How to evaluate writer's craft in a critical essay
What is evaluation?
Some teachers might refer to this part of your critical essay as personal response. This can be the most difficult part of writing an essay, because we are not always sure what evaluation is.
However, we are constantly evaluating the world around us. You do it every day.
To evaluate means to make judgement based on evidence.
If you have ever watched a TV talent show or sports commentary you will have certainly heard evaluation in action!
Example 1
In a popular Saturday night dance competition called Celebrities Can Dance the presenter asks the judges what they thought of the Argentine tango danced by a soap star. Here is what the judges had to say:
- Judge 1 “I thought your frame was good, but your timing was off in the middle of the dance. I didn’t love it, I’m afraid. It’s a 7/10 from me.”
- Judge 2 “I really enjoyed your choice of music for this dance, and I can see that you had tried to work on learning how to do the gancho step. You did not always maintain contact at the hip with your partner and you did lose focus in the middle. It was fine for me – but not your best. I gave it 7/10 as well.”
- Judge 3 “Well I really liked this – I think this was your best dance yet. You are really growing in confidence. 8/10 from me.”
- Judge 4 “My love, you did brilliantly. You were intense in your facial expressions and you did get into the part. Yes – there were some timing issues, but overall, darling, your frame and legs were strong. It’s an 8 and great from me!”
Here, the judges have already analysed the performance and give their personal response and judgement of the performance.
To generate their evaluation (ie. the score) the judges think about:
- what the dancer set out to dance
- how well they actually danced it
Example 2
In a late-night football analysis show, Top of the League, three pundits discuss that day’s big match. At the end of their discussion, they each take turns to evaluate the winning team’s performance:
- Presenter 1 “You know, I’m not sure Manchester Rovers played all that well. I think their victory today was pure luck.”
- Presenter 2 “I disagree. I think the manager made a great substitution at half-time. Taking off that striker and replacing him with a midfielder gave the team more strength in defence to withhold the plucky attacks from Evergreat FC.”
- Presenter 3 “I think Rovers showed good resilience today. They stayed strong in that second half, protected their one goal lead and were happy to see out the game. If they had tried to press for another goal, they would have opened themselves up to more dangerous attacks form Evergreat. Right tactics, right result.”
Evaluating in a critical essay
When we evaluate in critical essays, we are evaluating the writer.
What are we evaluating?
- How well have they presented or explored their topics or themes?
- How effective was the setting?
- How realistic was this character?
- Did they achieve what they set out to do with this text?
What do we need to do?
Like judges or pundits, it is your job to pass comment on the text you have studied in class. To be able to do this, you have to be clear:
- what the writer set out to do
- what the reader might have considered/learned/appreciated by reading this text
What might a text set out to do?
A poem, a play, a media text, a novel or a non-fiction text can:
- Challenge the way we view the world
- Question an accepted idea or point of view
- Explore a theme or an emotion or an idea in an interesting way
- Celebrate or memorialise a person/place or thing
- Educate us about a complex topic or group of people
- Attack, critique or problematise
Evaluative comments
Like with topic sentences, it is helpful to have a bank of evaluative comment stems/starters that you can apply no matter the question in the exam:
The writer effectively questions/challenges/explores/presents…
The writer adequately…
This is a good way to…
Here, we have a skilled exploration of…
The writer is successful in…
The text efficiently teaches us that…
Use of a range of techniques excellently highlights…
Challenge
Think about the text you are studying in class. In one sentence can you sum up:
- What you learned by reading the text?
- What you think the writer set out to do?
- How effective the writer’s use of techniques were?
