Quick Wins for Analysing GCSE English Language and Literature

Analysing language is one of the top skills to master for both GCSE English Language and Literature

This fundamental skill accounts for so many marks in across your English GCSEs yet so many students struggle to get it right. Fortunately, there are a few basics which can put you on track to create clear and detailed answers about any text. Here is a breakdown of how to approach an analysis in a simple, step by step guide.

It all starts with tone!

I like to think of this as ‘step zero’ when it comes to analysing language because, without doing this first, your answer won’t have a clear direction and will likely be one of the reasons you are struggling to come up with things to say about the text.

First, read the text: big extract, short paragraph, or even just a single line, it doesn’t matter. Identify what the subject of the text is; it could be a character, something in the setting, an experience, an idea, etc. Pay attention to how they are presenting that subject. Are they making it seem good or bad? Brave or scared? Peaceful or hostile? That’s the overall effect the writer is trying to create and now we can build the rest of our analysis around this.

We need quotes!

Once you have the tone, you’re ready to delve into the text properly and get your analysis rolling. Selecting quotes (or ‘making references to the text’ as it is often referred to in mark schemes) gives you the content to begin the analytical part. But how do you choose quotes effectively? This is where the tone comes in! Which parts of the text best show the tone you have identified? Which parts of the text made it easy for you to understand what the writer was trying to say about the character or setting? Grab your highlighters and pick them out on the text so they are clear to see.

When you get more confident with this, you will probably start to highlight quotes as you read but I always encourage my students to stay focussed on the tone the writer creates as they choose their quotes. This helps to select quotes which will add the most value to your answer instead of picking something ‘because it seems good’ and hoping it will be useful later!

And, speaking of quotes with value, that brings us to…

What makes a good quote?

Another key feature of any question that asks you to analyse language (or structure) is your ability to use subject terminology or methods. Methods can include similes, metaphors, and even mentioning a humble adjective can show you know your terminology. If you need some extra help with language methods, make sure you pick up the flashcards from my Free Resource Library – I’ve narrowed this down to methods that tend to appear frequently in texts so you can focus on revising a small number of methods which are likely to appear!

A ’good quote’ will give you some language methods to mention in your answer and a common trap I see students stumble into is selecting a quote which might show a really clear idea but doesn’t contain anything interesting in terms of how the writer is using language. Let’s pretend we have a text which is creating a tone of fear, and I’ll make up two potential quotes we could select from it:

“I felt afraid as I began to think about the situation I was in.”

At first glance this quote seems perfect. The tone is fear, and the writer has used the words “I felt afraid” and that means fear! But what else can we say? I’d struggle to get much detail in my answer with this quote and I’ll often see students stall when trying to use quotes like this one. They then think they just don’t understand it or can’t do it but really, they’ve backed themselves into a corner with a difficult quote.

How about this one:

“As I entered the room my terror consumed me.”

Same tone of fear, and the writer has used the word “terror” which links to it, but the interesting part is the metaphor created when the writer describes being “consumed” with terror. Now we have a much better quote because we can write about the method, the imagery it creates, and how it builds the tone.

Give it a go!

Writing an analysis can feel difficult, especially when trying to come up with what to say about the effect but try keeping in mind the overall tone being created and take some time to choose your quotes with care. Getting these early steps correct gives you a solid foundation to build your answer on and makes it so much easier when it comes to making effective comments on the text. Take a look at my upcoming workshops to get even more support with analysis in your GCSEs for both Language and Literature.