1) English Language Notes on Non-Fiction Anthology

From A Passage to Africa:

Author: George Alagiah

• Autobiographical:

  • Experience will be biased

  • Allowed to present his first hand account of his thoughts and feelings

  • Showing his experience of reflection

• Message:

  • The journalist remembers the smiling face of a suffering Somali man who made him rethink his responsibility towards those he reports on.

  • The extract communicates how important it is to see everyone an individual so we can remain compassionate.

• Author’s Intent:

  • Create sympathy for the Somali people

    • Using triplets =“no rage, no whimpering, just a passing away” - shows how common death is in Somalia

    • Using lists = “You could see it in her sick, yellow eyes and smell it in the putrid air” - shows his shock to injuries of the Somalis, also creates pathos by dehumanising the person

    • Through dehumanising language he creates pathos for the Somalis

  • He argues that we don’t deserve the comfort that we have/ live in

    • Through reflective rhetorical questions - e.g. (line 65)

    • Uses short sentences and paragraphs to reflect how his scattered opinions on the contrast between the life of the Somalis and the life of people in wealthier countries

  • To question journalism but to show the apathy created by the news

    • Cynical tone of journalism stayed throughout the text

    • Dismissive tone at the beginning and he also uses predatory language to show the faults of journalism and how it is also heartless towards the people suffering

    • Contrast between the apathy to the Somali’s vs his regret and disdain at the end

• Additional Annotations:

  • Short sentence and paragraph (line 32), “And then there was the face I will never forget” - creates tension also indicates the importance to the author

  • Repetition of “revulsion” (lines 33-34) shows the author’s honesty but also lowers the bias that comes with first hand accounts

  • Clause and rhetorical question, “-how could it be?-” (line 49) shows the author’s internal thought that is posed to the reader

  • Short and simple sentence (line 54), “And then it clicked.” shows the author’s epiphany and once again builds suspense and tension

  • Oxymoron, “my nameless friend” (line 73) shows the author’s regret and how his empathy has developed since his original visit/ report

The Explorer’s Daughter:

Author: Kari Herbert

• Autobiographical:

  • Experience will be biased

  • Allowed to present first hand thoughts and feelings

    • “harsh environment” - shapes the narrative of the story

  • Showing her conflict between respecting the hunters but also the narwhals

• Author’s Intent:

  • Respect for Narwhal/ Nature

    • She maintains a reverent tone at the beginning of the text which highlights her respect for the narwhals and for nature

    • Uses calm/serene/ beautiful imagery when describing the narwhals - “glittering kingdom” (line 6) shows this

    • At the end of the text she respects the role they play in society - refers to narwhals as an “essential contributor” (line 17) to illustrate their importance to society

    • Language highlights the animal’s intelligence - “always slowly, methodically passing each other by” (line 5) illustrates narwhals intelligence. Also uses adjectives to portray as very smart

  • Respect for Hunters/ Culture

    • Highlights the danger’s hunters face

    • Uses a disconnected but yet factual tone

    • Suspenseful tone

    • Listing at the end emphasises their importance

  • Conflict/ In Discord

    • Man vs Nature (shown as equals) - “my heart leapt for both hunter and narwhal” (line 46-47)

    • Rational vs Emotive language (heart vs head) -“my heart also urged for the narwhal to dive, to leave, to survive” (line 51) tricolon/ triple +asyndetic

    • Tone/ style transitions - tone shift after first paragraph goes from emotive language to detached and factual language

• Additional Annotations:

  • Builds tension using short sentences - “Every hunter was on the water” (line 39)

  • Lots of knowledgeable language, therefore author is speaking from expertise and personal involvement - “mattak or blubber” (line 18)

  • In the first paragraph not only is there more emotive language but the juxtaposition between the clumsiness of the hunters and the organisation and skill of the narwhals - “[hunters are] scrambling back” (line 5) + “dotted all around the fjord” (line 7) vs “slowly, methodically” (line 5) + “mischievous tricks” (line 12)

  • 4th paragraph also builds tension and suspense as everyone eagerly watch the hunter’s hunt narwhals - “the women clustered” (line 33) + “small gasp or jump” (line 35)

  • Final paragraph includes external opinions “‘How can you possibly eat seal?’” (line 56) shows outside dialogue and lack of understanding of culture. Also final sentence returns her to initial tone of confidence and assertion and underlines her point - “hunting is still an absolute necessity in Thule” (line 63)

From Between a Rock and a Hard Place:

Author: Aron Ralston

• Autobiographical:

  • Experience will include bias

  • Allowed to present first hand thoughts and feelings

  • Conveys story of his difficulty and struggle

  • Foreshadowing in blurb

    • “He had not informed anyone of his hiking plans”

  • Title name is idiom - describes an impossible situation, shows his light-heartedness in the situation

• Author’s Intent:

  • Assured confident tone at the beginning

    • Includes jargon (expert terminology) as Ralston logically thinks of what he is going to do in confidence

    • Uses short, blunt sentences to convey information but no emotion as he is assured and confident - “I came to another drop-off” (line 1) simple sentence shows his confident tone but also this sentence builds tension for the reader and foreshadows

    • Active voice showing his control and relaxation as he has been in situation before - “Stemming across the canyon at the lip of the drop-off” (line 20) shows Ralston’s control

    • Very methodical and logical - phrases like “I can” (line 11) + “it’s possible” (line 😎 show this

    • Also foreshadows eventual injury by creating tension and suspense - “claustrophobic” (line 4)

  • Lost control/ Unknown in the middle of text

    • Passive Voice - “Fear shoots my hand over my head” (line 33) shows shift from active to passive voice

    • Personification of nature around him - “backlit chockstone falling toward my head consumes the sky” (line 32-33) shows his lack of control as he submits to nature taking the control from him

    • Temporal phrases - “Time dilates, as if I’m dreaming, and my reactions decelerate” (line 35-36) + “In slow motion” (line 36) - his shock emphasises tension and builds suspense as everything is drawn out

    • Listing creates rapid pace that is overwhelming - paragraph 6, time decelerates and the punctuation reflects his panic setting in

  • Panic/ Desperate tone by the end of the text

    • Dialogue + exclamation marks- “Get your hand out of there!” (line 46) shows shock as fear/ panic sets in

    • Passive voice

    • Short sentences - “Then silence” (line 40-41) simple sentence builds tension and suspense with vivid visual imagery, “But I’m stuck” (line 47) short sentence also reflect his limited space and the fact that he is running out of time, “Nothing” (line 56)

    • Active voice (in vain) - active verbs emphasise his loss of control

• Additional Annotations:

  • Repetition of “dangle” (line 29) creates tension as it is repeated throughout the text

  • “Grimace and growl” (line 45) onomatopoeic guttural alliteration reflects the pain he is in, in comparison to “Good God” (line 45) emotive language reflects panic

  • “naïve” (line 46) language is desperate and lacks confidence which is in contrast to language at beginning of the text

  • “Anxiety has my brain tweaking” (line 48) shows the passive voice

  • Includes analogy in final paragraph to hold onto small hope which is practically a myth - attempts to bring hope into his dismal situation

  • Ghost of logical thinking and everything that has been done has been done in vain

H is for Hawk:

Author: Helen Macdonald

• Autobiographical / MEMOIR:

  • Includes bias + emotion particularly as the story refers to the author’s grief over her father’s death

  • Overcoming difficulty

  • Memoir - collection of memories + literary/ narrative style

• Author’s Intent:

  • Anticipatory

    • At the beginning of the text

    • Has a detached tone and simply states the facts - “We noted the numbers.” (line 5) short sentence illustrates lack of emotion

  • Overwhelm/ Conflict

    • Fear and pity shown through the tone shift after she finds out the first bird is not her shows her devastation and the emotive response afterwards conveys her disappointment as she loses her connection - “It was the wrong bird.” (line 46) short sentence

    • Desperation as she becomes panicked when the bird isn’t hers through juxtaposition- “Slow panic” (line 59)

    • Visceral fear of second bird - “And dear God” (line 50)

    • Contrasts the second and first hawk - “she wailed; great awful gouts of sound like a thing in pain” (line 52-53)

  • Compassion

    • Connection between her grief and the hawk as it acts as a metaphor for her grief - “dark interior” (line 7) and tells us that the hawk is a symbol for her healing process

    • Appreciates the Hawk and considers its sublime vulnerability as it is beautiful yet terrifying to her - “everything is brilliance and fury” (line 17)

• Additional Annotations:

  • Starts in media res

  • Short sentences build tension - first line of third paragraph

  • Ends on cliff hanger in suspense and short sentence leaves it on tension and leaves the reader waiting with the author in the unknown- “There was a moment of total silence” (line 70)

  • Describes the man handling the bird giving her a sense of control and acting as her safety net as she potentially sees her father in him (parental figure) - “anchoring” (line 33) + “Through all this the man was perfectly calm.” (line 32)

  • Repetition of “thump” in the third paragraph builds tension and suspense

Dangers of a Single Story:

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• Speech:

  • Meant to be persuasive

  • Direct Address and Anecdotes

  • Rhetorical Questions

• Message:

  • Danger of a single story or view on complex individuals from a different background or society from our own

    • Don’t dwindle one down into a stereotype

  • Importance of storytelling and the power that it holds

• Additional Annotations:

  • Rhetorical Questions

  • Anecdotes - show her honesty to the audience as she admits her own flaws

  • Triples - “fleecing the healthcare system, sneaking across the border, being arrested at the border” (line 65-66)

  • Compound sentence - colon is a parallel to her speech, “roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe”

Explorers or boys messing about? Either way, taxpayer gets rescue bill:

Author: Steven Morris

• Article

  • Facts, Statistics

    • Use of jargon: “deciphered” (line 26), “rescue coordination” (27)

    • Includes quotes regarding expert opinions

  • Emotive language

  • Published in “The Guardian” - educated + informed readership

  • When the explorers (boys) go on their silly excursions the British people have to pay a large fine

  • Morris antagonises the explorers to inspire outrage and frustration in the reader

• Author’s Intent

  • Critic (BIAS) regarding the frequent rescues for the explorers

    • Juvenile language + description

    • Naivety + Lack of experience from the explorer’s

    • Opens the text by instantly ridicule of this expedition

    • Critical tone - mocking their expeditions = “new adventure” (line 4)

    • “The men were plucked” (line 6) - portraying them as small to make them seem incompetent

    • List: “[t]he rescue involved the Royal Navy, the RAF and British coastguards” (line 8-9) - emphasises how many resources where needed further highlighting that their childish endeavour resulted in several people being disturbed for a minor issue

    • Morris makes the explorers seem like children to highlight to the reader that they are wasting precious resources for stupid excursion = “ ‘boys messing about with a helicopter’ ”(line 18) illustrates them as infantile and paints them as naive

    • “The men were plucked” = insignificant, small, makes them seem incompetent

  • Frustration

    • Monetary reminders to spark outrage in the readers: “Despite their experience, it is not the first time they have hit the headlines for the wrong reasons” (line 46), “The spokesperson said it was ‘highly unlikely’ it would recover any of the money” (line 64), “The rescue involved the Royal Navy, the RAF and British coastguards.” (line 9). Morris wants to emphasise to the reader that the infantility of the explorers resulted in them having to pay a hefty bill for it and his use of lists and sarcasm to further point out their stupidity is intended for the reader to antagonise the explorers.

  • Sarcasm (Ironic +Comical)

    • Quotes: “‘trusty helicopter’” (line 16), “‘boys messing about with a helicopter’” (line 18), “‘nothing short of a miracle’” (line 34), “‘excellent’” (line 61) - irony as they had to be later rescued. Morris uses quotes to highlight the stupidity of the explorers expedition and suggests that they lacked experience and were merely reckless

    • Repetition of wisdom: “Experts questioned the wisdom of taking a small helicopter” (line 12), “The wisdom of the team’s latest adventure” (line 56) - Sarcasm makes the explorers appear incompetent to the reader this is so he can spark outrage and frustration

• Additional Annotations:

  • Tone shift on line 36 from critical to factual as he refers to the explorer’s qualifications that actually made them experienced to go on the expedition: “Both men are experienced adventurers.” - simple sentence emphasises the factual tone, “qualified mechanical engineer and pilot” (line 40), “won the world freestyle helicopter flying championship.” (line 44-45). Morris placed this paragraph here as he wants you to believe they are inexperienced and naive but in reality they are actually qualified. Returns to critical tone on line 46

  • Ends with a youthful and infantile description from line 65 to 69

Young and dyslexic? You’ve got it going on:

Author: Benjamin Zephaniah

• Article

  • Opinionated and has facts, statistics and the writer is an expert on the topic

  • Focuses on the author’s experience with dyslexia and how they were poorly treated as a child but as an adult they adapted to it and thrived, the author also talks about how those with dyslexia are treated better nowadays.

• Author’s Intent

  • Blame

    • “no compassion, no understanding and no humanity” (line 4-5) – the repetition he used to reaffirm his belief that those with dyslexia are powerful is also used to blame those who treated him poorly due to his dyslexia when he was younger

    • “the past is a different kind of country” (line 7-8) – he refers to the past as an entirely foreign country illustrating his frustration towards those who didn’t care but also suggests that treatment towards those with dyslexia has significantly improved

    • Uses anecdotes from line 9 to 23, he includes dialogue in the initial paragraph to serve as evidence for his maltreatment

    • “’Shut up, stupid boy’” (line 14), this demonstrates his teacher’s harshness towards him and creates victimisation for his youth

    • “What’s unnatural is the way we read and write.” (line 75) – buts the blame on society for causing people to have to follow an unorthodox approach to reading and writing

  • Sympathy/ Hopeful

    • “As a child I suffered” (line 1) – sympathy for his youth also highlights that he didn’t receive much care when he was younger

    • “We are the architects, we are the designers” (line 2) – uses powerful language to reflect how those with dyslexia are also powerful. His use of repetition further emphasises this as he reinforces the notion of unity

    • “I was just being creative” (line 15) – Zephaniah uses a simple sentence to reinforce his innocence when he was younger to further garner sympathy from the reader

    • “Being observant helped me make the right choices.” (line 35) – this is where the tone shift occurs and it indicates a positive change, short sentence defines this for him

    • “If someone can’t understand dyslexia it’s their problem” (line 70) – tone shift back to accusatory, this causes the readers to garner sympathy for dyslexics, he also uses definitive words such as “can’t” to highlight his defiance to those who oppress/ insult those with dyslexia

    • “In many ways being dyslexic is a natural way to be” (line 74) – Zephaniah directly addresses his target audience and reassures them that they should be confident with their dyslexia

    • “we are the architects” (line 85-86) – Zephaniah’s use of inclusive pronouns gains sympathy from the reader for him but also the dyslexic community. Circles back to the beginning to reinforce his message that those with dyslexia are pivotal in society

    • “I didn’t have that as a child.” (line 87) – at the beginning he said he suffered as a child and now he is hopeful for the future as they are breaking the cycle of neglect as more children with dyslexia are being supported, this makes him hopeful for the future

• Additional Annotations:

  • During his anecdote Zephaniah uses the following dialogue from his teacher, “ ‘Oh great’, but now I realise he was stereotyping me” (line 22-23) – this is a blunt statement that illustrates how his childhood impacted him heavily and how his innocence resulted in lasting harm

  • “When I was 13 I could read very basically” (line 25) – uses a fact shocking to the reader to gain sympathy for his struggle but to also highlight how great his struggle was

  • Lines 41 to 69 is him showing his own self-assurance in his own abilities despite being a writer with dyslexia this is shown when he says “I never thought I was stupid. I didn’t have that struggle” (line 45), “I just had self-belief.” (line 47), “they missed theirs, didn’t notice them or didn’t take them” (line 44) – uses short sentences to illustrate his confident tone and unwavering self- belief despite others doubts

A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat:

Author: Emma Levine