heehee, one of those guides was written by my HSC english (Eng Adv and EE1) teacher!
I do appreciate his guide, however the other one is broken down a lot more and is probably more useful for those having difficulty getting their heads around the book.
How I would approach the question - remember this is the CRITICAL study of the text module - is to answer the question but to really sort of "shape" your argument and main points around lines pulled from various critics (Berger et all - this is digging up from 2 years ago so my mind is really fuzzy! lol). Mind you, when I say "your argument" you don't have to come right out and say "I think this" and "I think that" etc etc (that's more of a uni-level thing). But, you CAN do the "Berger writes that ______________. However it could also be interpreted from a narratological perspective that _________________________ as seen in _______________ results in ____________________" etc etc.
I wouldn't put individual context/values etc totally out of the picture (however that seems like a very EE1 thing to me! lol) as it will surely sneak itself in there, but I would probably put analysis of critics/perspectives a notch higher on the priority list.
ITSOAL is one of those things which I didn't really get until a week before my trials. I was clever enough to realise they were coming up, so I decided to call up a classmate and chat about it on the phone. Within 15 minutes we'd refreshed our memories and broken the main points of the book down into really simplistic words like "OMG IT'S ART! OMG OMG" etc
It was good. :uhhuh:
I found with this text that there are a few beautiful scenes to take note of (such as the puppet scene, pure gold that one) but it is VERY important and VERY valuable to look at this book as a whole, as well. There is a lot of very subtle detail and care taken with names, locations and seemingly random events that happen. As one critic writes (can't remember the name) "There is order here, very faint but very human..."