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Unit 1: Perspectives in English

12 dot points, in syllabus order. Each dot point has a focused answer, with exam-style questions and worked answers where available.

How do persuasive techniques and rhetorical strategies work in non-literary texts?

Identify and analyse persuasive techniques (ethos, pathos, logos) and rhetorical strategies (repetition, parallelism, rhetorical question, anecdote, statistics) in QCE Year 11 English non-literary texts

Persuasion. Defines the Aristotelian appeals (ethos, pathos, logos), catalogues the major rhetorical strategies (repetition, parallelism, anaphora, tricolon, rhetorical question, anecdote, statistics), and works the QCAA-style speech analysis task with a worked extract.

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How are audiences positioned by texts?

Identify and analyse the ways texts construct intended audiences and reading positions, including how readers can accept, negotiate or resist these positions

Audience and reading positions. Distinguishes intended audience from actual audience, defines dominant, negotiated and resistant reading positions (Stuart Hall), and works the QCAA-style "identify the implied reader and explore a resistant reading" analysis.

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How does the genre of a text shape its meaning and reception?

Identify and analyse the conventions of literary, non-literary and multimodal genres, including how genre choices shape audience expectations and the construction of meaning in QCE Year 11 English texts

Genre. Defines genre as a set of conventions audiences expect and writers exploit, distinguishes literary (poetry, drama, prose fiction), non-literary (essay, feature article, speech, report) and multimodal (film, podcast, graphic novel) genres, and works the QCAA-style "compare two texts of different genre treating the same idea" task.

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How is an imaginative response constructed?

Construct imaginative responses (short fiction, monologue, poetry, multimodal text) that demonstrate control of voice, structure, language features and an explicit perspective

Imaginative writing. Identifies the typical QCAA imaginative response task, walks through voice, structure, language and perspective decisions, and works the standard "respond imaginatively to a stimulus" task with a model opening and analytical commentary.

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What aesthetic features and stylistic devices construct meaning in Year 11 QCE General English texts?

Aesthetic features and stylistic devices (voice, sentence shape, imagery, motif, rhythm, focalisation, dialogue) and their effect on the reader

QCE English Unit 1 subject-matter point on aesthetic features and stylistic devices. The seven craft layers (voice, sentence shape, imagery, motif, rhythm, focalisation, dialogue), the metalanguage Year 11 students should command, and how each constructs meaning.

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How are cultural assumptions, attitudes, values and beliefs constructed and conveyed in Year 11 QCE General English texts?

Cultural assumptions, attitudes, values and beliefs implicit in texts, and how these shape both the perspectives a text constructs and the way audiences engage with the text

QCE English Unit 1 subject-matter point on cultural assumptions, attitudes, values and beliefs. The distinction between these four categories, how each is constructed implicitly in texts, and how Year 11 students learn to read for the unsaid.

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How are perspectives and representations constructed in texts in Year 11 QCE General English?

Perspectives in texts, including who is speaking, whose perspective is foregrounded or marginalised, and how perspectives shape representations of concepts, identities, times and places

QCE English Unit 1 subject-matter point on perspectives and representations. The distinction between perspective (whose view is foregrounded) and representation (how concepts, identities, times and places are constructed); building the analytical habits that Year 12 IA1, IA2 and EA will demand.

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How is textual evidence used in analytical writing?

Select and use textual evidence (direct quotation, paraphrase, reference) to support analytical claims about meaning, technique and effect in QCE Year 11 English texts

Textual evidence. Distinguishes direct quotation, paraphrase and reference, demonstrates the embed-and-analyse pattern, and works the QCAA-style "what does this analytical paragraph need to add" exercise.

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What are the features of an analytical response in Year 11 QCE General English?

The structure, conventions and language of an analytical response to a text, building the habits required for Year 12 IA2 and the EA

QCE English Unit 1 subject-matter point on the analytical response. The five-part shape, the conventions of formal analytical writing, the four-step quotation pattern, and the Year 11 habits that scaffold the Year 12 IA2 and EA.

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How do language features at the level of word, sentence and text construct meaning?

Analyse the use of language features (vocabulary, syntax, modality, cohesion, tense, person) and grammatical choices in QCE Year 11 English texts, and account for the effects of those choices on meaning

Language features. Defines vocabulary (denotation, connotation, register), syntax (sentence structure, fragments, parallelism), modality (degrees of certainty), cohesion (referencing, conjunction), tense and person, and works the QCAA-style "explain the effect of three language choices in a short passage" analysis task.

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How do spoken and multimodal texts construct meaning?

Analyse and construct spoken and multimodal texts, understanding how voice, body language, image, sound and editing interact with language to construct meaning

Spoken and multimodal texts. Defines the modes (linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, spatial), distinguishes spoken text features (pace, pitch, pause, volume) from multimodal cinematic features (mise-en-scène, framing, editing, sound design), and works the QCAA-style analysis of a one-minute speech extract.

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How do the contexts of production and reception shape meaning?

Analyse how the social, cultural and historical contexts of production and reception, and the purpose of a text, shape the construction of meaning in QCE Year 11 English texts

Context and purpose. Distinguishes contexts of production (when, where, by whom, for whom a text was made) and contexts of reception (when, where, by whom it is read now), identifies key purposes (inform, persuade, entertain, reflect), and works the QCAA-style historicising analysis task.

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