Does anyone else find doing P.E.E for English really hard?

[itsallaboutthedollar]

I mean I did English GCSE 26 years ago but I literally can't remember how to do it and I find it really complicated yet in theory it shoulds easy. It's all the fancy words like superlatives and imperative verbs etc. how can I learn this to help my son?

How old is he? Btw, gcse examiners say every year that they are much less bothered about terminology and much keener to see real analysis of meaning.

So candidate a says "The writer creates a feeling of tension. The use of the noun phrase "damp deserted house" with its two alliterative adjectives is very tense and creepy."

But candidate b says "When the writer describes the house as "damp and deserted", he is implying that this house has been abandoned for a long time because it has begun to deteriorate from neglect; we can then infer that it may be a frightening place. The repeated d in this phrase draws our attention and makes it more more emphasised for the reader.

B would score more highly as they are considering meaning and how the various connotations of the words used create this.

(I'm an English teacher btw)

I suspect PEE is very helpful for lower ability pupils (like my DD) as it makes them cover the basics, whereas higher ability pupils know what they need to say anyway and so can structure it in the way that feels most natural.

@keiratwiceknightly see your example sounds fantastic but what I find is when he comes home with a passage and then has to annotate the passage using AFORREST techniques, I really struggle to pick out all the techniques. I need to really revise them myself

As the person above mentioned, he doesn't need to know all those devices off by heart...there's not as much importance placed on subject terminology as there used to be and in fact, they can get great marks just naming adjectives/verbs/nouns and saying the effects of those particular words as the user above said.

We taught AFORESTFIRE (persuasive writing) and COMPAASSH (creative writing) up until last year and have now omitted it from our schemes as it feels as though the kids see it as a tick box exercise. If he needs to know a few...the basics will get him by (facts/opinion/repetition for persuasion and colour/adjectives/alliteration for creative).

The best thing you can do is build up his vocabulary and have him fully understand connotations of words. Then pick out 2/3 quotes from a paragraph and try to go deeper with the connotations. Hope that makes sense.

If you have any more questions though, I'd be happy to help!

@Marshmallowbunny you've been very helpful, thanks so much. He's only year 9 atm but he says his teacher keeps talking about this being used right into GCSE so he's quite panicked about it as he really hates English and the fact that he's not fully understanding it is making him
Anxious. He keeps saying that he has to actually name the devices used in the text and while he knows some, when he gets large scripts/ essay, he just can't find any. When I look I can see what the writer is trying to portray but I can't remember all the fancy names for things like imperative verb, alliteration, onomatopoeia

Then you're doing the right thing! Please do NOT try to learn all the "fancy terms" as, on their own, they count for nothing.

WHAT is the writer trying to do?
HOW does the writer do it? WHERE are they doing it?
WHY do they choose those words and not another?

There is NO requirement at all to find techniques.

Source - english teacher and senior examiner

Hi

It sounds like your son might benefit from some tutoring? Some of those techniques are quite antiquated and actually might prohibit from achieving higher marks.

A short burst of tutoring might help with his confidence and ability. Lit is not taught in the same way that it was taught 10/15 / 20 years ago.

speaking as an English teaching of 15+ years!