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EnglandEnglish Language & Literature

Paper 1: Telling Stories

5 dot points across 5 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How do you analyse a whole prose set text as both a crafted narrative and a structured piece of language?

Studying the prose set text for Telling Stories: narrative structure, characterisation, point of view and style, analysed through the integrated language and literature method.
How to analyse the AQA Telling Stories prose set text as narrative and language, covering structure, characterisation, point of view and style, and how to link named linguistic features to narrative effect for the closed-book exam.
12 min answer →

How do narration, focalisation and deixis create an imagined world and control a reader's point of view?

The conceptual core of Telling Stories: how point of view is constructed through narration, focalisation, deixis and modality to build imagined worlds and position the reader.
How point of view is constructed in narrative: narration types, focalisation, deixis, modality and speech and thought presentation, and how these build the imagined worlds of the AQA Telling Stories texts and position the reader.
12 min answer →

How do texts use, follow and subvert genre conventions to tell stories and guide a reader's expectations?

How narrative and genre conventions shape texts across fiction and non-fiction in Telling Stories, including structural models of narrative and the way writers exploit and subvert genre.
How narrative structure and genre conventions work in the AQA Telling Stories texts, covering models of narrative, genre expectations and subversion, and how writers across fiction and non-fiction use convention to guide a reader's expectations.
12 min answer →

How does a poet construct voice, and how do you analyse the Poetic Voices set poet's presentation of people, time and place?

Studying the Poetic Voices strand of Telling Stories: the nature and function of poetic voice in one set poet (Donne, Browning, Duffy or Heaney), analysing persona, the dramatic monologue, and the presentation of people, time and place.
How to study the AQA Poetic Voices strand of Telling Stories, covering the nature and function of poetic voice in one set poet (Donne, Browning, Duffy or Heaney), the dramatic monologue and persona, and how voice presents people, time and place for the closed-book exam.
13 min answer →

How do non-fiction writers in the Paris Anthology represent a real place, and how do you compare anthology and unseen extracts?

Studying the AQA Anthology: Paris as non-fiction, analysing how travel writing, memoir and journalism represent place, and preparing for unseen comparison in the exam.
How to study the AQA Anthology: Paris as non-fiction in Telling Stories, covering representation of place, the genres of travel writing, memoir and journalism, and the skill of comparing an anthology text with an unseen extract under exam conditions.
12 min answer →