Key Idea: This topic trains the reading behind your oral: how to read a short extract closely, place it in the work, and talk about its characters, narrator, setting and tone. Unit 7 covers the format.
Analysing a literary extract
- Annotate key images, shifts in mood or voice, who is speaking and repeated words.
- Read three times: what happens, how it feels, what to quote.
- Every point: what (content) + how (technique) + effect.
Four lenses on an extract
- Place: before, now, after, and why this moment matters.
- Character: a gesture, a line, a silence, a reaction.
- Narrator and setting: whose eyes, and what the place adds.
- Tone and key moment: one precise tone word and the line where things turn.
Language for literary discussion
- Verbs of analysis: suggests, conveys, evokes, portrays, highlights, undermines.
- Embed quotations: lead in → short quote → zoom on one word → its effect.
- Hedge: seems to, arguably, this implies that. Signpost: firstly, by contrast, in conclusion.
- Lift the register: passage not bit, employs not uses a lot of, evokes not makes you feel.
Technique + effect = analysis. Quote two to six words, then say what they show.
What three questions place an extract? What has just happened, what changes here, and what it leads to.
Which part do students most often forget in a point? The effect on the reader.
Name two small signs of character in an extract. For example a gesture and a silence.
Give a precise tone word. For example nostalgic, bitter or tender.
Where is the key moment often found? In a short line after long ones, or in the last line.