Topic Summaries
Annotation strategies
GCSE
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English Language
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Edexcel
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GCSE English Language Topic Summaries
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READING SKILLS
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Annotation strategies
READING SKILLS
WRITING SKILLS: Analytical writing skills
WRITING SKILLS: Imaginative writing skills
WRITING SKILLS: Persuasive writing skills
PUNCTUATION
READING SKILLS
WRITING SKILLS: Analytical writing skills
WRITING SKILLS: Imaginative writing skills
WRITING SKILLS: Persuasive writing skills
PUNCTUATION
Language feature-based approach
- Identify and highlight meaningful techniques.
- Briefly annotate the effect of this language.
- Focus on making connections between language and authorial intent.
- Don’t worry about essay structure or how you could connect these ideas – just find as much evidence as you can.
- This is the best approach if you find yourself running out of ideas or unsure of what to analyse.
- Stop annotating when you can’t find any more language features, then pick out the strongest examples to write your analysis.
Question-based approach
- Assign one highlighter colour or symbol per exam question.
- Highlight the passage by finding evidence related to each question.
- Focus on finding the most relevant parts of the passage that will best enable you to answer the question.
- Don’t worry about identifying techniques – you can do this later if needed after you’ve found and categorised the evidence.
- This is the best approach if you find your writing lacks structure, if you repeat yourself too often, or if you get ‘writer’s block’ and feel stuck when trying to find evidence in exam conditions.
- This is also great for long texts and for following the progression of themes/ideas/characters across the passage.
- Stop annotating when you think you have enough evidence to satisfy the mark scheme for each question.
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01 - How does the author explore nature as a setting in this extract? 2 marks 02 - What impression does this passage create of the East Egg house? 3 marks 03 - How does this passage use imagery to create a sense of movement? 3 marks |
| And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch. |
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