How to Revise for Paper 1

Summary Question

- Take a newspaper article and try to take out the key points.
- Get a parent/friend/sibling/hyper-intelligent dog to read an article/speech/piece and give you a topic to search for, you then read the article and just down the key points. Try re-ordering them.
- Practise re-writing articles/paragraphs in your own words and being very concise (i.e. if the article is 500 words - get it down to 250 in your own)

Analysis Question
- Read articles and speeches and see how they interest/persuade people.
- Go on famous websites (BBC bitesize is good) and look how the layout (boxes etc) persuade and interest you.
- Recognise the techniques like hyperbole and simile.
- Watch speeches on youtube and see how many techniques you can spot and explain what they make you feel.
- Look in magazines to see how they emphasise their articles.

Inform Explain Describe
- Ensure you know how to use paragraphs and punctuation.
- Practise describing places and testing these out on others.
- Write to time and then check.

General Poetry Analysis and Revision Tips

General tips for looking at poems

1. What is the poem about?

Try to summarise the main subject of the poem in one or two lines

2. Who is speaking in the poem? To whom?

Is it the poet’s voice speaking in the poem or is the voice of someone else? Who is the poet speaking to? Are they speaking to you? To themselves? Is there another voice in the poem?

3. How does the poem convey its message?

Verses – what can you say about the poem’s appearance? Why has the poet presented it in this way?

Imagery – what are the main images? Which are particularly striking? Are there any comparisons? similes?, metaphors?, personification?

Alliteration/Assonance – how do repeated consonant or vowel sounds affect the sound of the poem?

Rhythm/Rhyme – what effect do the rhymes have? How does the poem move? Does it have a light rhythm, slow rhythm?

Punctuation – what does this tell you about how the poem should be read?

Mood – what is the mood of the poem?

4. Why do you think the poet has written the poem?

How does the poet feel about the reader? Are you being pleaded with, mocked, laughed at, preached to? Is the poem trying to move you, persuade you, entertain you?

5. What is your personal response to the poem?

How did you react to the poem? Did it move you, make you think/feel? Do you think the poem is effective?

Poetry Analysis Phrases

The poem is not anti-war as the second half suggests that young men may gain from the experience – if they face it honestly.
The repetition of the word “few” emphasises exactly how many have been lost in the war and creates a melancholy end to the poem.
Using the phrase “fat civilians” emphasises not only their lack of health but “civilians” implies that they will never fight.
The use of the words “so brave” makes us feel sympathy and pity for the woman as the audience know she is being lied to.
The young men’s innocence is emphasised by comparing their send-off to going to a wedding.
This makes the soldier sound isolated by the use of “a place apart” and almost distances him from the rest of his soldiers.
Describing the boys as “smooth-cheeked and golden” is completely contrasted by “food for shells and guns” which makes the use of the word “golden" seem almost ironic
“And all because his brother had gone west”. The use of the phase “all because” makes the death sound like an everyday occurrence and the euphemism “gone west” adds to this.
The use of the adjective “still” makes the audience realise that the man are dying without cause just as the leaves are falling without a breeze.
The use of “a-happening” makes it sound like the poet is talking to you in a conversational tone, which makes you feel sympathetic towards his feelings.
This line is ironic as it shows how the men never wanted to be soldiers and yet they were promoted because they survived.
The repetition of “row” emphasises just how many soldiers have died in the war which contrasts the growing of the poppies.
Comparing the black thorn flowers to “snow” is almost indicating that the world has turned cold since her lover’s death.
The use of anaphora in the word “perhaps” makes the audience feel that what the poet suggests in the poem will never happen.
The repetition used in the quote emphasises her confidence and reassurance but also that she is unwilling to accept this. The use of “Old” at the beginning of the line highlights the fact that the merchant is unlikely to have any more children and we sympathise with him.
The caesura (pause) after the word “Exposed” highlights the fact that the soldiers don’t stand a chance.
The repetition of “no” highlights that the soldiers were not expecting a battle to be started like this.
There is irony on this line as the solider appears to have lost his faith although previously he spoke about meeting his victim in the afterlife.
The poem remains in a rigid rhyme scheme, perhaps reflecting how the soldiers unwittingly conformed in the end by dying..
Calling the soldiers “seed” indicates that the soldiers who are dying are young.
The capitalisation of “Pride” indicates that Owen felt that the pride of the governments was the blame for the war.

Answering Extract Questions

When answering an extract/reading question you should:

1. Read the question through once and then pause, before underlining the key elements of the question. Then read it through again.
2. Now read the extract/article/poems you have been given with a pen in your hand and holding the question in your head.
3. Every time you react to (or feel like you should be reacting to) something - underline it and note the reaction - even if it's just a smiley face or a sad face.
4. Hopefully by the end of this you have noticed about six-seven things - each of these things are a paragraph you can write about and you now have a plan.
5. For each thing you noticed - start each paragraph by saying what it is or what the writer does:
- Ballard uses graphic description ...
- Miller has Willy speak about ...
- The author of the article then uses ...
- Herbertson appears to say ...
- Owen uses the flowers to ...
- Jim also starts to ...
(if you notice - some of these points don't actually mention a specific technique - you can use the topic instead)
6. The give evidence of that technique
7. You then comment on it (where you explain it's relation to the question

Useful Comment and Analysis Phrases
• This is effective because …
• The use of the word …
• This shows [theme] because …
• The use of [technique] is effective …
• However, unlike in the [story] this is used because …
• The author has used this to …
• Describing [thing] in this way make …
• This makes [thing] sound …
• We sympathise with [character] because …
• The reason for this is …
• From this, we can note that …
• The reader can see from this that …
• The author writes … because …
• Therefore …
• Significantly …
• We can see from this that …
• The writer then moves on to …
• This shows that …
• Following this …
• Then …
• This then means that …

CRISIS LiD

Analysing extracts using the CRISIS LiD method - remember it's not just enough to identify the techniques - you must explain the effect of using them too.

Character - particular things revealed about certain characters (not just the main one)
Rhetorical - Rhetorical questions, repetition, sarcasm, quotation.
Imagery - This includes simple descriptive imagery, metaphor,simile, personification, symbolism (imagery that has particular significance or meaning in the text), motif (recurrent symbols or images that build up a meaning - Willy and the flute, Jim and the American Aircraft)
Speaker - Who is narrating the story, whose perspective are we seeing on the topic?
Irony - The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning
Sounds - rhyme, rhythm, onomatopoeia

Dialogue - what characters says and what they do
i - remember that you are reading this - how are you expected to react?
Language - Literally word choice

Analysing a Media Article