Explore the theme of violence in Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

I would firstly recommend that the student spends 5-10 minutes creating a rough outline of their initial thoughts and ideas for this essay question before I even suggest any interpretations of this text. Next, I would suggest they form their argument clearly, so for example one could argue that violence in this text is most prevalent when the ignorance of white characters' temperaments clashes with the integrity of certain black characters. One could then divide this argument into constituent paragraphs, for example 

1. The rape of Mayella Ewell - her and her father's misconceptions and rude assumptions concerning black people leads to a gross miscarriage of justice, base nature of Bob Ewell results in him displacing notions of violence onto Tom Robinson, despite his integrity  

I would then demonstrate ways in which the student can substantiate their argument with specific linguistic analysis of certain quotations, I can explain the importance and fruitfulness of close analysis for example analysing a certain verbal choice or syntactical arrangement etc demonstrates sharp awareness of literary texts and enriches your essay

For a GCSE level essay, one would except roughly three well developed points divided into different paragraphs and a brief introduction and conclusion, which lucidly outlines your argument and provides necessary historical/literary context of genre, politics etc.

If I were assisting a student with this particular essay question, I would then ask them to complete the rest of the essay plan before commencing to write the essay and I would check the essay plan before they write the essay to ascertain whether they have understood how exactly one should lay out your argument.