English AS Spring 2024 Sessions:
Unit 1: The examination paper
AS English Literature
Section A- 1 hour- Prose
Section B- 1 hour- Drama
Objectives
Looking at different genres
TASK
The following three extracts are all based on the same subject which is home.
Read the three extracts and consider the ways in which different genres of writing explore the same subject.
You may wish to make notes under the following headings:
Looking at prose
What is PROSE?
What kinds of prose are there?
What might we analyse in a prose text?
What might we analyse in a prose text?
Narrative approaches: Match up activity
1. Third person limited | a. First person, as though the narrator is verbalising their thoughts as they occur. |
2. Third person omniscient | b. A narrative style that imitates the qualities of thoughts and feelings, making the reader feel as it they’re inside someone’s head. The grammar and structure suggest the random and fragmentary nature of thought. In the third person it’s an extreme version of free indirect style. In the first person it’s an extreme version of interior monologue. |
3. Participant Narrator | c. Third person narration in which a character’s thoughts and feelings seem to be directly expressed, freely taking on the views and often the language of that character. Narratives often slide between conventional third person narration and this style, moving from a more detached voice to one that is more intimately connected to one character or another. |
4. Unreliable Narrator | d. In a third person narrative, the character from whose perspective the action is seen. |
5. Self-conscious Narrator | e. A narrative voice that directly addresses the reader as ‘you’. It’s rare for a whole text to do this, as it’s very hard to maintain |
6. Intrusive Narrator | f. A narrator who is assumed to know everything connected with the story narrated- all seeing, all knowing |
7. Multiple voices | g. A narrator who, telling the story in the third person, has a voice which adheres closely to one characters perspective. |
8. First person narrative | h. More than one narrative voice used in a single text. Can be first or third person or a mixture of the two. |
9. Focaliser | i. A narrator who plays a role in the story and is part of the narrative. |
10. Stream of consciousness | j. Reminds the reader that what they are reading is fiction, dispelling any illusion that the characters are real people etc. |
11. Second person address | k. A narrator who is perhaps self-deceiving, or who cannot be trusted to give a version of events that is to be believed. |
12. Interior Monologue | l. A narrator who speaks as ‘I’, often a character who plays a role in the story, although it may not be his or her own story. |
Narrative approaches: Match up answers
1. Third person limited | a. A narrator who, telling the story in the third person, has a voice which adheres closely to one characters perspective. |
2. Third person omniscient | b. A narrator who is assumed to know everything connected with the story narrated- all seeing, all knowing. |
3. Participant Narrator | c. A narrator who speaks as ‘I’, often a character who plays a role in the story, although it may not be his or her own story. |
4. Unreliable Narrator | d. A narrator who plays a role in the story and is part of the narrative. |
5. Self-conscious Narrator | e. A narrative voice that directly addresses the reader as ‘you’. It’s rare for a whole text to do this, as it’s very hard to maintain |
6. Intrusive Narrator
| f. A narrative style that imitates the qualities of thoughts and feelings, making the reader feel as it they’re inside someone’s head. The grammar and structure suggest the random and fragmentary nature of thought. In the third person it’s an extreme version of free indirect style. In the first person it’s an extreme version of interior monologue. |
7. Multiple voices | g. First person, as though the narrator is verbalising their thoughts as they occur. |
8. First person narrative | h. More than one narrative voice used in a single text. Can be first or third person or a mixture of the two. |
9. Focaliser | i. In a third person narrative, the character from whose perspective the action is seen. |
10. Stream of consciousness | j. Reminds the reader that what they are reading is fiction, dispelling any illusion that the characters are real people etc. |
11. Second person address | k. A narrator who is perhaps self-deceiving, or who cannot be trusted to give a version of events that is to be believed. |
12. Interior Monologue
| l. Third person narration in which a character’s thoughts and feelings seem to be directly expressed, freely taking on the views and often the language of that character. Narratives often slide between conventional third person narration and this style, moving from a more detached voice to one that is more intimately connected to one character or another. |
How can we define narrative?�
Why order/select events?��
Chronology
Plot
This manipulation of the timeline occurs more often than it may seem. It is, in fact, the very essence of storytelling. The narrative order of events gives them their narrative meaning.
The nature of narrative...
How well do you know your literary terms?
Narration
Dialogue
Character and characterisation
Settings
Patterns
Handling of time
Control of information
Speech styles
Imagery
Diction
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The surroundings of the novel, including physical locations, cultures and communities, times of the day, night and year, historical periods, and the weather. Not simply picturesque, these are also used to convey ideas about characters, themes and mood.
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The surroundings of the novel, including physical locations, cultures and communities, times of the day, night and year, historical periods, and the weather. Not simply picturesque, these are also used to convey ideas about characters, themes and mood.
SETTING
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Repetitions, contrasts, and pairs. Also motifs – frequently repeated set of images, significant phrases or set descriptions. These serve to draw your attention to key ideas.
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Repetitions, contrasts, and pairs. Also motifs – frequently repeated set of images, significant phrases or set descriptions. These serve to draw your attention to key ideas.
Patterns
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Consider whether the writer presents information in a realistically chronological sequence, or uses devices such as flashbacks and time shifts. This is all part of the novel’s plot.
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Consider whether the writer presents information in a realistically chronological sequence, or uses devices such as flashbacks and time shifts. This is all part of the novel’s plot.
Handling of time
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Using literal or figurative language, and sensory appeal, this makes ideas come to life in our imagination. This can be through simple description, or involve the more complex techniques of metaphor, simile, symbolism and personification.
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Using literal or figurative language, and sensory appeal, this makes ideas come to life in our imagination. This can be through simple description, or involve the more complex techniques of metaphor, simile, symbolism and personification.
Imagery
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Consider whether the speaker’s style is formal or colloquial; if a specific register is used; whether it is in dialect or Standard English; whether it is direct Or indirect; emotional or rational.
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Consider whether the speaker’s style is formal or colloquial; if a specific register is used; whether it is in dialect or Standard English; whether it is direct or indirect; emotional or rational
Speech styles
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The characteristic selection of words used in a work. Can be characterised by referring to semantic fields, e.g. frequent use of religious words, or word classes, e.g. frequent use of active verbs of violence.
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The characteristic selection of words used in a work. Can be characterised by referring to semantic fields, e.g. frequent use of religious words, or word classes, e.g. frequent use of active verbs of violence.
Diction
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How authors tell their stories, including the narrative point of view – 1st person (I) or 3rd person (he/she), single or multiple, omniscient or involved. Also explore the effect of the narrator’s degrees of knowledge, perspective and reliability.
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How authors tell their stories, including the narrative point of view – 1st person (I) or 3rd person (he/she), single or multiple, omniscient or involved. Also explore the effect of the narrator’s degrees of knowledge, perspective and reliability.
Narration
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The first term seems too easy to bother with a definition, but you need to make sure you remember that these figures are fictional devices, not real people. The second term refers to the set of established literary techniques used to create these fictional figures.
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The first term seems too easy to bother with a definition, but you need to make sure you remember that these figures are fictional devices, not real people. The second term refers to the set of established literary techniques used to create these fictional figures.
Character and
Characterisation
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The part of novels written as conversation, as if it were really happening in front of us as readers. Bear in mind that this is a fictional representation of speech, and different novelists use differing degrees of verisimilitude.
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The part of novels written as conversation, as if it were really happening in front of us as readers. Bear in mind that this is a fictional representation of speech, and different novelists use differing degrees of verisimilitude.
Dialogue
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Consider the significance of beginnings and endings, and the way important information is sequenced, withheld and revealed. This is all part of the novel’s plot.
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Consider the significance of beginnings and endings, and the way important information is sequenced, withheld and revealed. This is all part of the novel’s plot.
Control of information
Characterisation
In the table are some of the most commons features used by authors when creating characters.
‘Enduring Love’�Ian McEwan
I’ve already marked my beginning, the explosion of consequences, with the touch of a wine bottle and a shout of distress. But this pinprick is as notional as a point in Euclidean geometry, as though it seems right, I could have proposed the moment Clarissa and I planned to picnic after I had collected her from the airport, or when we decided on our route, or the field in which to have lunch, and the time we chose to have it. There are always antecedent causes.
‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ Mark Haddon
This is a murder mystery novel.
Siobhan said that I should write something I would want to read myself. Mostly I read books about science and maths. I do not like proper novels. In proper novels people say things like, ‘I am veined with iron, with silver and with streaks of common mud. I cannot contract into the firm fist which those clench who do not depend on stimulus.’ What does this mean? I do not know. Not does Father. Nor do Siobhan or Mr Jeavons. I have asked them.
Siobhan has long blonde hair and wears glasses which are made of green plastic. And Mr Jeavons smells of soap and wears brown shoes that have approximately 60 tiny circular holes in each of them.
‘Jane Eyre’�Charlotte Bronte
Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!
Some things to consider and revision tasks…
Feedback from Principal Examiner
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Unit 1
Extract Marking Assessment Grid
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Task: Read through the answer on the following slide.�
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Possible Ideas:
Feedback from Principal Examiner
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Using Introductions
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Secrets play a large part in the novel of Sense and Sensibility and lie at the very heart of all relationships and friendships.
In Sense and Sensibility, Austen uses the lives and loves of her characters; the middle class genteel in order to provide a social commentary to her reader. A clear theme of friendship runs through the novel, however it may be considered that a secret lies at the very heart of each of these friendships.
Secrecy is a key theme in Sense and Sensibility and Austen uses her power of only revealing certain aspects to create suspense and tension in the novel. Her use of secrets also has and affect on the characters which the reader like and dislike.