Visiting hour
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HIGHER ENGLISH - WRITING A CRITICAL ESSAY
INTRODUCTION: introduces the text
Eg "Visiting Hour by Norman MacCaig is a poem that describes his visit to hospital to see his wife who was seriously at the time."
links the text to the focus of the question
Eg "In doing so the poem draws the reader into the experience and making us share its intensity."
indicates how you are going to deal with that focus
Eg "I am going to show how MacCaig's use of the language and techniques of poetry gave me an insight into the nature of the three stages of a hospital visit,"
EACH SECTION OF THE ESSAY:
a) Has a topic sentence which explains the aspect of the focus you intend to deal with in this section.
Eg "Firstly MacCaig explores how the hospital visitor tries to distance himself from his feelings."
b) Identifies the techniques used to develop this idea and analyses specifically how they are used.
Eg "He does this by personifying his nostrils, seeing them as being independent of himself, and uses playful word choice to describe them as "bobbing along," presumably smelling the typical hospital smells that the visitor does not want to focus on."
c) Evaluates how well these techniques have been used to enhance the purpose/effect of the writing.
Eg "This creates an almost humorous tone, which at first sight seems to be out of keeping with the idea of a hospital, but it highlights for me how we use all sorts of tactics try to control our anxieties."
d) Concludes by relating the ideas you have been dealing with in this section to the focus of the whole essay.
Eg "I feel MacCaig has captured the tension we feel when on our way to visit someone close to us who is ill...