What is close reading?
Close reading is when you really engage with a text and all of its connotations. It means that you need to look at what techniques, voice or person the author may be using but importantly it is not just spotting these. You must look at why the author has chosen to use these techniques. This should be at both the level of the passage you are analysing and at the level of the text as a whole. This is what the study of English is all about!
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Related English GCSE answers
All answers ▸Starting with this extract, explain how far you think Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as an evil character in the play? (The extract in the exam paper would be Act I Scene 5 of Macbeth, where Lady Macbeth performs ‘the raven himself is hoarse)
Read lines 31–42. By referring to both word choice and sentence structure, analyse how the writer creates a negative impression of adults. (4 marks) (Question taken from the 2016 Higher English past paper)
What's the difference between exaggeration and hyperbole?
How does Orwell use juxtaposition throughout 1984, and what effect does this have on the reader?