Literary and Functional Text Response
Literary and functional text response
This domain covers poetry, prose extracts and media texts. The examiner tests your ability to analyse how meaning is made, not to retell content.
Poetry
Identify the speaker (not automatically the poet), the situation, form and stanza shape, imagery, sound devices (alliteration, sibilance, onomatopoeia) and tone. Link every device to effect: "The hard 'k' sounds in 'cracked' and 'clacked' make the house sound brittle and unsafe."
Prose extract
Track narrative voice (first or third person, reliable or not), characterisation through action and speech, setting, and how tension is built.
Media text
Establish purpose (inform, persuade, entertain) and audience. Then examine headline bias, emotive vocabulary, selective quotation, layout and captions.
Worked example
Line: "The city crawled under a blanket of grey." Analysis: the city is personified as crawling, suggesting slow, exhausted movement; "blanket" implies smothering rather than comfort, so the tone is oppressive. Reasoning: name the device, quote the words, explain the effect on the reader. "It is a metaphor" alone earns nothing.
Traps that cost marks
- Spotting devices without explaining effect.
- Retelling the poem or extract.
- Confusing poet and speaker.
- Ignoring the question "how does the writer...".
- Calling a media text "biased" without evidence.
- Missing the link between tone and theme.