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When the Biography Unit started in April 2017,  I was unsure of how to vary my use of language and expression in a piece of writing to convey meaning. My goal is to become more knowledgeable about how biographers vary their language and expression to convey a specific meaning or create a certain mood.

By doing most tasks from 'Language Study', I hope to analyse different biographers' linguistic styles and their variation in language and eventually incorporate this skill into my writing.

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I looked up words that I did not know the meaning of in the excerpt and understood their usage in the context of the excerpt.

The task was unhelpful because it mainly increased my vocabulary but did not teach me much about varying my expression.

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I searched the definition of a contraction and analysed its purpose in a piece of writing.  Then, I identified contractions in the excerpt and replaced them with its long form.

The task was helpful because I learned that one way I can express my subject's thoughts and feelings is through contractions, which help to maintain a colloquial tone.

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I performed Task 3 on 4 different excerpts. I have broken up my learning from the tasks into 4 parts. Each part describes my learning experience from each excerpt.

General reflection about Task 3:
As a whole, Task 3 was helpful because it facilitated my understanding of how different biographers use different linguistic and stylistic features to make their writing unique.

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Task 3 (Part 1): Excerpt 2: Biography of Marie Curie, p.6 

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Task 3 (Part 1): Excerpt 2: Biography of Marie Curie, p.6 

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The first task I performed Task 3 on was Excerpt 2: Biography of Marie Curie, p.6 to learn the Language of chronology.

I identified words and expressions that indicated the writer had a sequence in mind. It was a helpful task because I learnt a new skill: Giving dates to events to show a sense of chronology. I felt that it was a useful technique because it (a)organises information in a systematic way, (b) gives clarity to the writing, and (c) helps to keep readers informed and aware of the change in time periods.

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Task 3 (Part 2): Excerpt 5: Mr Lee’s Red Box, p. 11

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Task 3 (Part 2): Excerpt 5: Mr Lee’s Red Box, p. 11

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I identified the paragraphs where the modal verb ‘would’ was used and analysed how it was used in this excerpt.
It was helpful because it increased my knowledge on how even a simple word like “would” indicates to the reader that it is a routine that a subject had in the past.

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Task 3 (Part 3): Excerpt 7: The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, p. 17

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Task 3 (Part 3): Excerpt 7: The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, p. 17

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I identified which 2 tenses were used primarily in the excerpt and looked for pieces of evidence of language of looking back in time.

This was definitely the most meaningful excerpt to perform Task 3 on because it helped me understand the language of looking back in time and provided me with relevant skills which aided me in writing my biography.

Firstly, the analysis of the excerpt gave me a clearer understanding of when to use the present and past tense, which is an essential and extremely relevant skill in writing my biography because as a biographer, one has to manoeuvre between different time periods in a subject’s life.

Secondly, it increased my knowledge of possible phrases I can use to show my subject recollecting about her life.

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Task 3 (Part 4): Excerpt 12A: Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

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Task 3 (Part 4): Excerpt 12A: Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

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I answered 2 questions while performing Task 3 on this excerpt.
Q1. Why does Mantel use the past tense AND the present tense?
Q2.  How does Mantel use the colon? Resources:
1.     http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/colon.html

2.     https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/punctuation/colon

This excerpt was also useful because it helped me understand the purpose of using the past tense and present tense and provided me with an example of how to accurately switch between the past and present tense. Furthermore, it also introduced an elegant, efficient and straightforward way of presenting information/examples to support a concept.

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I identified and explained the use of golden details in an excerpt from the autobiography Open by Andre Agassi.

This task was helpful as it trained me how to identify golden details and to analyse how it conveyed meaning in a unique way. In Open,  the biographer used personification and golden details to express what Agassi's training felt like, making the auto-biography engaging.

The process of completing this task gave me a joyful learning experience because I had the liberty of choosing a separate biographical excerpt I was interested in and it led me to borrow an excellent sports autobiography of Andre Agassi, a gripping autobiography that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and could relate to.

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I answered Discussion question 2 as it helped to facilitate my understanding of how the author's diction created the ultimate tone and mood of the essay.

The task was helpful because it made me aware that words have connotations and that one should skilfully select words as they have a severe imapct and important role in creating a mood and tone.

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I read for subject and used the learner strategy of identifying claim of evidence to understand the attributes/characteristics of the subject.

Although Task 14 was not one of the tasks under "Language Study", it was helpful in helping me achieve my goal because it was a clear example of how golden details were used to convey meaning subtly.

Golden details in the form of 4 sets of evidence were used to show, but not tell, the reader that Mr. Lee was a frugal man. The golden details showed how Mr. Lee was a frugal man instead of explicitly telling the reader by substantiating the claim with evidence, allowing the reader to make the connections himself/herself.

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After performing all the tasks, I learned many stylistic and linguistic features, a variety of ways to express oneself and different types of language, for example, the language of tense and chronology.  I learned to judge whether they were effectively used. I compared the different linguistic features between the excerpts and saw how the different features were able to help in making the excerpts engaging and unique.