Help students move beyond simply spotting language techniques and develop the deeper analytical skills needed for GCSE English Language with this engaging Language Technique Hunters – Session 2 lesson.

Designed as a progression from a language-technique identification lesson, this 12-slide PowerPoint focuses on the crucial next step: explaining what language suggests, the connotations of individual words, effects and impressions, and why a writer may have deliberately made particular language choices.

Students are introduced to the memorable E–Z–I–E–I analysis method:

Evidence → Zoom → Infer → Effect → Intention

The lesson models this process using accessible examples before gradually moving students towards increasingly independent analysis. Students learn that strong analysis is not about identifying as many techniques as possible; instead, they are encouraged to select precise evidence, zoom in on individual words and investigate their possible meanings.

The lesson includes both fiction and non-fiction analysis hunts, helping students transfer their analytical skills between different text types. The fiction activity asks students to investigate language used to create an unsettling forest setting, while the non-fiction task develops analysis of connotations, reader effect and writer’s purpose.

Students are then supported in turning their ideas into a developed analytical paragraph using a structured writing scaffold. A Grade 5 model response demonstrates how students can move from quotation to word-level analysis, connotations, effect, purpose and an alternative interpretation.

The lesson finishes with a colourful plenary that revisits key learning and encourages students to explain which quotation they believe creates the strongest effect and why.

The resource includes: Do Now ranking activity and answers; E–Z–I–E–I Analysis Magnifying Glass; word-level “Zoom In” activity and model; alternative interpretations; fiction analysis hunt with answers; non-fiction analysis hunt; evidence, connotations, reader effect and writer’s purpose; analytical paragraph scaffold; Grade 5 model response; and end-of-lesson reflection/plenary.

Ideal for GCSE English Language, post-16 GCSE resit, KS4 intervention, revision, cover or language-analysis skills lessons.

The lesson is designed to be displayed directly from the PowerPoint, so students can complete the activities in their books with no printing required.