At the core of this task, is a series of WHY’s questions. By this, I mean when you are analysing the author’s writing, you are essentially picking out quotes and explaining why these quotes are significant. During this process, it is important to consider:

a) WHY does the author phrase something in a particular way (e.g. does this quote or symbol allude to another meaning?). This is dependent on the text. 

b) WHY does this example (that you have chosen) link to the overall essay prompt? This is dependent on the essay topic. 

By addressing these ‘WHY’ questions frequently in your piece, this avoids the most common pitfall in Text Response, which is summarising the text rather than responding to and analysing the text.