90 minutes to answer the question.
30 minutes to read, annotate and plan the commentary
50 minutes to write the answer
10 minutes to read and edit
The Plan - the first twenty minutes
Annotate the texts fully using a pencil - notes in the margin, underline, circle words/phrases
First Reading
- Quickly identify audience, purpose and genre - the general and text introduction will help you address these issues
- How is the theme presented in each text?
- What is the attitude each narrator has towards the theme
- What is the basic structure of each text?
- What different kinds of writing can you identfy in the texts - link this to the main genre of each text you are studying.
- Identify the key linguistic and literary features of each text - be aware of rhetorical and spoken language features in each text
Second Reading
- Carefully identify quotations you can use to support your responses to audience, purposes and genre. Identify quotations that you can write a lot about.
- Be really clear about the similarities and differences in the presentation of the linking theme between all three texts. Find evidence.
- Also be really clear about the similarities and differences in attitudes towards the linking theme in all three texts. Find evidence.
- Find examples of the different sub-genres of writing in each text. For example descriptive writing, dialogue, narrative.
- Identify as clearly as possible the different effects on the audience created by the various literary and linguistic techniques in each text.
- Draw up a list of bullet points using whatever commentary structure best suites you. Remember that each bullet point represents a paragraph
- Write the points you feel most confident about first of all.
- With each bullet point make a brief note identifying the quote you are going to use.
- And briefly note what features you are going to comment on for each bullet point.
- Number each bullet point according to the order you are going to write the commentary.
