Every card in Literary essay skills, Year 10: language, structure and Shakespeare's verse
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- Which assessment objective covers a writer's language, form and structure? (AO and a number)
AO2
HintIt comes between the objective for response and evidence and the one for context.
WhyAO2 asks you to analyse how the writer creates meanings and effects, using subject terms where they help.
- A student writes “The writer uses a metaphor here.” and moves on. What is missing?
The effect: what the metaphor suggests and why the writer chose it
HintNaming is only the first step.
WhySpotting techniques without explaining them is often called feature-spotting. The explanation is what the analysis marks are for.
- “House” and “home” can name the same building. What do we call the extra ideas and feelings that “home” carries?
Its connotations
HintThe term starts with con-.
WhyAnalysing language usually means asking what a chosen word suggests beyond its plain meaning, and why a near-synonym would not do the same job.
- Can you gain credit for analysing a phrase if you cannot name the technique in it?
Yes: explaining precisely what the words suggest is what matters
HintThe objective says terminology should be used “where appropriate”.
WhyA correct term helps when it makes your point clearer. A clear explanation with no label is better than a label with no explanation.
- What is the difference between writing “the Duke is cruel” and “the writer presents the Duke as cruel”?
The second treats the character as something the writer made, so it points to the writer's choices
HintOne sentence has an extra person in it.
WhyCharacters are not real people. Keeping the writer in your sentences keeps you analysing methods and purposes instead of retelling the story.
- A play, a novel, a sonnet, a dramatic monologue. Are these examples of form or of structure?
Form
HintIt is the kind of text something is.
WhyForm is the type of text and the conventions that come with it. Structure is how the parts of one particular text are ordered and arranged.
- The point in a story or play after which events move in a new direction and cannot go back
The turning point
HintA two-word term; the first word is what a road does at a bend.
WhyAsking where it falls, and why the writer put it there, is one of the most useful structure questions for any text.
- A text ends in the same place, or with the same people, as it began, but something has changed. What is this kind of structure called?
A circular (or cyclical) structure
HintThink of a shape with no beginning or end.
WhyThe return invites the reader to compare the two moments and notice what is different.
- Placing two contrasting characters, scenes or ideas close together so that each shows up the other
Juxtaposition
HintA long word from Latin; its first part means “next to”.
WhyWriters set a generous character beside a mean one, or a calm scene before a violent one, so the contrast does the work.
- An audience sits down to a play labelled a tragedy. What does the form lead them to expect about its central character?
A downfall, usually ending in death
HintIt does not finish happily.
WhyBecause the audience expects the fall, the interest lies in how and why it happens. Knowing a form's conventions lets you comment on what a writer does with them.
- Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter: the verse most of Shakespeare's characters speak
Blank verse
HintThe first word of the term can also mean empty.
WhyIt keeps a regular beat without rhyme, so it can sound close to natural speech while still being verse.
- How many syllables are there in a regular line of iambic pentameter? (number only)
10
HintTap out the beats in a line of Shakespeare's verse on your fingers.
Why“Penta” means five: five iambs, each of two syllables.
- An iamb is a pair of syllables. Which of the two is stressed?
The second
HintSay the word “because” aloud and listen.
WhyThe rhythm is often compared to a heartbeat. When a line breaks the pattern, it is worth asking what the writer wanted to stress.
- In Shakespeare's plays, which kind of character most often speaks in prose: kings and nobles, or servants and comic characters?
Servants and comic characters
HintVerse was the grander way of speaking.
WhyThis is a tendency, not a rule. Nobles also speak prose in letters, in relaxed talk or when their minds are disturbed, and that is when the switch is worth commenting on.
- A short remark that a character makes to the audience or to themselves, which the other characters on stage do not hear
An aside
HintThe term suggests words spoken to one side.
WhyAsides let the audience know what a character really thinks while a scene with others carries on.
- What can a soliloquy tell an audience that dialogue between characters cannot?
What a character privately thinks and feels
HintNobody else is there to be deceived.
WhyBy convention a character alone on stage speaks the truth as they see it, so the audience can compare it with what they say to others.
1★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0027
2★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0028
3★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0029
4★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0030
5★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0031
6★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0032
7★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0033
8★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0034
9★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0035
10★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0036
11★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0037
12★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0038
13★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0039
14★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0040
15★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0041
16★ GCSE-ENLI-ESS-0042
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