Moving students from C/B to A – A *

English Writing Assessment Objectives 1.Communicate clearly and imaginatively, using adapting forms for different readers and purposes 2.Organise ideas into sentences, paragraphs and whole texts using a variety of linguistic and structural features 3.Use a range of sentence structures effectively with accurate punctuation and spelling NOT HANDWRITING ILLEGIBILTY NOT A PROBLEM DON’T AGONISE OVER SPELLING INFORM, EXPLAIN, DESCRIBE ARGUE PERSUADE, ADVISE

See skills descriptors and content descriptors page Chief examiner: ‘not interested in content but skills descriptors – even though he wrote them’ Take risks Don’t write to formula A* needs to be distinctive eg. Writing to describe in form of a parable OR writing to describe in form of a poem OR Simon Armitage wrote a truncated sonnet A A* is not reserved for flair – you can teach towards it Writing to describe, inform or persuade the shortest

Compare Describe – a shopping centre with somone who has had an effect on you Therefore – humour, playing with words originality, risk taking, writing from different perspectives: Spoof Parody The ridiculous Mimicking an author

Poems from different cultures … PEE good for getting the students from D to C However it can become a straight jacket Therefore don’t teach to go on PEEing you will only get a ‘C’. If the students are obsessed with quotes they must go into further detail

F = POINT = this poem rhymes, there are lots of similes and metaphors. Don’t write everything you know not interested in content more IDEAS E = EVIDENCE = The poem has a simile ‘The skin cracks like a pod’ D/C = EXPLAIN = … this creates a vivid picture for the reader C = DEVELOP = … this represents the innocence of the poppy and child B = EXPLORE = A = ANALYSE = A* = EVALUATE = … this is clearly written with Rememberance Day in mind. When you buy a poppy you wear it on your heart … they look inside the coffin … so the poppy wearing symbolises his heartache, which is maybe why he wrote the poem OR The final line stands out on its own. Almost every word is emphasised so that the reader must take in the line's message and the shock and deep grief that the family must have felt. There is an element of shock for the reader reading it for the first time also, when they discover who has died and that he was a mere four years old. A poppy bruise is interesting, this is like the poem being…

Mid-term Break I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close, At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home. In the porch I met my father crying-- He had always taken funerals in his stride-- And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow. The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram When I came in, and I was embarrassed By old men standing up to shake my hand And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble," Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, Away at school, as my mother held my hand In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, Wearing a poppy bruise on the left temple, He lay in the four foot box as in a cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. A four foot box, a foot for every year. Seamus Heaney

Moving students to A – A* in Literature Comparison more significant at Literature for grade E after that the same as language You can just teach the 12 named poems Put all 12 poems on A3 sheet get students to find all the links. All the poems in anthology have been chosen to go together in some way YOU MUST GET THE STUDENTS TO DO THE POETRY QUESTION FIRST IN THE EXAM THE POETRY QUESTION = 40% OF THEIR LIT MARK

you don’t have to write about all 4 poems but just mention them – some questions have a) and b) so couldn’t possibly cover all 4 poems equally sts. need to avoid looking at the text or anthology too much. The board are desperate to stop the: ‘This poem has an ABAB rhythm and 2 similes approach’ sts. Must compare the poems in some way – they may wish to talk about one poem first but must compare and contrast each descriptor in the exam is not a hurdle – if you don’t get it it doesn’t mean you won’t get the grade

These poems both use lists, such as ‘garlic, onions, spices’ in ‘This Room’ and ‘brass, copper, aluminuim’ in ‘Blessing’, to suggest excitement. So many things means that everything in the room, and everybody in the village, is excited. There’s a suggestion of togetherness, too: the food ingredients blend together, and the pots and pans are a part of a long sentence about ‘congregation’ of people who rush to the spilt water. This is like the celebration in ‘This Room’. The opening sentences of ‘Blessing’, are short, though: the heat is so strong that nothing seems to move. Imtiaz Dharker has chosen not to use commas for listing in the phrase ‘every man woman/child’, which again gives the feeling of a rush, and togetherness: the words themselves are rushed… FE D C/D C B A

… The line break after ‘woman’ makes the reader lift out the word ‘child’; and it’s the children, playing in The water who are the most affecting sight at the end of the poem A*