What structure means
- Paper 1 Question 3 (8 marks) asks how the writer has structured the text: how it is organised and ordered, from beginning to end.
- Think about what the writer focuses on at the start, how and why the focus changes, and what it focuses on at the end.
Features to look for
- Shifts in focus, such as zooming in from a wide setting to one character; shifts in perspective or viewpoint; and shifts in time, such as flashbacks.
- Paragraph lengths (a one-line paragraph for impact), repeated images or ideas, contrasts between the beginning and the end, changes of pace, and withholding information to create suspense.
- Whole-text structures include cyclical structures, climaxes, turning points and cliffhangers.
Writing about structure
- Track the text from beginning to middle to end. Say what the writer focuses on, how the focus shifts, and the effect on the reader, such as building suspense or sympathy.
- Write about the order and placing of ideas, not individual words. Useful phrases: 'At the start, the writer focuses on…', 'The focus then shifts to…', 'This makes the reader…'.
Other boards
- Edexcel, OCR and Eduqas often ask about language and structure in the same question, so be ready to write about both, and about non-fiction as well as fiction.
Key terms
- Structure
- The way a text is organised and ordered.
- Focus
- What the writer draws the reader's attention to.
- Shift
- A change in focus, time, place or perspective.
- Perspective
- The point of view from which something is told.
- Flashback
- A scene set at an earlier time.
- Cyclical structure
- A structure in which the ending returns to the beginning.
- Climax
- The point of highest tension in a story.
- Foreshadowing
- Hints about what will happen later.
- Juxtaposition
- Placing contrasting ideas close together.