The Big Picture

When you are thinking and writing about texts, it's important to keep a very clear sense of:

• The writer's purpose, in other words, what the writer has to say and why she might have decided to share that with readers.
• The choices the writer makes about which writing techniques will best help her to say what she has to say.
• The ways in which those techniques help her to say what she has to say.
• The fact that spotting those techniques is of no value unless you can show how they were used by the writer to say what she has to say!

In thinking and writing about "Cetacean Disco", as a piece of non-fiction text, you need to be very aware of these important principles. When you are engaging with the text on this site, keep the Big Picture at the front of your mind.

What the writer may be saying

• She wants to share an experience that she had with us.
  Think about why she might have wanted to do that.
• She wants to say something about the part of the world in which this experience happened.
  Think about what aspects of the Inner Hebrides islands that she wants to bring to our attention.
• She wants to say some things about why people choose to go on excursions like these.
  Think about what clues she gives us about her views on this.
• She wants to involve us in the experience as if we were there.
  Think about those aspects of the experience on which she chooses to focus, and about why she chooses those.
• She wants us to get a sense of how others who were there reacted to what happened.
  Think about the various voices we hear and what they have to tell us, remembering to be aware of the difference between what they think and feel, and what Kathleen Jamie believes they may think or feel.

You may find it useful to print this page, so that you have a constant reminder of the Big Picture while you're working through how Jamie conveys her experience to us.