help you with this.
The essay has some small grammar or punctuation errors - in particular, it doesn't use
commas as much as it should! So watch out for those too.
Question:
Compare how both poets present the effects of war in “Bayonet Charge” and in one
other poem.
The Essay:
Both poets in “Bayonet Charge” and “Charge of the Light Brigade” present the effects
of war as horrific experience for the soldiers. However Hughes explores the individual
effects whereas Tennyson shows the effects on the soldiers as extremely negative as
the soldiers “King, honour, human dignity, etcetera” are “dropped like herries in a
yelling alarm.” This shows that even the positive luxuries of the soldiers have been
abandoned as the danger of war is more damaging. The use of the verb “dropped”
