The Close Analysis: Passage Analysis
Some call it the argued reading. Basically, the difference between the Literature essay and the English text response is that they are essentially inverted. In English, you are encouraged to have an overall contention, with your paragraphs being framed around smaller aspects of said contention, and with language and quotes from the text to support said smaller aspects. In Literature, language is always your first priority. Before making any comments about what the text "means", or even what the passages "mean", you have to suss out what's actually going on in the writing of the passage: what language devices and tropes are there, and what do they establish? As an example, observe:
"The poetic allusion to “whose phrase of sorrow/Conjures the wandering stars” seems to embody a realm yet beyond the realm of Claudius’ kingdom, and with his declaration “This is I”, Hamlet appears to accept that his very being is constituted of both his actions and the intangible ethereality of the heavens."
"Compounding “imagination” and “My gorge rises at it” alerts to the audience that Hamlet has finally embraced both the marvels of thought and the necessary boundaries of the physical realm; here, Shakespeare is depicting a completed man, whose comprehension of his universe is fully developed. "
"Hyphenated and incoherent syntactical construction in “every body’s favourite – always wholesome” is, of course, a symbol of Mrs. Elton’s fragmented mind; beyond this, however, Austen is crafting in Mrs. Elton’s speech a vision of the general chatter throughout England, a landscape constituted not only by the gentility, but also by the entirety of human society."
In all three cases, I have begun with a language device of some sort, analysing its usage and then drawing towards a deeper understanding of what is actually happening within the passage. This is what you want to do for most of your passage analysis.
Gradually, as your analysis becomes more and more complex (and complete), you want to start to build towards an interpretation: coupled together, what do all these language devices mean in the broader scheme of the text? You want to have an awareness of the views and values of the writer, and essentially, you have to provide for an account of what they are trying to suggest in crafting their text. Again, observe:
"Rather than channel energies into the purely physical then, Passage Three is suggesting an amalgamation between mind and matter as being the basis for wonder in human existence. Hamlet’s paradoxical exclamation “My thoughts be bloody” suggests neither a keen indulgence in thinking nor a reckless abandon to arms; instead, transcendence is brought about through acknowledging the merits of both “capability and godlike reason” within the universe. Freed from his prison of Denmark, and no longer relying on the sanctuary of his internalised thoughts, the Hamlet constructed by Shakespeare is now apotheosised, ready to confront the fate which awaits him in the silence of the play’s denouement: the audience thus acknowledges that, like Hamlet, humanity must reconcile the physical and the metaphysical, for it is only with understanding of both that the zenith of reality may manifest in its absolute majesty. "
"What Emma is reflecting then is the distortion of humanity within the framework of civilisation. As depicted within Passage One, Emma’s reliance on “pretty good guessing” is indicative on a failure on her behalf to see the essence of reality itself; as the wealthy heiress of Hartfield, she is furthermore acting as a metonym, embodying from the height of her position the impotency of a society governed by the externally imposed structures of class and wealth. With this in mind, the ideal which Austen constructs is thus transcendental from the state of Regency England; rather than judging from merely the state of “good manners”, what Austen advocates is a recognition of the self and the interior, a portrait of mankind’s universe which complements the appraisal of both the appropriate etiquette and the very humanity of its inhabitants."
Note that you don't need to stop at one "interpretation"; in fact, doing so would probably prove fatal. Any text (on the VCE Literature text list, at least) has a variety of interpretations, and the best discussions will provide two or even three different "readings" of the one text.