Summary The Danger of a Single Story, grade 9 GCSE revision notes
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Course
English
Institution
GCSE
These revision notes will enable you to secure that grade 9 in GCSE English as they are concise and will focus your revision to the key quotes, analysis, structure and form that is needed to achieve a grade 9!
Summary:
The non-fiction piece discusses the negative impact of society and stereotyping.
Adichie discusses some of the issues that she faced when she left for America and
how she came to terms with other people’s ignorance. The piece is focused on
ensuring communities listen to each other.
Genre: Speech – refer to AUDIENCE not reader
Purpose: persuasive + informative
Title: ‘Danger’ foreshadows main argument + cautionary tone, ‘story’ is used as a
metaphor – exposes stereotypes
Points about beginning:
She immediately begins by sharing personal anecdotes with the audience that allows
us to have a closer connection to her. She may have introduced herself like this first
on purpose to allow us to get to know her and not have a ‘single story’ about her or
stereotype her.
WOW quotes for beginning:
‘I’m a storyteller’ – first sentence, personal pronoun, intimacy is created between
audience and speaker, engages audience, potentially foreshadows that we have to
listen, extended metaphor, declarative sentence
‘they played in the snow’ – the plural pronoun separates herself from her characters
‘We didn’t have snow’ – direct comparison, ‘We’ juxtaposition in pronouns, ‘they’ is
not inclusive but ‘we’ is – these pronouns display how separated she feels
Structure for beginning: asyndetic listing, long sentences, personal anecdotes, gives
ages to make us feel closer to her
Points about middle: we go on a journey with her as she tells us about the mistake,
she made about having a single story of someone
WOW quotes for middle:
‘skin the colour of chocolate’ – ‘chocolate’ has envious connotations, perhaps she
used this noun to make people want to envy her for a change instead of the other
way round, allowing us to empathise with her
‘Their poverty was my single story of them’ – relatable, honest, links to title,
declarative sentence, this will make people feel more open to admit they have done
this before as she evokes she has done it as well
‘produced my tape of Mariah Carey.’ – use of humour, used to diffuse topic which
makes her seem more approachable, universally applicable, relaxes us
‘she assumed that I did not know how to use a stove’ – 1 line paragraph, straight
after the use of humour, pulls audience’s attention back, declarative, ‘assumed’ has
connotations around stereotypes and prejudice, a stove is a relatable reference so it
sounds more shocking
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