IB English paper 1: unseen tips

WHAT CAN WE SAY ABOUT A PROSE EXTRACT? • What attitude towards the major theme (e.g. regret) does the writer seem generally to have? • What are the writer’s main thoughts and feelings (ideas) about love in the extract? • Do the ideas and attitudes link in with ideas and attitudes that were prevalent at the time in which the novel was written? • What is the writer’s main tone ? Are there any tone shifts ? • What verbs has the writer used – particularly as a short cut to character insights, e.g. strutted / skulked or smiled / smirked or laughed / chortled. • Free Indirect Discourse: ‘Perhaps I would win after all…’ / ‘Could I make it out alive?’ Look for FID embedded in the text as the writer takes us into the character’s head…’Perhaps’ / italics and rhetorical questions sometimes signify this. • How are the characters presented through what they say and what they do in the extract? Which features of language (rhetorical devices/selection of images and words for effect) does the novelist give the characters to express their thoughts and feelings and how does s/he describe them when they’re not speaking? • How are places (inside/outside) described? What mood or atmosphere of the place is created by the writer’s language? Does the way they’re described help us to understand the characters better, in terms of their natures and states of mind? (Symbolism - pathetic fallacy?) • What use does the writer make of narrative point of view (1 st /2 nd /3 rd person/omniscient narrator/multiple narrative voices/interior monologue/direct address to reader)? • What particular form does the prose extract take (letter/diary/description/extended reflection &c) and how does the choice of this form help him/her to achieve their purpose? • Is there an embedded narrative within the extract, such as a letter, diary, newspaper extract? If so, how does it help the writer achieve his/her purpose? • What use does the writer make of length of sentences? • What about the rhythms (i.e. patterned repetition) created by the writer in the writing.