Alrighty, let's break this up:
I have a good understanding of the text but when It comes to analysing quotes, I seem to just be rewording it somehow and not doing critical analysis.
A little trick you might find helpful is
nominalisation, which basically means noun-ifying things.
Rather than saying: 'The character suggests she "does not love Romeo."'
Try instead: 'The character's
suggestion that she "does not love Romeo"...'
See how that second sentence makes you keep going? Using the verb form for words like said, suggests, implies, confides, reveals, etc. can lead to lapsing into summary. Whereas, if you stop and force yourself to discuss the suggestion/ implication/ confidence/ revealing, etc. you're also forcing yourself into analysis.
It's only one minor change, and of course not every sentence should look like this, but if you get into the habit of analysing on a small level, it'll be easier to adapt to other kinds of helpful sentence structures.
I've tried sitting with my teacher but my essay marks are always the same, and no matter how I change my style of writing, it doesn't seem to get into that A band.
Assuming you're in Year 12, tough it out. Even if you think your teacher's advice is unhelpful, or wrong,
they're still the ones marking your SACs! Most students in this position will be learning two courses; one is the methods for essay writing that their teacher mandates, and the other is what is objectively safe to write in the end of year exam. If you're lucky, there will be a lot of overlap, but for now, you have to focus on catering to your teacher.
If you want to improve, be as specific as possible!There's a reason you can't just move into the A band by wanting to; numerical goals don't help you study. They might motivate you, but they don't give you anything tangible to work towards. Put yourself in a teacher's shoes and imagine a student came to you and said they wanted to go from a 6 to a 10. What would you say?
You might be able to point them in some general directions, but to actually help,
you need to know what the problem is. Likewise if you're going to a teacher for help, make sure you have a clear purpose in mind, like 'I need to know how to structure my Topic Sentences, and whether I should make them really broad, or really specific.' Not 'I need to make this 7/10 essay a 10/10.'
I know my expression needs working on- so any advice for that?
What about your expression needs work? Are your sentences too long? Is your syntax all over the place? Is your vocab really weak? If you ask a specific question, you'll be able to get a more specific answer,
eg. 'My expression needs work.'
--> 'My ideas flow, but not my writing.'
--> 'I can't write long sentences.'
--> 'I'm not using enough conjunctive words (eg. 'and,' but,' 'therefore,' 'contrarily,' etc.)'
--> 'I should try using those words to combine similar ideas.'
And yes I guess I don't go into as much detail as I'd like too while explaining quotes. And when I said repeating myself, I'd provide a quote, then explain it and then I write another sentence underneath all that, rewording what I wrote the first time, and it just goes downhill
If you're aware of the problem, then just stop yourself from doing this
Consciously remind yourself to discuss the quote, not just paraphrase it. Assume your marker has read the text - you don't need to contextualise quotes and go into heaps of detail before or after - just give them sufficient information so that they know what you're talking about, and move straight into analysing the significance of the quote on a broader level.
Oh and one more thing Im not quite sure how to explain the metalanguage the author uses while i'm explaining the quotes I've chosen... any ideas?
Not quite sure what you're asking here, but if it's just a general vocab issue, going through some sample word lists is probably your best bet. As a last minute thing, go through the essays you're writing/ have written and find instances where you haven't been able to explain a word properly. Look these words up in a thesaurus, and take note of any viable synonyms that you could use. Although you can acquire words passively, going out of your way to expand your vocab is often more productive. You don't want to be spending several minutes in a SAC just trying to word your response properly; sophisticated language is efficient language, so build it up early so you have a wealth to draw from if you need it