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Unit 3: Literature and identity

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

How do the aesthetic features and stylistic devices of a literary text create its effects and shape a reader's response?

Analyse how aesthetic features and stylistic devices achieve particular effects in literary texts

Aesthetic features and stylistic devices. What the syllabus means by aesthetic features, how they differ from a device checklist, and how to analyse the effect of a feature rather than merely spotting it.

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How do the cultural assumptions, attitudes, values and beliefs inside a literary text shape the reading it invites?

Analyse how cultural assumptions, attitudes, values and beliefs underpin literary texts and invite readers to take up positions

Assumptions, attitudes, values and beliefs that underpin texts. How to tell the four apart, find the ones a text treats as too obvious to argue, and show how they invite a reader to take up a position.

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How does a literary text draw on other texts, and what does that borrowing do to its meaning?

Examine how intertextuality and allusion connect a literary text to other texts and shape its meaning

QCE Literature Unit 3 idea of intertextuality. The difference between a direct allusion and a structural intertextual relationship, why a borrowing changes meaning rather than just signalling cleverness, and how to analyse the effect of a connection between texts.

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How do literary texts represent the relationship between language, culture and identity?

Examine how language choices in literary texts construct and represent cultural identity, belonging and difference

Language, culture and identity. How writers use diction, register, code-switching and naming to construct cultural identity, and how to analyse those choices precisely in an analytical response rather than describing the content of a text.

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What does it mean to read a literary text in different ways, and how does the way of reading change what the text seems to mean?

Examine the ways of reading literary texts and how a chosen way of reading shapes the meanings a reader produces

QCE Literature Unit 3 idea of ways of reading. The difference between reading with, against and beyond the grain of a text, how a way of reading is a deliberate stance rather than a free opinion, and how to make the stance visible in analytical writing.

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How do the context a text was made in and the context it is read in each shape its meaning?

Analyse how the context of production and the context of reception shape the meanings of a literary text

Context. The difference between the context a text was produced in and the context it is received in, why both matter, and how to use context to sharpen analysis rather than replace it with history lessons.

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How do perspectives within and around a literary text shape the representation of identity?

Examine how the perspectives of writers, readers and characters shape the representation of identity in literary texts

Perspectives. The difference between a character's perspective, a writer's perspective and a reader's perspective, and how to keep the three distinct when analysing how identity is represented and received.

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How does the power of language allow literary texts to represent ideas, events and people?

Analyse how literary texts use the power of language to represent ideas, events and people and to position readers

Power of language to represent ideas, events and people. How selection, framing and figurative choice construct a version of reality, and how to write about representation as a constructed effect that positions the reader.

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How does a literary text invite a reader to take up a particular position, and how can a reader become aware of the invitation?

Analyse how literary texts position readers and invite them to take up particular attitudes, values and responses

Reader positioning. The techniques a text uses to invite a response, the difference between being positioned and noticing the positioning, and how to write about an invitation rather than asserting an effect on every reader.

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How can an imaginative transformation of a literary text demonstrate understanding of identity and representation?

Create an imaginative response that transforms a literary text to explore identity, perspective and representation (IA2)

QCE Literature Unit 3 imaginative-response dot point. How to transform a studied text so the creative choices demonstrate understanding of identity and representation, and how the accompanying explanation makes those choices legible to a marker.

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