Creative NEA Friday 2nd February Deadline for Annotation, Original Piece and Commentary – Friday 2nd February Going to spend the today and tomorrow getting this underway!

The Commentary – 500 Words The best commentaries will: Analyse your creative piece in a systematic way Give the examiner a detailed insight into the writing process which you went through in order to create your piece Show consistently insightful awareness of purpose and audience Use accurate language terminology Use short quotations from your text and your style models to illustrate points Analyse examples in detail Draw tentative conclusions about the effects which you achieved and the success of your piece Express ideas in a controlled and accurate way Meet the specified word count (500 words)

Use comparative connectives AO4 – make links and connections between your text and the style model AO3 – explore contexts of each and make links between the two texts (style model and your one) AO2 – Explore sims and diffs in genre AO1 – Analyse language with terminology AO5 – write a coherent and conceptual response Don’t just compare language! Unpick what makes it a story / mono. EVERY AO!!! Do some layered language analysis Write a developed and ordered response

You must draw consistent links between your model and your own writing You must draw consistent links between your model and your own writing. You will not be able to comment on everything, like the exam you must pick the most interesting and perceptive areas to focus on. This will involve planning!! There is a helpful sheet of questions to help you get started!

Your Introduction. Should be beautiful and conceptual. You should comment on genre, form and style. Explain where your idea came from and where the finished piece might appear e.g. a column in a broadsheet newspaper, or within a collection of short stories. Define the purpose(s) of your piece and the target audience(s) as precisely as you can. Think about: age, gender, educational level, level of expertise.

Your introduction…. Make some broad and conceptual comment about your genre and form (just a few sentences) The power of story telling has, since the development of the written word, been entertaining, engaging, and challenging readers. Short stories have the capacity to.. and WRITER is of no exception. Best known for her ability to….WRITER…. encapsulates…. Explain what your base text is and your reasons for choosing it might include some reference to: its context – audience/purpose the events ideas or themes characterisation style attitudes and values

Here are some ideas to get you started: Main body of analysis: Explain the language choices which you made in order to achieve your purpose and appeal to your target audience. Be systematic in your approach. Give at least three specific examples, quoting and analysing from your own work and making reference to your style model. Say why you made these choices and explain the effects which you were aiming to create. Keep linking your analysis to contextual factors e.g. When you selected register did you consider the needs of your target audience? How did the use of proper nouns help you to achieve your informative purpose? When you used a semantic field how did this help to make the text entertaining? Here are some ideas to get you started: Discourse structure: e.g. beginning and ending, progression, cohesive devices etc. Lexis: e.g. emotive, persuasive, figurative, hyperbolic. What type of register did you want to create? Grammar: e.g. sentence types, sentence structures, use of pronouns, verbs, pre-modification Semantics: e.g. connotations intended by word choice, semantic field Graphology: what graphological features did you use and how were you influenced by your style model? - be brief

Area 1 Purpose / Attitudes and values / production and reception: Is your purpose the same / different as that of your style model? Why? How you utilised / subverted the attitudes present in the style model? Why? Are your audiences the same / different? Why? What interested you in this area? Then, analyse linguistic techniques that are present in both that helped you do this

Area two could be… Structure: What is typical of the structure in your chosen form / genre? Identify and analyse what the structure is in your style model How have you used this in your piece? Then, analyse structural techniques that are present in both

Structural device / feature Zoom in on something big to small   Shift between time and place Sudden/gradual introduction of new characters at significant points. Moving from inside to wider outside world and (vice versa) Combining external actions with internal thoughts Switching viewpoints Developing and reiterating: focussing on a point of view by expanding and repeating it Circular structure Positioning of key sentences and their impact on the whole text. (Use the term key sentence) Moving from description to dialogue and (vice versa). Look at the writing does it look like it’s spilt up in sections? How the writers’ ideas have been developed – is there a shift? Remember, structure does not mean paragraph / line length!

Area three could be… - Conduct a linguistic analysis of the new text, commenting on: Making links between the grammatical choices relevant Making links between the lexical choices relevant Making links between the syntactical choices relevant Showing accurate use of terminology Offering a layered analysis Version 1.0 Copyright © 2008 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved.

Conclusion Comment on any revisions and redrafts relevant to your new text A sense of where the story would go if it’s deliberately ‘unfinished’ Provide a conclusion – some evaluation / assessment of the success?

Let’s have a look at some….. You have four extracts from commentaries written by four different students. The quality of these ranges from a B to a D grade. Rank them in order, from best to worst, explaining the strengths and weaknesses of each one.

Answers…. The weakest is B. Linguistic features are identified (colloquialisms and imperatives) but student fails to provide examples from own text to support points made A is slightly better. Identifies some linguistic features (adjectives, person, register and grammar) but there’s no analysis of effects created. Comment on minor sentences is not detailed enough! C is slightly stronger as it indicates knowledge of some sophisticated linguistic concepts. Examples of a few linguistic features (register, discourse structure, humour) provided but no clear explanation to show knowledge, e.g. reference to cataphora isn’t fully explained or exemplified and an example of humour would have been beneficial. D is clearly the strongest. Linguistic features are identified with accurate examples. However, still lacks full analysis, e.g. of the effect achieved by the words taken from lexical field of charities. Could also have provided deeper consideration of the nature of the engagement hoped for with the rhetorical question.

To begin….. Read through your coursework that you have written so far and look for examples of language choices you would like to discuss in your commentary. For each one you note down, make notes on whether you have followed or deviated away from the style model Also make note of any changes you have made in the drafting process Consider how you have met the needs of Genre, Audience and Purpose HAVE A READ OF THE EXAMPLE – How can you emulate this?