- Address directly and explicitly the guide questions in your introduction by giving a concise but detailed summary or overview of your answer.
- Structure your commentary by using the guide questions as headings for your answer
- Every paragraph must address an aspect of the guide question
- Use quotations as evidence to support the assertions you are making
- Only use short quotations - ideally a word or short phrase of between two and five relevant words
- Each analytical paragraph must contain an assertion, followed by evidence - a quotation - and finally comments on the quotation that will include: identifying language features and comments about their function and intended impact on a reader.
- Failure to do this will result in you only describing the extract rather than analysing it. Therefore you will only achieve a maximum of 2 / 5 marks for criterion 2
- Only use quotations if you are going to analyse the language features of the quotation
- Write clear, concise paragraphs using a formal academic register. Use appropriate technical terms where relevant and appropriate
- You could refer to audience, purpose[s] and genre in your introduction and develop these in detail in your main commentary
Prose specific points
Make it clear to the examiner that you are answering a question about a work of prose. Do this by making specific reference to prosaic features such as sentences, paragraphs, characterisation, narrator and plot.
Here is a brief list of the techniques and terms relevant to this extract, most of which I'd expect to find in your analysis:
aysyndectic listing,
direct address,
list of three,
direct address,
first and second person personal pronouns
exaggerated politeness features,
low frequency lexis,
hyperbole,
repetition,
alliteration,
pre modifying adjectives and adverbs
repetition of the prefix 'un'
complex declaratives,
short, simple declaratives,
cliches
Latin usage
abstraction
Poetry specific points
Make it clear to the examiner that you are answering a question about a poem. You can do this by making references to specific poetic conventions, such as stanzas, rhyme and metre.
Here is a brief list of techniques and terms, relevant to this poem, some if not most of which I'd expect to find in your answer.
narrative poem
child's narrative perspective
first person narrator
restricted / biased perspective but also
childhood memory from an adult perspective
prosaic style
simile
metaphor
alliteration
sibilance
sensuous language
syntactic parallelism
long, complex declarative sentences
short,simple declarative sentences
high frequency lexis
formal register
some informal phrases
contrasts - fire night /sleep play / children / adults / poverty wealth
