Close Reading Round-up

In the close reading section of the higher exam paper, you will be given a piece of writing you will not have seen before and asked to answer a set of questions.

Understanding (U) Questions

U questions ask you to find out a piece of information from a particular paragraph or line. It may ask you to interpret what the author has said; suggest why they had said it or put it into your own words.

Context

Decide on the meaning of 'in terrorem' by the words before it:

Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old .44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem.

The narrator is going to kill the elephant but his gun is too small. If the noise might be useful ‘in terrorem’ means ‘to scare’.

Link

'Show how the underlined sentence acts as a link between paragraph 1 and paragraph 2.'

George Orwell said that sport was 'war minus the shooting' - presumably before shooting became an Olympic event. Orwell's famous phrase captures well the passion and hatred that animates the great football rivalries - Rangers and Celtic, Barcelona and Real Madrid, Liverpool and Manchester United. Remove the hostility between these rivals and the sporting contest is diminished.

For this reason, Spurs fans were not only justified but duty-bound to give Sol Campbell a torrid reception on his return to White Hart Lane in enemy colours. Supporters held up balloons and posters bearing the word 'Judas', booed Campbell's every touch, and pelted Arsenal's team bus with beer cans and bottles.

‘Enemy colours’ refers to paragraph one, which is about people treating sports like a ‘war’. ‘torrid reception’ refers to paragraph two, which is about Sol Campbell returning to White Hart Lane. The phrase ‘For this reason’ shows that the second paragraph will continue the subject of the first, about fanatical football supporters.

Analysis (A) Questions

A questions ask you about the author’s style or techniques, including:

1. Word choice
2. Figures of speech – imagery or sound
3. Sentence Structure

Word Choice

Quote words from the text and explain their connotations; show how they might affect the reader.

The tone of a passage comes from the emotion created by the words. If a paragraph contains the words ‘sunny’, ‘beach’ and ‘laughter’ it will probably have a happy tone. Try entering these words on a Google search and you may get:

From Sunny Beach, it is a forty-minute cruise by boat to the deserted bay beach of Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday. The two castaways can be found there, welcoming. Games are held on land and in the water throughout the day, with a free show for children and adults. Expect plenty of laughter and ice-cream.

Explain how the word choice creates the tone of this passage:

Sunny Beach was a place where fun and laughter felt out of place. We felt as if we had turned up too early for the party – or too late. For half a year the intended function of Sunny Beach is temporarily out of use.

The expressions ‘out of place’, ‘too late’ and ‘out of use’ are associated with failure and age, and create a tone of bitterness or sadness.

Sentence structure

'Show how the author’s use of punctuation; parenthesis; long and short sentences; and list / repetition / climax enable them to get a point across.'

To answer a sentence structure question, explain what the author’s choice of structure emphasises, suggests or implies.

Comment on the following sentence structure:

‘He doesn’t know what to do. He looks around. He’s been seen!’

1. The writer uses repetition of the word ‘He’ at the start of each sentence.
2. Each sentence is short as it describes the person’s thoughts and actions. This suggests the person is worried and thinking quickly.

Types of sentences

A sentence can be simple: ‘The boy kicks a ball’

Or complex: ‘The boy kicks the ball, runs across the pitch, passes, trips, gets back up, charges forward, intercepts, dummies … scores!’

…this example contains a list…

A complex sentence often contains a list, repetition or a climax: ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’.

A sentence may be incomplete: ‘That damn boy!’

Or contain a parenthesis: ‘The boy (Sid, I think) kicks the ball’ – this adds extra information.

Or use inversion: ‘The ball was kicked by the boy’.

You can gain marks by describing how the punctuation works: this sentence has been split up into two halves using a colon.

Imagery

An image can be a simile, a metaphor or personification. In each case, something is being compared to something else.

‘He was a tiger in battle’
‘It was as cold as a polar bear’s nose’

When answering questions about imagery:

1. What picture does the image create in your mind?
2. Does the writer think the thing being described is good or bad?
   

Is it kind or unkind to compare someone to a tiger? Or both?

Is the writer trying to make you admire something, feel pity towards it, hate it, fear it, laugh at it?

Explain how the following image is effective:

‘The dwarf with his hands on backwards
Sat slumped like a half-filler sack’

The writer uses a metaphor to describe the dwarf’s hands: ‘hands on backwards’. This suggests the dwarf is deformed and makes me feel pity towards him.

Or …

A simile is used to describe how the dwarf is sitting: ‘like a half-filled sack’. This shows he could not sit properly.

And …

It also suggests he felt sad. The associations of a ‘half-filled sack’ are of something missing, because a sack which is not full might have had something taken from it.


Words to describe tone

You will almost certainly be asked to identify a writer's tone in an expression from the passage. At least half the time, the answer is 'ironic'.

ironic – when the writer means the opposite of what they say
tongue-in-cheek – when irony is used for humour
satirical – when a writer uses irony and sometimes humour to attack or ridicule something
argumentative – when the writer is making a serious point
flippant – when the writer is dismissive or disrespectful of a subject or thing
effusive – enthusiastic or excited

Sound

The two common sound effects used by writers are:

Onomatopoeia: pop, bang, crash etc

Alliteration: the best buy in beer.

Revision

Think you understand? Try:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/bitesize/higher/english/index.shtml

for some useful interactive quizzes th

How To Revise For An English Exam

The Standard Grade, Intermediate and Higher exams are coming up, and the Easter holidays are about to start. Fun fun fun! As a tutor I get quite a lot of calls in this period. Some pupils and parents want a bit of extra help just to make sure they get an English pass, and some are genuinely struggling.

English tutors

You will probably find that most tutors are too busy to take on new pupils at the moment, but you can also check at your local schools and colleges for supported study, especially during the Easter holidays.

Revise for close reading

Some say you can't revise for English, but this isn't true. Make sure you own a copy of the past papers for the exam you are about to take. You will cover most of them in class, but it's worth doing any which are left over. If you have missed any marks, go back and check the answers to find out what you did wrong.

If you've run out of past papers to do, invest in a book. Waterstones and Borders both have some good books including 'Close Reading' by Mary Firth and 'Higher English Revision Notes' by Larry Flanaghan.

Revise for your Standard Grade writing paper

If you're sitting Standard Grade, take a look at the past papers. The most common exam essays will ask you to write one of the following -

• a short story
• an essay on an important issue, such as abortion or capital punishment
• an essay on your favourite hobby or sport, or an ambition you have
• a special memory, including a holiday

The first two options are the hardest. Short stories need to have a twist at the end and are marked very strictly. For the essay on an important issue, you can't be sure that they will ask you a question on capital punishment. You might be asked an unusual essay question such as, is the internet harmful for young people? It's not easy to come up with an essay idea and write it in 1 hour 15 minutes, so it's better to write about yourself and your personal experiences.

The last two types of essay are easier. You can practice writing an essay on a personal experience, a sport or a hobby. When you have written a few examples, show them to your class teacher or email them to me and I can let you know what I think. I'm always nosey about what people are planning to write for their English exam.

Revise for your Higher or Intermediate essay paper

Go over the questions for previous years and see what they have asked. By now you will have completed a couple of essays in class. Now see if you can use your notes and quotes to answer a different exam question. If you have written an essay about the character of Romeo, try writing a question about the theme of love and violence, or an essay about a key scene.

Again, email me and I can give you some advice on the essay you're planning to write in your exam.

Revise online

Visit the Scottish Qualifications Authority site to download past papers:

http://www.sqa.org.uk

BBC Bitesize will give you practice questions and answers with detailed help and advice:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/bitesize/standard/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/learning/bitesize/higher/

National Qualifications online has many free resources for exams:

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/nq/

Look for a tutor at:

http://www.aplustutors.co.uk/

An Inspector Calls Essay

‘An Inspector Calls’ by J.B Priestley is a play which tackles the theme of social responsibility. This theme is important to our generation in the sense that most of us don’t want to take any responsibility when they are wrong. Priestley shows that it is only the younger generation who are able to take the responsibility of Eva’s death and this is shown towards the end of the play.

The setting is one of the ways in which Priestly introduces this theme. It is set in the past before the First World War. It is about a family who all play a part in a girl committing suicide, although they are unaware that they played any part in the girl’s death. He effectively shows us that throughout the play the characters start to change their personalities. Birling & Sheila are very much the opposite of each other in their attitudes towards this girl’s death. Inspector Goole comes to question the family about the part each member played in the girl’s death. Sheila feels that she is responsible for this but she and Eric seem to be the only members of the family who are able to take responsibility as Birling is too concerned about his reputation. In the end we find out that all members of the family had a part to play in the girl’s death and each member has a different reaction to this. Inspector Goole came in to question the family and knew what he was talking about, he knew somehow that each member of the Birling family had a part to play.

At the start of the play Sheila is shown to be happy as she is celebrating her engagement. Priestley skilfully shows that the theme in the early parts of the play is about social responsibility.:

“ … a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited.”

He shows that she is looking forward to the future with her engagement. However, over the course of the play, Goole’s questioning reveal the suffering of those who work for her father. Sheila is happy because she comes from a wealthy family.

However, Sheila’s sense of well being is shattered by the arrival of Goole. Her reaction to his questioning her telling. This is the point in the play where the theme of social responsibility really is shown. Sheila is shown to be jealous and vindictive by lying and getting Eva sacked for no reason. She realises that she did have a part o play in the many reasons why Eva Smith
committed suicide:

“If I could help her now, I would.”

By using ‘if’ Priestley shows that Sheila knows she was in the wrong and wishes that she hadn’t done what she did. Sheila clearly abused her power as she came from a rich family which was well-known in the area, but she does accept that she was partly responsible for this girl’s death and realises that she has a part to play in other peoples lives. If she does something out of spite there can be consequences for those people she hardly knows.

Again Sheila knows that she had a massive part to play in Eva’s death. She also recognizes that her father ‘Mr Birling’ had a massive part to play. He owns a successful business and Eva Smith worked there. The woman went on strike as they felt they weren’t getting paid enough money for doing a good job. Sheila feels her dad should take responsibility aswell as her as he decided that he wasn’t going to give the woman a pay rise, he decided to just sack Eva instead. Sheila was appalled at her father’s treatment of the workers and in particular Eva Smith. The playwright uses sentence structure to show effectively what Sheila feels of her dads decision; she is shown again to have a change in personality as she thinks these girls should have been treated better:

“But these girl’s aren’t cheap labour – they’re people.”

Priestley shows the change in Sheila again. She was a happy girl at the start of the evening now she is really feeling her family are responsible for Eva’s death and thinks that her father should stand up and take some of the responsibility, but he’s isn’t capable of doing this. He is selfish and doesn’t see anything wrong with what he has done. Sheila is ashamed to hear what her father did to this girl.

In contrast to Sheila, Mr Birling is pompous and self-centred. Mr Birling only wants one thing and that is for him to be knighted by the Queen. He feels any involvement in such a tragic thing would threaten his chances of getting a knighthood. He is unconcerned about how he treats his workers and only seems to care about himself. He thinks that he is better than others because he owns the company. He wants to get higher in life and get respected for his work. He thinks he’s the ‘man’ but he isn’t and Priestley shows this when he describes his reaction to being accused of having some responsibility in the girl’s death:

“Haven’t I already said there’ll be a public scandal … and who here will suffer from that more than I will?”

Here Priestley shows Birling to be pompous and to be a man who only cares about himself and no-one else. Clearly Birling doesn’t want any responsibility to fall on him as it will maybe threaten his chances of a knighthood. He doesn’t want anybody to know that he had a part to play. Priestley uses sentence structure and word choice here to show Birling’s selfishness. ‘I’ shows he is only thinking about himself not even the family. He wasn’t thinking of anyone else people like Eva Smith when he played a selfish part in her death. He is unable to take responsibility and by only talking about himself Priestley shows us this effectively.

Despite Birling not taking any responsibility Sheila knows her father is in the wrong; and when Inspector Goole leaves the house Sheila shows that she wants the whole family to take some responsibility; she knows they are all in the wrong. But most of all the fact that it was herself and her father that were mostly responsible for Eva being sacked from both jobs; and all other events that lead on from that. Sheila’s reaction has changed over the course of the play and it just shows the difference between her and her father as they were the same at the start but now it’s only the younger generation of the family who wants to take responsibility. Sheila’s personality changed through the play and this is a good use of characterisation to show her change and to show how she feels about the family’s unwillingness to accept responsibility.

I would therefore argue that this is an important play for my generation because it shows that you can take responsibility even when the older generation refuse to. At the end of Act 2 she says to her family:

“Between us we drove that girl to commit suicide.”

This shows that her character is strong enough to deal with this but Birling and the older generation are unable to accept that they are partly responsible. Unlike her father she now knows the consequences of her actions and will now think of others before speaking or doing anything that affects others. Priestley uses characterisation to show that Sheila is able to take some of the responsibility unlike her father but shows that her character is strong enough to get over it and move on. She didn’t literally kill Eva Smith but her actions put her well on Eva way to killing herself.

The play has an ironic ending in that the audience learns that there is no Inspector Goole on the police force. They also learn that ‘Eva Smith’ may not have been one girl but five different girls that each member of the family mistreated in a different way, it shows that each girl was treated disgracefully by the powerful and irresponsible Birlings.

In conclusion, in ‘An Inspector Calls’ by J.B Priestley, the playwright shows that Sheila and Eric are the only members of the family which take responsibility which shows that the younger generation are willing to accept responsibility unlike the older generation who are not. Sheila is the most admirable character in the play and Priestley shows us that her character is the strongest of all five. She shows jealousy to get Eva fired but she knows that she was wrong to do what she did. Birling on the other hand knows he did wrong but doesn’t want to admit it; he just cares about himself and his reputation. He wants a knighthood and will do whatever it takes to be recognized in the business world. This is a very effective play as it encourages the reader to get involved, become on of the characters and take the same responsibility. The theme concerned is important to our generation as it looks at taking responsibility, something that not a lot of people do in the present day. Most of us nowadays will try to put the blame on others; but this play shows that we should all take responsibility for our own actions.