english assessment; memoirs

• The memoirs provide a first-hand account of important events during wartime.
• the types of imagery are; visual, auditory, touch, taste, smell, and kinaesthetic.
• Visual Imagery is the use of words to create mental images
• Touch Imagery is the use of words that describe tactile sensations such as warmth, coldness, roughness, smoothness etc.
• memoirs are in 1st person
• Alliteration


  • “sloe black, slow, black, crow black, fishing boat-bobbing sea.” – “Under Milk Wood”, Thomas employs the repetition of the ‘b’ sound to create the short round motion of a gentle rocking boat
• Assonance


  The repetition of vowel sounds in a sentence. It creates a soft resonance or “a bad rhyme”
• Anaphora


  • “It will be a skyscraper…/ It will be the smallest, most picturesque cottage…. / No one eats while others go hungry / No lying awake…” Wei Wei Lo’s “Home” utilises anaphora to emphasise her connection to the dream of a perfect home
• Anaphora


  The repetition of a phrase or word at the beginning of multiple sentences
• Alliteration


  The repetition of the same sound at the beginning of the words in a sentence. It creates rhythm and emphasis
• Anecdote (personal anecdote)


  A personal story, often used in persuasive or discursive writing, to give insight into the composer and evoke pathos
• Anecdote (personal anecdote)


  • “Dear Mrs. Dunkley”: “In 1952, when I was nine and my name was Helen Ford…” Garner cleverly employs personal anecdote throughout to create a deep sense of the personal in her reflection on time, illness through her relationship with an old teacher
• Connotations – Negative and positive

  • In her poem “The Surfer” Wright imbues the sea with negative connotations to create a tonal shift
• Connotations – Negative and positive

  The associations with a word, what we think of outside of its literal definition
• Assonance


  • “Full of sour marsh and broken boughs” – Slessor’s “Wild Graphs” utilises the repetition of the “our” diphthong to elongate the rhythm and evoke a sense of empty sournessness
• Collective pronouns/ inclusive language


  The use of “we”, “us”, to create a sense of unity between author and audience and/or represent a collective
• Contrast

  Putting two things side by side to reinforce their differences
• Collective pronouns/ inclusive language


  • Pearson in “Eulogy for Gough Whitlam” expresses his appreciation for Whitlam’s work at reconciliation with collective pronouns
• Contrast


  • “Were we lead all that way for / Birth or Death? … I had seen birth and death” Elliot’s “The Journey of the Magi” uses contrast to bring to the fore his central theme of the painful nature of spiritual rebirth
• Cumulative listing/ accumulation

  The use of three or more verbs, nouns or adjectives in a row – creates a list that emphasises or shows diversity
• Dialogue


  • “If yer bit” says Tommy, after a pause, “you’ll swell up, an smell, an turn red and green an blue all over, till yer bust.” Lawson skillfully captures the voice of Tommy the eldest son in “The Drover’s Wife”
• Derogatory language

  • Henry Lawson’s short stories carry the vernacular of their times, in the Drover’s wife the character “Black Mary” is described as “the whitest gin in all the land”
• Cumulative listing/ accumulation


  • “The soothing aromas / of Pho and lychee tea; that familiar / crescendo of rickshaws / bicycles and scooters; / landscapes of water buffalo” – Pham in “Mother” employs cumulative listing to capture his mother’s homeland of Vietnam
• Dialogue

  The exchange between two or more people spoken aloud, represented by quotation marks and dialogue tags
• Derogatory language

  Language that is used to hurt and abuse
• Direct address/ second person narration


  • “You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until
• Direct address/ second person narration

  Use of second person pronouns “you” to speak directly to the audience
• Foreshadowing


  • Preempting what will happen through inferences, atmosphere, and tone to create suspense and investment in the reader
• In “The Drover’s Wife” Lawson employs flashbacks as the protagonist recalls the many trials she has lived through, intensifying the audience's understanding of her conditions
• Direct address/ second person narration


  • Uses second person pronouns “you” to speak directly to the audience, creating a sense of immediate connection which can be used to influence, especially in persuasive pieces
• Enjambment


  • A poetic technique, running a sentence over two lines so a break occurs mid-sentence. It keeps the sentence running and breaks the rhythm of a regular clause
• Flashback and Flashforward


  • A shift in time to the past or future to provide more context or create suspense
• Internal dialogue


  • Thoughts inside a character’s head providing perspective and characterisation
• Hyperbole


  • Exaggeration to emphasise the impact or feeling of a situation
• Jargon


  • Words specific to a profession, skillset, or field of work creating specificity and denoting knowledge
• Juxtaposition


  • Placing two things side by side to emphasise their differences
• Metaphor


  • Comparing two things saying one thing is another
• Modality – high or low


  • The confidence of language used, high modality is very forward and strong, low modality is less certain
• Motif


  • When a symbol is repeated throughout a text, reinforcing the ideas it represents and is exploring
• Geraldine Brooks’ speech “A Home in Fiction”: 'Uses the motif of a home and words to represent her identity as a writer and how they occupy her life'