Reading 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century non-fiction — OCR GCSE English Language J351
OCR GCSE English Language · J351
Reading 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century non-fiction
Component 01 reading questions
What you need to know
Reading unseen non-fiction with confidence: autobiography, letters, diaries, journalism, essays, speeches and travel writing, and how to work out each writer's purpose, audience and viewpoint.
Reading the 19th-century text: older vocabulary, long sentences with many clauses, and using the short introduction to each text to understand when and why it was written.
Reading and annotating both texts before answering any question, allowing about 15 minutes.
Practises all four Component 01 reading questions.
The worked example uses two linked texts about hard journeys to a long-sought goal, both printed in the lesson: Text 1, from Isabella Bird's letters 'A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains' (1879), on her climb of Long's Peak, and Text 2, from Captain Scott's journal for the days in January 1912 when his party reached the South Pole.
Sentence starters and a short checklist for using the skill in the exam.
