Close Analysis and Short Answers - PowerPoint Presentation

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Close Analysis and Short Answers

ATAR English Exam

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Aims

To help you:

Understand the nature of close analysis

Identify different types of question

Structure your answers clearly

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Close Analysis Involves:

d

etermining the

s

ubject/s of the text

i

dentifying significant

aspects of the construction of the textexplaining the responses you believe are encouraged by these aspects – ideas, attitudes, feelings about the subject

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= making up cool-sounding stuff!!!!!

= the creative partSlide4

Closed questions provide you with both the subject and the

responses encouraged, but leave you to identify aspects of construction e.g.Explain

three

ways

Aang San Sauui Kyi has used speech-making conventions in Text 1 to persuade her audience of the need to strive for a peaceful world.

Types of Question

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Partially open questions

provide you with the subject of the text and the aspects of construction, but leave you to work out the

responses

e.g.

Identify the three narrative points of view in Text 1 and explain how each constructs a particular perspective on the city of Troy.

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Fully

open questions require you to work out all three of subject, a

spects of construction and

r

esponses e.g. Explain

how McGinnis has used three techniques to influence your interpretation of Text 3.

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Some Terms Which Might Appear in Open Questions

conventions

language choices

stylistic

choices

techniques

language conventions

language features

conventions of genrechoice of language

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Aspects of Construction:

generic conventions employed in in all varieties of prose

d

iction (vocabulary/lexical choice)

syntax

punctuation

imagery

narrative point of view/persona8

cool vocab alert!Slide9

More generic conventions of prose

figurative language

simile

metaphor

personification

m

etonymy

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cool vocab alert!Slide10

Metonymy

An Important Addition to Your Analytical Toolbox

Using a part or aspect of something to stand for the whole

e.g.

‘the pen is mightier than the sword’

‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears’

‘Give us this day our daily bread’

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Metonymy = conveying a sense of something larger through the use of a specific part or example

e.g.Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the court-house sagged in the square.

Harper Lee,

To Kill a Mockingbird

.

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Explaining the responses encouraged involves

asking questions like:

What is the possible effect of:

t

his word or phrase?this sentence structure?

t

his use of figurative language?

this narrative point of view?12

= asking yourself:‘W

hat cool-sounding stuff can I make up????’Slide13

Maycomb

was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the court-house sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then; a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the shelter of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o’clock naps and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the shops around it, took their time about everything.

Harper Lee,

To Kill a Mockingbird

.

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Two Possible Structures

The technique-led approach

The idea-led approach

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The Technique-Led Approach

A brief statement of your understanding of the subject of the text

Followed by

A series of well- structured, analytic paragraphs, using the ISEE approach.

Reminder: Be Specific!

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Identifying Statement, Example, EffectSlide16

Explain

how the author has used three techniques to influence your interpretation of Text 3.

The technique-led

approach

This text offers a depiction of X

(

Only needed

sometimes)One technique used to influence our interpretation of X is … For example, the author …. This encourages us to see/think/believe …

(identifying statement, example, effect)

A second technique is ….A third technique is ….

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This passage offers a depiction of the town of Maycomb.

One technique used to depict Maycomb is lexical choice. For example, the author describes the town as ‘tired’. This encourages us to interpret the town as a lethargic environment, one lacking in energy.

words ‘

ambled’ and

‘shuffled’ to describe the movement of the

people, thus

reinforcing the air of lethargy

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The author also uses the

(65 words)Slide18

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After five years

of high school the final November arrives and leaves as suddenly as a spring storm. Exams. Graduation. Huge beach parties. Biggie and me, we’re feverish with antici­pation; we steel ourselves for a season of pandemonium. But after the initial celebrations, nothing really happens, not even summer itself. Week after week an endless misting drizzle wafts in from the sea.

Tim Winton ‘Big World’,

The Turning

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The passage

suggests that Maycomb is a place where some people try to maintain, unsuccessfully, an old-fashioned air of respectability and gentility. This is conveyed through the reference to ‘stiff collars’, which can be read as a metonym for highly formal clothing and behaviour which seems out of place, given the previous emphasis on heat and lethargy.

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Idea-led Approach

Idea statement

Evidence

Explanation

(57

words

)