Higher Close Reading

1. Higher Close Reading

2. Overview • Higher exam 1hr 45mins • Non-fiction • 2 passages to read • Questions on passage 1 (25-30 marks) • Questions on passage 2 (15-20 marks) • Questions on both passages (5 marks)

3. Advice • Read full passage before answering questions • Read introduction (usually in italics) at the top • Identify 3 factors before answering: • Question type • Number of marks available • Where in the passage answer is • Match points in answer to number of marks (unless given specific instruction otherwise) • ALL Understanding questions to be answered in your own words (minimal quoting for context/linking)

4. Understanding • Questions that check you have understood what you have just read • WHAT has been said • Includes: • In your own words • Context • Linking

5. Analysis • Asks you to comment on the techniques used by the writer • HOW it has been said • Includes: • Word Choice • Imagery • Tone • Sentence Structure • Language

6. Evaluation • Asks you to discuss the success of the writer in the use of various devices • HOW WELL it has been said • Includes: • How effective/successful…. • Conclusion • Comparison

7. UNDERSTANDING

8. In Your Own Words • These questions no longer have ‘in your own words’ as a trigger phrase. Any understanding question should be answered in your own words as far as possible.

9. In Your Own Words contd. • LOCATE: – find the answer to the question in the passage and underline it. – Identify the key words/phrases/ideas you are being tested on. The examiner is checking your understanding of words/phrases and your ability to summarise/paraphrase, so there will always be key parts to the answer you must include. Identifying these key ideas/terms first means your answer will be as thorough as possible.

10. In your own words contd… • TRANSLATE – put the answer into your own words. – change all key words – you can only use common/high frequency words from the passage – do not use alternative forms of the same word (patient/patience, walking/walked, etc.) – the number of main points should match the number of marks

11. 2007 1a) What two contrasting emotions does the writer have about the plan to put the great university libraries online? 2U The internet search engine Google, with whom I spend more time than with my loved ones, is planning to put the contents of the world’s greatest university libraries online, including the Bodleian in Oxford and those of Harvard and Stanford in America. Part of me is ecstatic at the thought of all that information at my fingertips; another part of me is nostalgic, because I think physical libraries, booklined and cathedral-quiet, are a cherished part of civilisation we lose at our cultural peril.

12. 2007 5a) Give four reasons the writer presents in favour of maintaining traditional public libraries. 4U It may well be that public demand and technical change mean we no longer need the dense neighbourhood network of local libraries of yore. But our culture, local and universal, does demand strategically situated libraries where one can find the material that is too expensive for the ordinary person to buy, or too complex to find online. Such facilities are worth funding publicly because the return in informed citizenship and civic pride is far in excess of the money spent. Libraries also have that undervalued resource—the trained librarian. The ultimate Achilles’ heel of the internet is that it presents every page of information as being equally valid, which is of course nonsense. The internet is cluttered with false information, or just plain junk. The library, with its collection honed and developed by experts, is a guarantee of the quality and veracity of the information contained therein, something that Google can never provide.

13. Context • Context questions ask you to determine the meaning of a word/phrase from the surrounding sentences. • Words and phrases around this word/phrase can give you clues as to the denotation of the example. • One way to work out the meaning is to cover over the word/phrase in question, re-read the section and see what word/phrase would make sense in its place.

14. Context contd… • Trigger phrases:context, meaning, means • Write down what the word or phrase means • Quote the words/phrases that helped you work out this meaning and give a brief explanation of how they did so. (Only do this step if asked to do so.)

15. 2007 6a) (adapted) Twice the writer refers to libraries as “custodians”. What does this word mean and how did you arrive at this meaning? 2U Libraries have another function still, which the internet cannot fulfil. Libraries, like museums, are custodians of knowledge—and should be funded as such. It has become the fashion in recent decades to turn our great national libraries and museums into entertainment centres, with audio-visuals interactive displays and gimmicks. While I have some enthusiasm for popularising esoteric knowledge, it cannot always be reduced to the level of a child’s view of the universe. We have a duty to future generations to invest in the custodians of our culture, in particular its literature and manuscripts.

16. Linking • Linking questions ask you to explain how a paragraph/sentence acts as a link between sections of the passage. • One part of the linking sentence/paragraph will always refer back, another will refer forward. • Trigger phrases:link, linking

17. Linking contd… • Firstly, you need to decide what the section of the passage that comes before the link is concerned with, then you need to decide what the section of the passage that comes after the link is concerned with. • Summarising the key ideas of both parts will help you identify which key words in the linking sentences apply to each part.

18. Linking contd…. • Quote the part of the linking sentence that refers to what has been said before (a short quote.) The part of the sentence that links back will make some direct reference to what has been discussed before. It may be one or a few words that relate to the topic or it could even be words like ‘this’, ‘that’, etc. to show the same thing is being discussed. 2. Summarise in your own words what was discussed previously – the key ideas from the part that was referred back to.

19. Linking contd… • Quote the part of the linking sentence that refers to what is about to be said (a short quote.) – see previous notes • Summarise in your own words what the passage goes on to discuss – the part that is referred to.

20. 2008 Q. 3a) By referring to specific words or phrases, show how the highlighted lines perform a linking function at this stage in the writer’s argument. 2U Then there is the proliferation of action groups dedicated to stopping construction of roads, airports, railway lines, factories, shopping centres and houses in rural areas, while multifarious organisations have become accustomed to expending their time and energies in monitoring and reporting on the state of grassland, water, trees, moorlands, uplands, lowlands, birds’ eggs, wildflowers, badgers, historical sites and countless other aspects of the landscape and its inhabitants. It might be thought—indeed, it is widely assumed—that it must be good for the countryside to be returned to the central position it enjoyed in British life long ago. Yet there is a particularly worrying aspect of the new rural mania that suggests it might finally do the countryside more harm than good. This is the identification, in the current clamour, of the countryside in general and the landscape in particular with the past—the insistence on the part of those who claim to have the best intentions of ruralism at heart that their aim is to protect what they glibly refer to as “our heritage”. This wildly over-used term is seriously misleading, not least because nobody appears ever to have asked what it means.

21. Analysis

22. Overview Analysis questions ask you to identify and comment on techniques used by the writer. At Higher level, identification of these techniques alone is usually not enough to gain you any marks. You must identify the techniques, explain its use and comment on the effect it has.

23. Word Choice • Writers choose the words and phrases they use in their writing carefully to achieve a particular effect. The may want to provoke an emotional response from the reader or give a detailed description of a person, place, event, etc. Word choice questions ask you to consider why the writer has chosen to use particular words or phrases. • Word choice questions DO NOT ask you for the literal meaning of the word. They are asking what the word suggests in the context that it is used.

24. Word Choice contd… • Trigger phrases:word choice • Denotation: literal meaning of a word • Connotation: what a word implies or suggests in the context that it is used • Word choice questions ask you about the connotations of a word, NOT the denotation. • Do not write down, ‘xxxx means……’

25. Word Choice contd…. • The first stage is to identify words/phrases that are appropriate to comment on. You could choose: • words that provoke emotion in the reader • words that give additional information • words that help to make the writer’s views clear • words that seem unusual, out of place or more appropriate in another context • words that contrast or are contradictory • You must quote this word/phrase.

26. Word Choice contd…. • The next step is to think about the connotations of the word. What does that word suggest? • One way to help with this is to think about whether the word has positive/neutral or negative connotations.

27. Word Choice contd…. • Which of these statements has positive/neutral/negative connotations? • There are over 2,000 vagrants in the city. • There are over 2,000 homeless in the city. • There are over 2,000 people with no fixed address in the city.

28. Word Choice contd…. • Now decide which of these words have positive/negative connotations. • difficult ------- challenging • stingy -------- economical • determined --- headstrong • meticulous ----- nitpicking

29. Word Choice contd…. • Knowing whether a word has negative or positive connotations can help you work out what it is trying to suggest. This issue is a problem for our society. This issue is a plague on our society. What does the word plague suggest that problem does not? Think about the connotations of this word. REMEMBER: we do not want to know the meaning of the word plague – we want to know what it suggests about the ‘issue.’

30. Word Choice contd… • So what are the connotations of ‘plague’? • Infectious, spreads rapidly, destructive, unselective • So what does this suggest about the issue? • Suggests the issue is like a disease, invading all parts of society very quickly and is harming it. • Note: • It is important to think of as many connotations as you can. • Do not just repeat the connotations when discussing the effect.

31. Word Choice contd…. • Your answer to word choice questions should be written down as follows: • Quote the word/phrase • Explain the connotations of the word/phrase (as many as you can think of) • Comment on the effect that this has/impression it gives you of the subject (making sure you answer the question.)

32. Word Choice Contd… Always lay out the answers to word choice questions in the following format so that you remember to do all three steps.

33. 2007 1b) How does the writer’s word choice help to convey his view of the importance of “physical libraries”? 2A The internet search engine Google, with whom I spend more time than with my loved ones, is planning to put the contents of the world’s greatest university libraries online, including the Bodleian in Oxford and those of Harvard and Stanford in America. Part of me is ecstatic at the thought of all that information at my fingertips; another part of me is nostalgic, because I think physical libraries, booklined and cathedral-quiet, are a cherished part of civilisation we lose at our cultural peril.

34. 2007 5b) Show how the writer’s word choice emphasises the contrast between his attitude to libraries and his attitude to the internet. 2A Libraries also have that undervalued resource—the trained librarian. The ultimate Achilles’ heel of the internet is that it presents every page of information as being equally valid, which is of course nonsense. The internet is cluttered with false information, or just plain junk. The library, with its collection honed and developed by experts, is a guarantee of the quality and veracity of the information contained therein, something that Google can never provide.

35. Imagery • Imagery questions ask you to comment on how the writer has used figurative language to create an image of an object/subject that appeals to the senses. • Generally, imagery questions guide you to comment on examples of similes, metaphors and personification. • Define each of these types of imagery.

36. Imagery contd… • Trigger phrases: imagery, figures of speech • Identify any example of imagery in the appropriate part of the passage. To do this, look for things that are not literally true. Quote these images. You should identify what type of figure of speech the image is.

37. Imagery contd… 2.You then need to comment on both the literal and figurative meaning of the image. To do this, you need to think of all the connotations of the ‘literal’ side or ‘root’ of the image. For example, ‘Oil prices have rocketed’ Image – rocketed Connotations - rocket –firework –exploding –going up really fast, etc.

38. Imagery contd… You now have to think about the link between the literal meaning and the figurative meaning. To do this, use: Just as……..so too….. Where just as describes the literal meaning and so too explains the figurative meaning. For example: Oil prices have rocketed Just as a rocket explodes and goes up very fast, so too have oil prices soared, rising very suddenly and dramatically.

39. Imagery contd… 3. You then must explain the impression this comparison gives you of the subject/object (ensuring that you answer the question.) Summary: 1 – Quote the image 2 – Think of the connotations of the root (you do not need to write these down, although you can.) 3 – Use just as, so too to examine the literal AND figurative meaning 4 – Explain the effect (answering the question)

40. Does the image use ‘like’ or ‘as’? YES SIMILE NO Does it make an inanimate object sound human? YES PERSONIFICATION NO METAPHOR

41. 2007 Q.3 Show how the writer uses imagery to convey the “wonder of the library as a physical space”. 2A At university, I discovered the wonder of the library as a physical space. Glasgow University has a skyscraper library, built around a vast atrium stretching up through the various floors. Each floor was devoted to a different subject classification. Working away on the economics floor, I could see other students above or below—chatting, flirting, doodling, panicking—all cocooned in their own separate worlds of knowledge. Intrigued, I soon took to exploring what was on these other planets: science, architecture, even a whole floor of novels. The unique aspect of a physical library is that you can discover knowledge by accident. There are things you know you don’t know, but there are also things you never imagined you did not know.

42. 2007 Q.9 Show how the writer’s imagery conveys the importance of libraries. 2A I have spent a substantial portion of my life since in libraries, and I still enter them with a mixture of excitement and awe. I am not alone in this. Veneration for libraries is as old as writing itself, for a library is more to our culture than a collection of books: it is a temple, a symbol of power, the hushed core of civilisation, the citadel of memory, with its own mystique, social and sensual as well as intellectual.

43. Tone • Tone reveals the feelings and attitudes of the writer. • It is how the writing might be said if it were read aloud. • You will be asked to identify it, justify it and/or explain its impact. • Identifying the tone can be difficult. The tone of the passage may change several times. • Mood/atmosphere questions can be done in the same way.

44. Tone contd…. • Tone is the voice that would be used to say the sentence or word. If someone could read the passage aloud for you, it would help in this type of question. Unfortunately you have to do this silently to yourself – trying to ‘hear’ what your voice would do with it, or how the writer would read it to you.

45. Examples of tone • humorous • tongue-in-cheek • sarcastic • ironic • angry • depressed • elated • indignant • conversational • despairing • superior • admiring • curious • chatty/friendly • mocking • disapproving • critical • contemptuous • menacing • dismissive • approving • uplifting • hectoring • doubtful • nostalgic

46. How to answer • The writer uses various techniques to create a tone: word choice, sentence structure, punctuation, imagery, assonance, alliteration, anecdotes, quotations, etc. • When you have identified the tone, you need to identify the techniques the writer has used to create that tone.

47. Tone contd.. • When commenting on tone, it is worthwhile to look out for how the use of different types of language can reveal the writer’s opinion. For example: • Emotive Language: This type of language may be used by the writer to encourage the reader to share their opinion on the subject. This could reveal such tones as: angry, sympathetic, compassionate, impassioned, pleading... • Informal Language: This type of language could suggest a more light-hearted or less serious attitude to the subject. This could reveal tones such as: flippant, humorous, sarcastic, playful, mischievous...

48. How to answer contd…. • State what the tone is (if not given in the question.) • Identify the technique used by the writer to create this tone. • Quote/name an example. • Discuss the use of the technique and explain how it helps to create the tone. NB: if you are dealing with word choice, focus on connotations; if you are dealing with imagery, use just as, so too, etc.

49. 2007 Q.8a) (adapted) Describe the tone of the paragraph and show how it is demonstrated. 2A I have a halcyon library memory. I am sitting under a cherry tree in the tiny central courtyard of the Cambridge University Library, a book in one hand and an almond slice in the other. On the grass beside me is an incredibly pretty girl.

50. 2007 Q.8b) (adapted) Show how the writer creates a tone of awe. 2A We are surrounded by eight million books. Behind the walls on every side of the courtyard, the books stretch away in compact ranks hundreds of yards deep, the shelves extending at the rate of two miles a year. There are books beneath us in the subterranean stacks, and they reach into the sky; we are entombed in words, an unimaginable volume of collected knowledge in cold storage, quiet and vast and waiting.