Year 11 Analysing Texts

Learning Objectives To develop a vocabulary for analyzing language To appreciate how a writer creates effects to influence the reader

Starter Explain to me how the following image is effective: “Yaya Toure is a tank on the football pitch.”

Analysing imagery Start with the literal root. In other words, what is a tank? Dictionary definition - an enclosed heavily armed and armored combat vehicle that moves on tracks. This doesn’t help us much. What we think of as a tank – a powerful and destructive machine that can run over cars and shoot powerful ammunition. This is more like it.

Analysing Imagery So how is this “powerful and destructive machine that can run over cars and shoot powerful ammunition” similar to Yaya Toure. Well… Just as a tank is a powerful and destructive machine that can run over cars and shoot powerful ammunition, So Yaya Toure is a very strong and dynamic footballer who can run past and through a defence easily and hit very powerful shots. It is an effective image because it shows us just how impressive a footballer Toure is.

Now it is your turn Remembering to start with the literal root, explain to me how this image is effective (using the formula given): “Her face blossomed when she caught a glance of him.”

Image Analysed Just as a flower opens from a bud to full bloom and looks so much more beautiful and colourful when it does so, So the girl’s face seemed to open up as she smiled and she looked so much more beautiful and happy when she saw him. This image shows just how overjoyed she was to see him.

Word Choice Analysed Authors use words for very particular purposes. They will most likely have 120,000 words in their vocabulary so they choose carefully to achieve the correct effects. For example, these three words all mean THIN. Skinny Scrawny Slender But they all have different connotations/shades of meaning.

Word Choice Skinny has connotations of thin and without much shape. Scrawny has connotations of weak and puny Slender has connotations of attractive and well-formed. But they all mean thin! Our job as analysts is to be able to point out the connotations and why they are used.

Sentence structure The teacher droned on and on and on and on. The repetition here is used for what purpose? I am guessing you said to emphasise. But to emphasise what? The repetition of “on” emphasises how the teacher seemed to never stop talking and just how boring this was. Little word choice pop quiz: why “droned”?

Sentence Structure Aspects of sentence structure always do the same thing: Repetition emphasises Parenthesis adds in additional information Lists show a wide variety/large number of… Colons introduce

Sentence Structure (contd) Semi-colons separate Alliteration emphasises a particular sound Short sentences make an abrupt and dramatic point Rhetorical questions do not require an answer BUT Why does a writer use each one at each particular time – what is he emphasising? Why does this sound help him? What dramatic point is he making? Always be precise.

Practice Now, I am going to show you a paragraph and the techniques are picked out for you so all you need do is analyse them. Use the formulas we have discussed… But be sure to write in full sentences with clear point made in each. Do not forget to be specific – for example don’t think telling me that parenthesis is used and that adds some extra information is enough. What is that extra information and why is it important to helping the writer achieve an effect?

Example 1 In a world changing faster now than ever before, the dispossessed and the ambitious are flooding into cities swollen out of all recognition. Poor cities are struggling to cope. Rich cities are reconfiguring themselves at breakneck speed. China has created an industrial powerhouse from what were fishing villages in the 1970s. Lagos and Dhaka attract a thousand new arrivals every day. In Britain, central London’s population has started to grow again after 50 years of decline.

Example 2 Having invented the modern city, 19th century Britain promptly reeled back in horror at what it had done. To the Victorians exploring the cholera-ridden back alleys of London’s East End, the city was a hideous tumour sucking the life out of the countryside and creating in its place a vast polluted landscape of squalor, disease and crime. In their eyes, the city was a place to be feared, controlled and, if possible, eliminated.

Example 3 – without the assistance This is a city with pull, buzz, excitement, and a sense of style and its own importance. It has a potent international reach and influence. Glasgow’s story continually weaves in and out of a global urban tapestry: following the trade threads of Empire, there are nearly two dozen towns and cities around the world named after Glasgow—from Jamaica to Montana to Nova Scotia. And there is even a Glasgow on the moon.

Plenary Look at the speeches you wrote last week and analyse a couple of examples of your own writing which is intended to achieve effects.

Homework Create an interesting How To Answer Paper 2 Question 2 Guide. It should be one piece of A4 paper and contain all the important information discussed today. This Powerpoint will be on the VLE by the end of the day to offer assistance.