📖 The Examiner Knows What Happened. They Want to Know What You Were Made to Feel.
📖 The Examiner Knows What Happened. They Want to Know What You Were Made to Feel.
A student reads a passage about a climber who falls and survives. They write: “the climber is scared and the reader feels scared too.” This is observation. It tells the examiner nothing about craft. The examiner wants to know: how does the writer position the reader to feel that fear? Through what specific choices — of sentence length, verb tense, point of view, what is withheld — is the reader placed alongside or at a distance from the action? That is reader-positioning.
English Language glossary
- What is reader-positioning, and how is it different from saying 'the reader feels X'?
- <strong>Reader-positioning</strong> means identifying how the writer places the reader in relation to events or characters — and explaining which craft choices create that placement.<br><br><strong>The difference:</strong><br>• <em>‘The reader feels scared’</em> — names an emotion. L2. Does not explain craft.<br>• <em>‘The writer positions the reader to experience the character’s fear directly, withholding the outcome until the final sentence’</em> — names the position AND the craft choice. L4.<br><br><strong>The full pattern:</strong> “The writer positions the reader to [feel/judge/sympathise/question] through [specific craft choice] — perhaps suggesting that [wider meaning].”
Reader-positioning means identifying how the writer places the reader in relation to events, characters, or arguments — and then naming the emotional or intellectual effect of that placement. It is not about guessing what a reader feels. It is about explaining what craft choices create that feeling.
Now try it yourself
Quiz · Question 1 of 10
What is the key difference between 'the reader feels scared' (L2) and reader-positioning analysis (L4)?
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