Close Reading of Unseen Extracts - English L&L

The what, how, why method

Faced with an unseen extract, most students either panic or just retell the story. A close reading avoids both by working through three questions in order. Answer them in this sequence every time and you will always have something to say.

Close reading: Reading a short passage slowly and carefully to see how its details create meaning, rather than just what it is about.

Question	What you are doing
What?	What is literally happening or being described? Get the plain sense first.
How?	How does the writer craft it? Pick out the devices, diction, tone and structure.
Why?	Why does it matter? What effect is created for the reader, and what does it suggest?

The "what" keeps you grounded, the "how" makes you analytical, and the "why" earns the marks. Weak answers stop at "what". Strong answers spend most of their time on "how" and "why".

Read it twice

Read the extract once for the "what", just to follow it. Then read it again slowly, pencil in hand, hunting for the "how". Trying to do both on a single read is how details get missed.

How to annotate under pressure

Annotation is thinking made visible. You do not have time to mark everything, so hunt for the moments where the writing seems deliberate. Underline a striking word, circle a shift, and jot a two-word effect in the margin. Your annotations become the raw material for your paragraphs.

Look for	Quick margin note
A word with strong connotations	"harsh diction, feels cruel"
A metaphor, simile or personification	"metaphor, danger"
A change in pace or a short sentence	"shift, tension"
A repeated word or image	"repetition, obsession"
The opening and closing lines	"frames the mood"

Quality over quantity

Three details analysed in depth beat ten details merely listed. It is better to say a lot about one loaded word than to name six devices and explain none of them.

Turning notes into PEEL paragraphs

Once you have annotations, shape each point into a PEEL paragraph. It is the same what, how, why logic in a tidy form.

PEEL: Point, Evidence, Explanation, Link: a paragraph shape that keeps analysis focused and complete.

Letter	What goes here
Point	Your idea about the extract, answering the question.
Evidence	A short, embedded quotation from the text.
Explanation	The device, the connotations, and the effect on the reader.
Link	A sentence tying the point back to the question or the wider text.

A modelled short analysis

Here is the whole method run on one invented extract, ending in a model PEEL paragraph you can imitate.

Modelled example

Invented extract: "The city did not sleep so much as lie in wait. Neon bled across the wet road, and somewhere below the traffic a siren wound itself tighter and tighter, until the whole night seemed to be holding its breath."

What? A city at night is described: wet roads, neon light and a rising siren.

How? Personification ("did not sleep", "lie in wait", "holding its breath"), the violent verb "bled", and the repetition in "tighter and tighter".

Why? These choices make the city feel alive, watchful and dangerous, building a tense, threatening mood before anything has even happened.

Model PEEL paragraph: The writer presents the city as a living, threatening presence rather than a mere setting. This is clear when the city is said to "lie in wait" and to be "holding its breath", personification that gives the streets a watchful, predatory awareness. The violent verb "bled", used of the neon light, adds a sense of injury and danger, while the repetition in "tighter and tighter" mimics rising tension until the reader, too, feels braced for something to happen. Through this personification and diction, the writer builds an ominous mood that leaves the reader uneasy and expectant from the very first lines.

Notice how the paragraph embeds short quotations inside its own sentences, names the devices, reads their connotations, and always returns to the effect on the reader. That is close reading in full.

Where this is assessed

The whole what, how, why routine is Criterion A (Analysing) in action. Building clear PEEL paragraphs is Criterion B (Organizing), and writing them in fluent, accurate, well-chosen language is Criterion D (Using language).

Check yourself

1. What are the three questions of the close-reading method, in order? +

What (the literal sense), how (the writer's craft: devices, diction, structure), and why (the effect on the reader and what it suggests). The marks live mostly in "how" and "why".

2. In a PEEL paragraph, what does the second E stand for and what must it include? +

The second E is Explanation. It must name the device and, crucially, explain the connotations and the effect on the reader, not just repeat the quotation. This is where analysis actually happens.

3. Why is it better to embed a short quotation than to copy out a long one? +

A short, embedded quotation slots neatly into your own sentence and lets you analyse a precise word or phrase. A long copied-out quotation wastes time, buries the key detail, and often leaves you describing rather than analysing.

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