Edusites Exercises in GCSE English Language Reading Skills for developing appropriate subject terminology.
Methodology
- What is NOT wanted is for candidates to have list of rhetorical devices committed to memory (often by the use of a variety of mnenomics: ‘aforest’ for instance), which can often lead to a distorted or partial view of task and text.
- What IS required is a sensitive account of the way the language works to establish/embody/ clarify/ reinforce/ emphasise/ echo /support (etc. etc.) the writer’s themes, ideas, intentions and feelings.
In other words you have to establish and understand WHAT the passage is saying before you can go on and talk about HOW it says it.
The standard AO2 question might be worded: ‘In which ways does the writer use language and structure to convince you of their views on cycling?
Support your ideas by referring to the text, using relevant subject terminology.
- To say that Janet Street Porter here uses assertion, assonance, alliteration, hyperbole, exaggeration, repetition, contrasting syntax paralleling and personal opinion to name a range of relevant subject terminologies, is to score few, if any marks at all.
- Or that Christian Wolmar uses the rule of three, parallel clauses, one sentence paragraphs, repetition, statistical endorsement, global comparison and internal contrast equally so.
What is required is for candidates…
