ANSWERING ON ANALYSIS Year 11

ANALYSIS  Learning Objectives  To understand how we analyse effectively.  To investigate a text in an analytical way.

STARTER  Return Descriptive Writing  Take a note of the mark AND, more importantly, the Target Focus.  Be sure you understand what I have told you.

THE EXAMPLE  As she rounded the next bend, thinking about these things, she saw a startlingly large, black feline cross the road with an unhurried, sinuous, fluid movement. Its thick, sinewy shoulders suggested massive strength and speed, like that of engine pistons. As it passed, it turned to stare at her and its great, yellow, black-slitted orbs were caught in the headlights. She noticed its pricked, tufted ears and its short, coarse, raven-black coat before it turned, raising and waving its curved snake of a tail as if making a victory salute. The spectral vision dissolved into the bushes, leaving her with a thumping heart and the feeling that she had witnessed a supernatural manifestation.

WRITING OUR ANSWERS  Begin with a straightforward point that you will continually refer back to:  The descriptions of the beast create a sense of fear, power and threat.  This allows you to focus all your analysis. You now know what you are trying to do.

WOOLLY AND VAGUE  Frustrating answers are:  This image helps to place a very clear picture in our minds.  The use of this word is very powerful and really gets the writer’s point across.  The writer uses this image to show just what it was the writer was seeing.

THE PROCESS  You need to show your working and you must (MUST) explain the effect in clear and analytical terms.  Imagery  Just as…so…This image shows  Word choice  Connotations…This helps us see that…

EXEMPLAR ANSWERS  The writer uses “large, black feline” to describe the beast. The word “large” has connotations of size and also danger when combined with “black” which has connotations of darkness and evil. This suggests the beast is scary and potentially threatening.  He also uses the simile of “like that of engine pistons”. Just as engine pistons drive a machine in a powerful and rhythmic manner so the beast moves in a way that is very strong and powerful but also smooth. This shows just how dangerous and potentially strong the beast is.

EXEMPLAR ANSWERS  The metaphor of “curved snake of a tail” is used. Just as a snake uncoils to attack and is often associated with evil so the tail of the snake is uncoiling and looking large to the writer, whilst seeming like the embodiment of evil. This image helps us see that even the tail was enough to freak the writer out.  Finally the word choice of “spectral vision” has connotations of ghosts and something beyond the real world. This only serves to highlight how scary the animal is that it doesn’t seem part of our world.

PARAGRAPH 2  A little further along she took a turning with a handwritten sign pointing to ‘Gables Farm’. She had to leave the car and cross a rickety, rotting footbridge over a rushing stream. Another battered sign, nailed to a tree, bore the ominous words, ambiguously addressed: ‘Wild Big Cats – Keep Out’. A shiny, weather-beaten man with tremendous whiskers and a crusty hat the colour of an over-cooked pie appeared at the farm gate, carrying a rifle. When she explained she was lost and had just had an unnerving experience, he took her into his kitchen and sat her down at a stained oak table while he made tea and talked about the beast.

PROCESS  Set yourself a clear framework to analyse in with one introductory sentence:  The impression is that the farmer is poor and the world he lives in is falling apart.  Look for imagery and word choice now!

EXEMPLAR ANSWER  The word “rotting” has connotations of decay and death which suggests that the farm itself is beginning to die because of the influence of the beast. The farmer can’t keep his farm up-to- date.  The word “ominous” has connotations of threat and potential danger. The sign is a reminder to us of the dangerous world the farmer has to cope with.

EXEMPLAR ANSWER  The phrase “weather-beaten” highlights to us that the farmer must have lived outdoors for most of his life to be so affected by the weather. The word “beaten” is important as it has connotations of defeat and ruin, which reflects how badly the beast has affected his way of life.  The description of the table as “stained oak” is important as “stained” has connotations of dirty and old. This would suggest the farmer cannot afford a replacement and is, therefore, quite poor.

YOUR TURN  On the following slide, I will show you an extract from Mr Charles Dickens.  I want you to choose four examples to discuss.  Have a clear opening sentence and then follow the process we have been discussing.

COKETOWN  It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled.

Coketown is presented as an unpleasant and polluted place.  Dickens uses the simile “like the painted face of a savage” to describe the colour of the bricks. A “savage” in Dickens’ day would have been a person of African origin and therefore have black skin. If they were “painted” then they would be wearing red war paint to scare people. We, therefore, understand that it is a scary and dark place that sounds unwelcoming just from the colours of the bricks.

COKETOWN  It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of buildings full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam- engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.

PLENARY  Test your partner on what they have learned today – think process and what is required of a good analysis answer.  Give them a piece of chocolate…if they deserve it.  I will trust your judgment.

TOMORROW’S DROP-IN  I will have materials ready for analysis as this is what we have been building on today.  If you have a particular problem with another aspect then please tell me so I can focus on that on Sunday.

HOMEWORK  Directed Writing – read the text provided on the VLE and then CREATE A PLAN, picking out the key parts of the text you would need to focus on.