1. Aspects of Narrative: Intro. (1)
How many ways are there to answer the question, “What is the story about?”
What is narrative?
What are the elements or “building blocks” of narrative?

2. Aspects of Narrative: The Building Blocks
Time
Place
(Setting: time + place)
Voice
Character
“Destination” (so what?)

3. Section A, first question: How is the story told in… ?

4. Hempel tells her story through the manipulation of time and its relationship to place. The story opens with a reference to “the way people decorate graves in October across from my house,” and to the decoration of the graves in “December.” However, it is never made clear when the main events in the story take place. This sense of temporal dislocation mirrors the ghostliness of the graveyard setting.

5. The Great Gatsby

6. How does Fitzgerald tell the story in the “prologue” of chapter 1?
Based on the exemplar material, what is the best way of approaching the “how is the story told question”?

7. Identify primary purpose(s) of section/chapter in relation to text as a whole (structure/form)
Are there any “secondary” functions of the chapter/section?
Comment on significant methods/devices, giving specific examples of their use, and offering brief, focussed interpretative comments.
Cluster techniques/methods together, rather than working through the section from start to finish.

8. The significance of the opening of chapter one is, primarily, that it establishes Nick as a narrator and as a central character in his own story. Gatsby is also raised as a mysterious figure and the possible object of Nick’s obsessions. Fitzgerald tells the story in this section through the use of self-referentiality/alienation/defamiliarization: Fitzgerald has Nick write that Gatsby is “the man who gives his name to this book”; in doing so, Fitzgerald draws attention to the fact that what we are reading is a story; he reminds us of the fallible nature of both story-tellers and story-telling. This is important for what comes later, as truth and honesty are key themes in the novel. (Approx. 110 words)

9. Specific quotes and references Detailed comments on:
Meanings/significance of words
Browning’s choice of techniques/methods
Use technical vocabulary:
Metaphor/simile
Imagery
Symbol/motif

10. She rode with round the terrace---all and each 30) Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,---good! but thanked Somehow---I know not how---as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame 35) This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech---(which I have not)---to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, ``Just this ``Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, ``Or there exceed the mark''---and if she let 40) Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, ---E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without 45) Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence 50) Is ample warrant that no just pretence Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, 55) Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! 
1) That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fr Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 5) Will't please you sit and look at her? I said ``Fr Pandolf'' by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by 10) The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not Her husband's presence only, called that spot 15) Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say ``Her mantle laps ``Over my lady's wrist too much,'' or ``Paint ``Must never hope to reproduce the faint ``Half-flush that dies along her throat:'' such stuff 20) Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart---how shall I say?---too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.  25) Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

11. 216 words
Browning tells his story through the use of autodiegetic narration, and it is through the voice of the Duke that we learn about the characters in the poem. The Duke himself is a highly possessive man: Browning calls his poem “My Last Duchess,” and this phrase appears in the poem’s first line – “That’s my last Duchess on the wall”. The use of the personal possessive pronoun – which occurs throughout the poem – indicates just how possessive the Duke himself is; the fact that “my last Duchess” refers to a painting further suggests the extent to which the eponymous Duchess is quite literally, in the Duke’s eyes, nothing but an object or valuable possession. Through the Duke’s speech, Browning tells us that his speaker is motivated by wealth and status: the Duke draws attention to the name of the painter – “Fra Pandolph” – and tells the emissary that he has said this “by design” – that is, he says it deliberately, in order to impress the emissary with the painter’s fame. “Design” is also an early indication of just how calculating and controlling the Duke can be; it suggests that nothing the Duke says is spontaneous or unplanned, despite appearances to the contrary (such as when the Duke utters “how shall I say,” as if he is pausing for thought).

12. Browning tells his story through the use of autodiegetic narration, and it is through the voice of the Duke that we learn about the characters in the poem [links to building blocks]. The Duke himself is a highly possessive man: Browning calls his poem “My Last Duchess,” and this phrase appears in the poem’s first line – “That’s my last Duchess on the wall”. The use of the personal possessive pronoun [focus on words/phrases – AO2] – which occurs throughout the poem – indicates just how possessive the Duke himself is; the fact that “my last Duchess” refers to a painting further suggests the extent to which the eponymous Duchess is quite literally, in the Duke’s eyes, nothing but an object or valuable possession [Some development, but focus still on language – AO2]. Through the Duke’s speech [still focussed on voice/character], Browning tells us that his speaker is motivated by wealth and status: the Duke draws attention to the name of the painter – “Fra Pandolph” – and tells the emissary that he has said this “by design” – that is, he says it deliberately, in order to impress the emissary with the painter’s fame [still tightly focussed on language/meaning – AO2]. “Design” is also an early indication of just how calculating and controlling the Duke can be; it suggests that nothing the Duke says is spontaneous or unplanned, despite appearances to the contrary (such as when the Duke utters “how shall I say,” as if he is pausing for thought) [tight focus on language – AO2]
Also:
regular exemplification/brief quotation;
references to Browning as author (q. is how does Browning tell the story?”

13. How does Browning tell the story in…
“The Patriot”?
“My Last Duchess”?
“Porphyria’s Lover”?
“The Laboratory”?

14. Specific quotes and references Detailed comments on:
Meanings/significance of words
Fitzgerald’s choice of techniques/methods
Use technical vocabulary:
Metaphor/simile
Imagery
Symbol/motif

15. Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

16. Gaps
The text begins in media res [in the middle of things]

17. The first “gap” which the reader encounters is the missing backstory of the man and the boy. McCarthy’s text begins in media res with the following sentence: “When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out and touch the child sleeping beside him.” The contraction “he’d” suggests that this is something the man routinely does; this indicates familiarity or closeness between the man and the boy (the man reaches out, suggesting his care and concern for the boy), and so immediately the reader wants to know what their relationship is, and what their history together might be. McCarthy increases the urgency of such questions just a few pages later, when, while the gap of the man and boy’s past has yet to be filled, the reader is told that “each [was] the other’s world entire.” Here, it is made clear that the man and the boy are each the only thing or person that gives the other’s life meaning; yet we still do not how or why they have come to be in their present situation. In fact, we do not yet know with certainty that the characters are father and son – another early gap in the narrative – as McCarthy refers to them only as “the man” and “the boy,” and the boy has yet to refer to the man as “papa.”