The document provides guidance for analyzing different elements of a text in order to structure exam questions. It outlines key areas to examine, including overview and context, structure and form, narrative stance, grammar and syntax, word choice and imagery, sound patterns, and punctuation. Examples of terminology are given for each area. The document encourages comparing features of two texts and writing a paragraph analyzing how the features are used in each.

1. LL1 EXAM
PREPARATION
L.O: To examine different approaches to
structuring exam questions.

2. WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR ANSWER
 overview (Content/Context)
 structure and form
 narrative stance
 grammar/ sentence structure
 lexis and imagery
 Phonology and sound patterning
 Orthography and punctuation
Ideally you would write a paragraph comparing
the texts use of features in each area.

3. OVERVIEW (CONTENT/CONTEXT)
 CONTENT; What are the texts about?
 CONTEXT; When were the texts written? How
has this had an effect on their content?
 ATTITUDES; Does the writer have a particular
attitude to the subject they are writing about?
 PURPOSE; Does the writer have a particular
reason for writing this piece?
 TONE; What is the overall tone of the texts?
 THEMES; What are the overall themes of the
text? How are the poems linked?

4. STRUCTURE AND FORM
 Structure and Form
 Terminology to use:
 Genre, dialogue,
 verse type e.g. sonnet
(Petrarchan/Shakespearean), ballad, lyric, free
verse, epistolary form, prose/verse
 Order of content; development of
ideas/argument, chronology, juxtaposition of
content, chapters, flashback, stanza structure (couplet;
quatrain, sestet, octave, enjambment, caesura, volta) rhyme
scheme, metre, scansion, enjambment, turn-
taking, pausing, non-fluency, overlapping, latching.
 Questions to ask:
 What type of poem (or text) is this?
 How does the structure relate to the themes and ideas in the
poem (or text)?
 How are the ideas in the poem (or text) organised?

5. NARRATIVE STANCE
Technology: first person, second person address, third person.
 Narrative stance simply refers to: The sense we get from the
writer that he is taking a particular view about
something, from the way in which he tells his story. The
techniques he uses to achieve that.
 It will be helpful for you to think about the use of
register in conjunction with your thinking about stance.
 What information does the writer appear to be giving
us/What is it that he's focusing on at this point?
 What parts of the "narrative" - the events/experiences the
writer is sharing with us - seem more like opinions than facts?
 What are the words which clue us into that?
 What "stance" does he appear to be taking, from the evidence
you have gathered?

6. GRAMMAR/ SENTENCE STRUCTURE
 Terminology to use:
 Sentence types
 Syntax (word order)
 (especially: parallelism, foregrounding; end focus;
nonstandard features) Mood
(Declarative, Interrogative, Imperative)
 Tense, Standard/Non-standard features/Dialect
Ellipsis
 Questions to ask:
 What types of sentence structures are used?
 Are sentences used to create a particular effect?
 Is syntax used to create a particular effect?

7. LEXIS AND IMAGERY
 Terminology to use:  Simile, metaphor, personif
 Noun: common/concrete; ication, pathetic
proper; collective; fallacy, allusion, symbolism
abstract, verb: dynamic; , euphemism, conceit.
stative;
auxiliary, adjective, adver
b, pronoun, conjunction:
subordinating, co-
ordinating, preposition, art
icle, lexical Questions to ask:
sets, connotations, vocativ What types of words are used by the
es, hyperbole, litotes, non- poet?
standard Is the poem written in a particular style?
lexis, archaisms, orthograp What literary devices have been used
hy, double and why?
negative, superlatives, com
pound adjectives.

8. PHONOLOGY AND SOUND PATTERNING
 Phonology and Sound Patterning
 Terminology to use:
 Accent/Pronunciation e.g. elision,
 phonemes, plosives, fricatives, sibilants,
 IPA, Received Pronunciation, regional accents.
 Prosodic features
(loudness, stress, pitch, intonation, etc.)
 Sound alliteration, assonance, rhyme
(couplets, masculine, half-rhyme, eye
rhyme), rhythm, iambic and trochaic feet, sound
effects, onomatopoeia )
 Questions to ask:
 Does the poem have a particular accent or dialect?
 Is sound used for effect?
 Are there any patterns in the sounds of the poem?

9. ORTHOGRAPHY AND PUNCTUATION
 Terminology to use:
 Typography –Font (Particulary in non-fiction
texts)
 Punctuation
 Orthography Graphemes <>
 Pictorial elements, Use of colour
 Questions to ask:
 Are punctuation marks used in the poem to tell
the reader how to interpret the text?
 Is it used for particular effect?
 What other features are there? e.g. graphemes

10. APPLYING THIS TO TEXTS
Text A: The War-Song of Dinas
Vawr (1829)
Thomas Love Peacock

11. OVERVIEW
 Thomas Love Peacock
 Born in 1785, in Dorset, at Weymouth. He was the son of a glass
merchant, who died three years after he was born. He was
raised at his grandfather's house in Chertsey, by his mother.
 His formal schooling ended early (he never attended a
university)
 He read widely in five languages throughout his lifetime.
 When he could no longer support himself without working, he
took a job in 1819 with the East India Company. The next
year, he married Jane Gryffydh, daughter to a Welsh rector.
 Peacock mixed with many of his contemporary Romantic poets
including Shelly.
 His best known work is his satiricle prose. His novels consist
chiefly of witty conversation with sparse action. The characters
were often burlesque, but subtle imitations of famous men of
his day.
In 1866, Peacock died in his library at Halliford-on-
Thames, after refusing to leave his precious books to burn.

12. OVERVIEW (CONTENT/CONTEXT)
 Context - Poem appears within the comic novel 'The
Misfortune of Elphin'. Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866)
was a friend of Shelley the poet. Married a welsh woman
who Shelley called ‘the milk-white antelope of Snowden’.
 Content –The title with anglicised spelling of a fortress
of bogus history invented by the poet in the comic novel
The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829). A poem within the
novel, ‘The War-Song of Dinas Vawr’, portrays the delight
of Welshmen in stealing sheep; later set to music it has
almost the status of a folksong. Although Peacock does
not posit a Welsh original, it should be dinas fawr (mawr)
[big fort].
 Audience - Welsh community[on Nationalist web-
site], male audience as it is a war chant.
 Purpose - It is a Welsh Gothic war chant about stealing
cattle and land – meant to entertain – not a serious poem.

13. NOW USE THE COMPARATIVE FRAME
 The poem is text A.
 Read it through use the guidance on the slides to
find a couple of features for each section.

14. HINTS
 Form - Written in ballad form with abab rhyme
scheme
 Lexis/imagery - violent lexis
(quell'd, kill'd, fierce, struggle, conquer] Feudal
landscape. Welsh iconography.
 Grammar - Welsh place name 'Dyfed' (proper
noun) used, superlative 'richest'
 Phonology – pounding rhythm like a chant