Essays for A Level
Art, Photography, Graphic
Communication

objectives
• To help you to discover and focus in depth upon an aspect of art and design that fascinates you.
• To develop your understanding of art and design history and to see how artists exist and work within artistic and social contexts that help shape their work.
• To develop your academic research, writing and referencing skills, in preparation for university and work. • To inspire you and allow you to then make better, more well-informed, practical work, that discusses complex issues and sophisticated concepts.

Format
• A written and illustrated final outcome of 3000 words with 10% tolerance.
• No shorter than 2700 and no longer than 3300.
• Fully illustrated by you.
• Presented visually.
• Related to your practical work
• Includes evidence of contextual research; critical analysis; critical interpretation; personal response and engagement; and critical evaluations and judgements
• It is an essential component of your A2 year but it is
NOT worth more marks than the practical element.

Title
• Design an essay title that will allow you to make a critical and evaluative conclusion.
• Consider the following examples. Which ones will result in the better A level essays? Why do you think this is?

Title examples
• Lucian Freud: A Study of His Life and Works
• Justify the following statement: All photographs are fake
• To what extent is PhotoShop the cause of mistrust in photography?
• Photographers and Surrealism
• Landscape Photography and environmentalism
• A history of photography from 1945 to 2015
• How to take good portraits

Planning an essay
• Planned essays are easier to write
• Planned essays are better-structured and more fluent
• Planned essays are more likely to meet deadlines • Planned essays are more likely to fulfil the