Edexcel IGCSE English Language - Anthology Texts

Passage to Africa

• Largely chronological with a side for reflection/explanation

• Shift from face to smile as author explains context

• Repeat of face/smile throughout extract

• Themes of vulnerability, difficulty, hardship

• Emotive language connects with reader’s humanity

Explorer’s Daughter

• Hunting, ethics, natural world

• Largely chronological, some digressions

• Opens with cinematic description of the scene

• Largely debate between usefulness of narwhals to the Inuit and the ethics of hunting

Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan

• Shift from being unimpressed by Bhutan to admiring it

• Last stanzas are just a dump of factual information

• Writing extensively about someone/thing implies that she is interested in it

H is for Hawk

• Chronological personal memory

• Man, box, hawk 1, emotion, error, hawk 2, realisation, request

• Unknown conclusion, cliffhanger and heightened emotions

• Vulnerability, hawks

Chinese Cinderella

• Contrast - father’s imperatives vs daughter’s rhetorical questions and doubts

• Status - father very high, daughter less than chauffeur

• Irony - father sends her to do medicine, we know she becomes a writer

• Revolutionary reference from quote

• Power dynamic - everything is father’s decision

A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat

• References to F1, Wacky Races - familiarity with audience

• Pre-race, race, crash, aftermath

• 3 different races - donkeys, spectators, journalist

• Humorous reflection of possible consequences

• Travel writing for adult travel fans to inform and entertain

• Chronological with growing tension and false ending

Explorers or Boys Messing About

• Adapted from a news article

• Trying to make the taxpayer annoyed with these people

• Wife seems like the saviour

• Contrast of scramble - professional vs amateur

• Infantilising to the pair

• Highlights extent of required response