A/A* English Language Paper 1: Writing to Persuade – Lesson 1 Starter: What techniques can you use in your writing to be more persuasive?

‘Street Trash: Beggars of Britain’ This is the title of the article... What do you think the article is going to be about?

Fill in the blanks You have the first paragraph of the article Task: fill in the blanks with what you think the writer might have written. Let’s share!!

________ beggars, ________beggars, beggars with _______ ________ beggars, ________beggars, beggars with _______. Beggars in _________ and beggars in ________.

Punk beggars, drunk beggars, beggars with babies Punk beggars, drunk beggars, beggars with babies. Beggars in shell suits and beggars in rags. Beggars with snot on their chin and a mangy mutt on the end of a piece of string. Lots of them.

Can anyone remember the key persuasive techniques? Here’s a clue... A aliteration F facts F flattery O opinions R repetition R rhetorical questions E emotive language S superlatives S statistics T triples

Reading on... Lets read the rest of the article...

Powers of persuasion! In pairs, read through the article again and circle any personal pronouns. What have you noticed? Now, identify all the persuasive techniques used in the article. (Be prepared to discuss their effects).

Group feedback

Our thoughts... On the green post-it note, write down how you think beggars are presented in the article. Is it positive or negative? On the pink post-it note, write down why you think Tony Parsons wrote the article. Or ask students to make a line across the room making a scale from positive to negative and students stand where they think Parsons stands?

Plenary: Counterblast!! In groups of 3 or 4, using a variety of persuasive techniques you are going to write a letter to the editor of Arena magazine to counterblast Tony Parsons’ article on street beggars.

How does all this relate to your exam? In your Paper 1 exam, you will get two sections Section A = You’ll get an unseen media passage which you will have to comment and analyse Section B = Writing to persuade or argue.