Quick questions on Critical writing: the commentary on your own writing - WJEC A-Level English Language Unit 2

Treat your own piece as a text to be analysed with the language levels, quoting it as evidence just as you would quote an unseen source.

A clear commentary often opens by restating the brief (the genre, audience, purpose and mode you were writing for), then works through your key choices grouped by effect or by level, and closes with an evaluative judgement. Keep it tightly linked to your own text throughout, so it is evidently a commentary on this piece and no other.

My piece is travel writing for a weekend magazine, intended to engage an educated adult readership, and several of my choices were made to meet that brief. I opened in the present tense ("The bus coughs to a halt") to drop the reader straight into the scene, a convention of literary travel writing that suits a leisure audience reading for pleasure rather than information. To build atmosphere I selected a semantic field of heat and weight ("thick", "white", "pressing"), and personified the heat through a simile ("like a hand") so that the environment feels active and slightly threatening, heightening the reader's sense of place.

A commentary must quote your own piece as evidence; assertions without text are weak.

The top band reflects and judges; a purely descriptive commentary that never evaluates falls short.

What is the difference between narrating your writing and analysing it? [2 marks]

What pattern should each commentary point follow? [2 marks]

Write a commentary explaining how the choices in your piece suit your intended genre, audience and purpose. [20 marks]