Eng. A1 - Commentary Structures

[Alouette]

Our teacher has often told us that there are basically two structures you can use for written commentaries: You can either organise it so that you clump stylistic features together and talk about them in paragraphs (e.g. you have one paragraph for syntax, where you comment on the sentence structure throughout the entire poem) or you write systematically, analysing the extract line by line. I believe that most people write using the former structure for commentaries, but our teacher has asked us to write a commentary with line-by-line analysis, saying that we'll most likely use that structure in the actual IB exam for the unseen commentary.

Right. Well. I've no idea how to write a commentary with line by line analysis. I was wondering if anyone would mind telling me how to structure it that way... How do you split it up into paragraphs? Do you put the first twelve or thirteen lines into one paragraph, and do the same for the succeeding paragraphs? (... Following paragraphs, that is.) And how would you signpost it in the introduction?

Systematic commentaries seem so troublesome, sigh.

-Edit-

Unfortunately the commentary I have to write presently is on an extract from a play -- a speech in particular. So there is one speaker and basically just one stanza. I like inthemaking's idea of grouping them by ideas, though...

Edited February 25, 2009 by Alouette

[__inthemaking]

I always grouped my paragraphs according to devices (so the first method you mentioned).

I find that doing line by line analysis gets messy because you're jumping from one device to another and back again. But if you are doing it like that, I suggest breaking it up according to the natural structure of the poem. Like if I got a sonnet, I would group the first 8 lines together and the last 6 lines together. Or my English teacher always said to group the lines in terms of ideas.

[Jay D]

Poetry is naturally placed in stanzas. Use them to your advantage and group the lines together for one point.

[Sandwich]

I've always written my commentaries on a line by line basis, and I tend to group my paragraphs for every line, or every two or three lines, dependent on how long they are and where full stops are. This is actually the same as grouping by ideas in the poem. Every sentence or everywhere where would be a sentence (even if it's unpunctuated) marks a separate idea (:

Of course you should try to link a few ideas together across the poem. So if you come across a repeated idea in a later line, say it's an extension of the previous comment etc. You'll also need to do a concluding paragraph to deal with structure and rhyme scheme (if it's a poem), because the line by line method means you'll inevitably leave out these overarching things. In a similar vein, you should start your first paragraph with a quick overview of what you feel the main theme of the poem is-- and keep reenforcing the links back to this main theme as you deal with the lines. Basically anything which relates to it, mention it.

My structure would more or less be:

Main theme.

Line by line/idea by idea.

Structure and rhyme scheme.

Conclusion linking back to main theme.

Hope that's helpful. I find that doing it this way is very helpful as you don't need to waste time planning the essay-- it's pre-planned for you!

[LinuxBeta]

The first approach is closer to what it should be, but not quite. You would NEVER do a line by line analysis because you would get destroyed for structure.

What you should do is do something similar to the first one, but devote paragraphs to the major ideas of the poem/prose passage. You would not want to devote a whole paragraph to syntax, because there is only so much you can say about it. What I like to do is to organize the commentary by the different themes of the poem/passage. Why? Because in analyzing them separately, you can incorporate literary features, ie/ tone, imagery, structure etc. If there really is only one theme in the poem/passage, I like to separate it in terms of theme, tone and one other prominent literary device. Any summary/context would be in the intro, and the conclusion would be devoted to a summation and an evaluation of the implications of the analysis in life.

Trust me, this works. In our school, everyone must take English A1 HL, and people final marks have 95% of the time been 5, 6 or 7 (we have had an occasional 4 once every few years).

[Sandwich]

You do get points for line by line structuring. You're just doing chronological structuring rather than thematic structuring-- provided you're not skipping around randomly, it still works. It's just about making sure you link everything you're saying together, rather than have it disparate, or so I find. Depends which you find easier! There's no one way of doing it, though, as your teacher said. You could probably organise it in any number of ways, provided it flows nicely from one idea to the next.

[faerie]

Okay as far as doing oral commentaries, you're supposed to go like this (according to my teacher)

Title and author of work the passage comes from

placement of the passage within the work

themes present in the passage

characters present in the passage

tone

diction

characterization (including FOILS!)

literary devices (metaphor, motif, simile, paradox, irony, ect.)

use all of these things to back up your theme and/or characterization

if you're running short on time, go back to your characterization stuff. you always know so much about the characters. don't be afraid to reference/compare to other works (for example, on a practice oral commentary I compared Hamlet's Claudius to Antigone's Creon) and other parts of the work! make sure you explain the placement and background thoroughly, that always takes up time

also! new from IB is the idea that you could say "I just realized" in the middle of your presentation when you realize you've gone off-track, and they understand. it's an awesome thing

[LinuxBeta]

It's a decent structure, faerie. The thing is that there is way too much on that list to talk about in an oral commentary (ie/ the IOC). While the each heading can be important, do not include all of them. Include only the ones that are prominent in the novel as official headings. Everything else you could talk about in passing. Don't go off topic, that's not good. Also, you missed the conclusion of the commentary. That part is important in getting you structure marks.

[greaterthaninfinity]

My teacher strongly advises against line-by-line analysis. She says that she herself generally will not give anything higher than a 6 for structure if you were to analyze line-by-line. I've received fairly satisfactory marks on my practice written commentaries so far, and I generally go with a format that's very similar to that of an essay. So, basically, first paragraph is almost akin to an introduction. I try to state what is obviously occurring in the passage; then I have a transition sentence or two and immediately proceed to my thesis. My body paragraphs are entirely analysis, and I separate them according to the ideas. I conclude by rewording my thesis... and that's pretty much it. It doesn't sound very structured, but it's quite effective for me.

[Tarz]

You do get points for line by line structuring. You're just doing chronological structuring rather than thematic structuring-- provided you're not skipping around randomly, it still works. It's just about making sure you link everything you're saying together, rather than have it disparate, or so I find. Depends which you find easier! There's no one way of doing it, though, as your teacher said. You could probably organise it in any number of ways, provided it flows nicely from one idea to the next.

This.

Also I like thematic structure sometimes. It's easier to give a meaning to your essay and when you make sure you discuss the theme's components (for lack of a better word) in enough literary terms, you still get full points for that criteria. It's really easy to go off topic discussing events or to start writing about philosophy, psychology or something non-literary. That's why I don't recommend it, but it proves that there are many ways to write a commentary.

The line-by-line style will probably be for your IOC, since you may not understand the passage fully in the 10? 15? minutes you get to prepare your commentary and then it's a lot better if you just go through the poem or passage chronologically rather than NOT have even that structure when you start discussing something and you realized it's not even true. How long was this sentence lol anyways. Yeah, line-by-line shouldn't really be your goal, but it can save your ass.

Sorry double post... don't ban <.<

My teacher strongly advises against line-by-line analysis. She says that she herself generally will not give anything higher than a 6 for structure if you were to analyze line-by-line. I've received fairly satisfactory marks on my practice written commentaries so far, and I generally go with a format that's very similar to that of an essay. So, basically, first paragraph is almost akin to an introduction. I try to state what is obviously occurring in the passage; then I have a transition sentence or two and immediately proceed to my thesis. My body paragraphs are entirely analysis, and I separate them according to the ideas. I conclude by rewording my thesis... and that's pretty much it. It doesn't sound very structured, but it's quite effective for me.

I suggest that you try this:

I always write something in the end that will give meaning to the essay. If you've just discussed the sympathy created for the protagonist you can say that the moral views that the author is trying to convey are apparent through it. It doesn't have to be discussed in the essay, but it does have to be interesting. Sometimes I make comments about how the novel would've been better, or why I disagree with the message. If you just discussed tone, make sure you don't just say "this is the tone and it's supported by these 3 things", say "now that we know what the tone is, we can see how it enhances the story by drawing the reader into it and that effect makes it a high quality work of literature".