What does the Textual Analysis paper require you to analyse?

One previously unseen literary text

What two response formats does SQA accept for Textual Analysis?

A continuous critical essay or extended bullet points

First what the text does and its effect, then how the writer achieves it

Feature-spotting with no overall reading of the text

The narrative voice and point of view

Narration that slides into a character's idiom, blending narrator and character

How the writer constructs the argument and persuades the reader

Because a reasonable, well-informed voice earns trust that does much of the persuading

The turn where the poem's argument, mood or direction shifts

Paraphrasing what the poem says instead of how it makes meaning

As performance: what an audience would see, hear and feel

The meaning beneath the spoken words: what characters feel or conceal but do not say

They are the dramatist directing the performance, controlling what the audience sees and hears

14questions. Pick an answer and you'll see why right away.

What does the Textual Analysis paper require you to analyse?
How long is the Textual Analysis paper and how many marks is it worth?
What two response formats does SQA accept for Textual Analysis?
What should your two readings of an unseen text decide?
What is the principal weakness that keeps a Textual Analysis in the lower bands?
In unseen prose fiction, what usually controls the reader's response?
What is free indirect discourse?
In unseen prose non-fiction, what should you analyse rather than summarise?
Why analyse the persona a non-fiction writer adopts?
In unseen poetry, what is a volta?
What is the danger when analysing an unseen poem?
How should an unseen drama extract be read?
What is subtext in drama?
Why must stage directions be analysed, not skimmed?