IOC – COMMENTARY ASSESSMENT
CLOSE READING - APPROACHES / DEFINTIONS / TERMS - A CHECK LIST
Below is a table containg a list of approaches that you can take when giving your commentary. Only a selection of these will be relevant and appropriate to discuss in your commentary. Identifying the relevant and appropriate approaches to take for the extract you've been given will be really useful.
APPROACHES
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DEFINITION
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SOME KEY TERMS
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Character
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Characters are established in texts by what they say, how
they behave, their clothes, places and objects associated with them.
Characters are also established by their actions, body language, what other
characters say and do in relation to a character.
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Conflict
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Look for two or more characters, forces, settings, activities
that are incompatible or clash or are in opposition with each other.
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Contrast, juxtaposition,
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Context
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The circumstances that form the setting for an event,
statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood.
The parts of something written or spoken that immediately
precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning.
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Historical, cultural, social, religious, biographical
Consider such things as gender, marriage, class, race,
social status in Shakespeare’s time, the present time and the time the play
was set – 1570’s
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Elemental
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Lexis associated with the four elements – earth, air, fire
and water
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Earth – path, rock, mountain, lawn
Air – wind
Fire – burn, smoulder, singe
Water – flow, drip, puddle
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Emotive lexis
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Words and phrases that trigger an emotional response in
the reader. You might also consider a readers sympathetic / antipathetic responses
to character or situation
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Grammar
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The study of the way the sentences of a language are
constructed.
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Adjectives –
pre-modifying / post-modifying, comparative, supplative. Nouns – abstract, concrete, proper. Verbs -
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Imagery
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Lexis that stimulates mental or imaginary pictures
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Metaphor, personification, simile, symbolism, pathetic
fallacy
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Lexis
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Words – vocabulary
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High frequency / low frequency, denotation / connotation, semantic fields, emotive / neutral / rational,
polysyllabic / monosyllabic
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Mood
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a temporary state of mind or feeling. This can be
associated with particular places and characters
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Narrator
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The voice of the text – consider such things as accent,
lexical choices, mood, attitude
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`First person – personal pronoun, third person
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Register
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the style of language, grammar, and words used for
particular situations
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Formal, informal
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Rhetoric
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Language used to persuade
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Direct address, comparative / contrasting pairs, listing,
lists of three
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Sensuous language
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Lexis associated with the five senses
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Sight – bright / dark / dim
Sound – whisper / roar / hum
Touch – warm / cold / rough / smooth
Taste – bitter / sweet
Smell -
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Setting
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the place or type of surroundings where something is
positioned or where an event takes place
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Adverbials, place names, times – of day / night / week,
season, interiors / exteriors, rural – wilderness / farmland / urban –
industrial, residential, commercial, derelict /
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Sound patterns
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Word sounds that create cacophony – unpleasant sounds or
euphony – sounds that create pleasant sensations
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Alliteration, assonance, rhyme, rhythm, onomatopoeia
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Structure
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Thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, rising action, climax,
falling action, dénouement
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Style
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Consider different kinds of writing styles
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For example descriptive, reflective, action, dialogue,
argument
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Syntax
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Consider sentence structures and or sentence functions
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Short, compound, complex sentences / declarative, interrogative,
imperative and exclamation
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Theme
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an idea that recurs in or pervades a work of art or
literature
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