A2 LL - 3 WAY COMPARISON - FEEDBACK

A2 ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND TEXT ADAPTATION
THE 3 WAY COMPARISON - SOME BASIC FEEDBACK

Generally some good work achieved in your commentaries.

Those of you that analysed the texts drew from a good range of linguistic and literary frameworks.

This is a good 3 way comparison to analyse. You are faced with 3 very different genres. Two of thse use very distinctive writing framworks. So text a uses spoken language framworks and text c uses poetic frameworks. Therefore your analysis is made easier by identifying and commenting on the specific language features of these two very different genres.

Therefore I would expect you to identify and comment on such features as

Some spoken language terms from text a	Some poetic terms from text c
Utterances Lack of punctuation Spontaneous Adjacency pairs Agenda setting Elision   Non fluency features – such as ·         Pauses ·         Laughter ·         repetition ·         fillers	Identify form – formal ballad some rigid features that become flexible ·         3 stanzas ·         7 lines of ·         Iambic pentameters ·         abbacca rhyme scheme alliteration internal rhymes sibilance metaphor
	Some non poetic terms from text c
	second person pronouns asyndectic listing interrogatives adverbs verbs

Spoken language framwork terms were given out to the whole class after Christmas and must form part of a structured revision programme.

Poetic frameworks were given out at the beginning of the year and on going as we worked throught the coursework. This must form part of a structured revision programme. 

There is a glossary on the blog that contains many of these terms.

Introductions are a perfect opportunity to make lots of points by putting down a lot of basic information. Make sure your introductions identify the core or link topic, summarise the specific texts, identify genre, purposes and audience. Introductions should identify public or private discourse, spoken written, general or specific audience.

You must engage with the basics. Many of you do not address audience, purposes, genre and mode. This is where the marks are. in a summary at the start of a commentary. There is no need to be especially sophisticated and complex. Slap down the most obvious, simple and clear points - for analysis and comparison.

Important to have a balance between all three texts. You must be selective about what you choose to write about. You must choose material from a text that will easily compare and contrast with the other two texts.

Select carefully what you write about for each text. You are not analysing three texts by themselves. Choose material in each text to enable you to compare with the two other texts. Don't be random but create a seamless integrated analytical and comparative commentary. Some of you are achieving this well. Don't analyse the texts as if they were completely independent texts and then create artificial or awkward comparisons. Choose the material carefully. 

It's important to have a balance of all three texts. There should not be one text covered any more than any other text. You must try and treat them all equally. Having an anchor text does not mean you write more about that text. After your detailed introduction I suggest you spend no more than ten minutes writing about a text independently. Timings are a vital part of this question. An unbalanced commentary will be loosing you marks.

There is - I think high level analysis and low level analysis. Any linguistic or literary term can be treated in at a high or low level. Low level analysis identifies a term - may comment on the effect and moves on. High level analysis is characterised by a concise and detailed treatment of the term within the text and goes on to comment on its effect.
However some language terms seem easy to use - low / high frequency lexis and monosyllabic / polysyllabic lexis but are in fact difficult terms to discuss fully and at this level of study.