GCSE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
(8700)
Paper 1 Explorations in creative
reading and writing
Exam Questions
Question Two
• How does the writer use language here to describe the effects of the
………………….?
• You could include the writer’s choice of:
• words and phrases
• language features and techniques
• sentence forms.
[8 marks]
Exam Questions
Question Three
• You now need to think about the whole of the source.
• This text is from the opening of a novel.
• How has the writer structured the text to interest you as a reader?
• You could write about:
• what the writer focuses your attention on at the beginning
• how and why the writer changes this focus as the extract develops
• any other structural features that interest you.
[8 marks]
Structural techniques
Structural Technique
Sentence type (simple, compound, complex)
Clauses
Punctuation () ? ! : ; … Dialogue
Tense
Juxtaposition
Lists
Order of events/ chronology
Structure of the text: Exposition (opening); Rising Action; Climax; falling action; denouement (ending)
Repetition
Flashbacks
Narrative hooks (cliff hanger; unexpected revelation; character action or decision; medias res)
Contrasts (setting / character)
Order in which characters appear
Foreshadowing
Narrative voice – person; perspective (omniscient; character voice; unreliable narrator; stream of
consciouseness)
The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast was
on its knees in the center, it's arms folded over its face. It was crying out against the
abominable noise something about a body on the hill. The beast struggled forward,
broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once
the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed,
struck, bit, tore. There were no words and no movements but the tearing of teeth and
claws.… The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced
minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky
and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the
sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly
accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on.… Somewhere over the
darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling, and the film of water on
the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The
great wave of the tide moved farther along the island and the water lifted. Softly,
surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the
steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out toward the open sea.(Golding
153 154).
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano
Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father
took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of
twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that
ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous,
like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things
lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to
point. (One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez)
The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lights began to appear
along the shore. The Chapman lighthouse, a three-legged thing erect
on a mud-flat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway--a
great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the
upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked
ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare
under the stars. (Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad)