How should I structure my essay answer?

How you structure your answer, in my opinion, will depend on how you like to write. There are several ways to structure an essay, and it might be worth you experimenting with a few before you settle on one. To give you a rough idea, I'll describe the two main starting points to structure or plan an essay that I have found most useful: CHRONOLOGICALLY Work through your extract chronologically. For example, if you're talking about a poem work through the poem line by line. This allows you to discuss the various elements of the poem that stand out to you, marking any important themes and developments. It's a nice easy way to structure your answer. E.g. INTRO, discussion of stanza one, discussion of stanza two (etc.), CONCLUSION make sure that you are always linking your points back to the question. Think PEEP - point, evidence, explanation, point IDEA BASEDBreak down your discussion into the main themes or ideas you want to talk about. This allows you to group together ideas and discuss the importance and prevalence of each one. Make sure that you give each idea equal attention - don't skim over any useful themes, give them the same amount of depth and discussion as you would if you were going through line by line.E.g. INTRO, theme 1, theme 2 (etc.), CONCLUSION Again, make sure that you are always linking back to the question - don't leave your examiner asking 'So what?'