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Annotating Paper 1-1

The document provides a 7-step process for annotating an unseen poem or prose extract: 1) Describe the text's physical structure and format. 2) Consider the title's implications. 3) Note first impressions of subject and themes. 4) Analyze content like narrator, characters, setting, and ideas. 5) Examine language features like diction, syntax, and tone. 6) Consider how narrative interest is created through techniques like contrast and development. 7) Identify any overall meaning or theme communicated.

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Saachi S.T
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41 views

Annotating Paper 1-1

The document provides a 7-step process for annotating an unseen poem or prose extract: 1) Describe the text's physical structure and format. 2) Consider the title's implications. 3) Note first impressions of subject and themes. 4) Analyze content like narrator, characters, setting, and ideas. 5) Examine language features like diction, syntax, and tone. 6) Consider how narrative interest is created through techniques like contrast and development. 7) Identify any overall meaning or theme communicated.

Uploaded by

Saachi S.T
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reading for different purposes

Approach annotating the unseen poem or prose extract as a process of breaking it down into
elements that exist both within the text and ones that operate in our minds when we see,
comprehend and interpret.

1. Look at the text on the page:


o How would you describe its shape?
o Is it split up into stanzas or paragraphs?
o How long or short is the text?
o How long or short are the lines?
o Does it seem to present itself in a consistent, formal manner - or one that
is more fluid, inconsistent?
2. Look at the title:
o What does it suggest the text is going to be about?
o How does the language or phrasing of the title lead you to think in a
particular way?
3. Read for first impressions:
o What things do you notice the first time you read it through?
o What does it seem to be 'about'? This means - what is the literal subject
of the text, but also what seem to be its thematic concerns?
o What things seem problematic, which elements are hard to understand?
4. Read for content
o Read the text and only concentrate on the 'what'.
o How does the text present the narrator? Characters? Relationships?
o In what ways does the text make use of setting?
o What kinds of action are presented?
o Does the passage create a particular kind of atmosphere?
o What kinds of ideas, motifs or themes does it seem to present and
explore?
5. Read for language and style
o Diction - nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs?
o Syntax - sentence structure/length
o Sentence type (declarative/imperative/interrogative/exclamatory)
o Paragraph form/structure
o Dialogue?
o Imagery
o Metaphor/Simile
o Tone
o Repetition
o Narrative voice
o Sound
o Rhythm
o Structure
6. How does the passage create narrative interest
o Does its power depend on one or more key contrasts?
o Is there a strong sense of development?
o How important is antithesis or opposition to its overall impact?
o Is the passage, in the end, somewhat ambiguous?
o Does the passage gain strength from the way it manipulates the reader,
e.g. by creating an intimate relationship with them - or by keeping them at
a distance?
7. What kind of overall meaning does the passage communicate?
o Does there seem to exist some kind of 'messsage'?
o Is there a particular theme being presented? What, ultimately, is being
'said' about that theme?
o Is the effect of the extract one that invites us to feel, to think, a mixture -
or something else?

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