1. My Autobiography written assessment
How can I write in an interesting way using Roald Dahl’s style as stimulus?

2. To get a good grade I must…
Organise and present texts effectively through sequencing and structuring
Show cohesion within and between paragraphs
Vary sentences for clarity, purpose and effect
Write with technical accuracy

3. Structuring your autobiography
Something interesting about my birth (sentence structure, simile/ metaphor)
A memorable person from my early years (refer to the senses, simile, metaphor, personification)
School life (single word sentence, single line paragraph, alliteration, parallel phrasing, oxymoron)
What you hope the future will bring? (metaphor, ask a question, can you repeat yet change a small section from your opening paragraph?)

4. Opening paragraph
Think about how you might produce an opening that is imaginative, interesting and thoughtful.
You may want to begin with a little known fact:
There are a few interesting things about my birth. For example, the place in The QMC hospital where I was born is now a car park – it’s as bad as building a supermarket over a cemetery!

5. Improving opening paragraphs
Start with an ‘ed’ word:
Terrified, Ron ran.
Start with an ‘ing’ word:
Smiling happily, Ginny opened her present.
Begin with an adverb:
Quickly, she shut the door.
Silently, she slipped into the shadows.
Try some repetition:
Silently, they met. Silently, they crept out into the corridor.
Draw in your reader with a question:
What was that lurking at the end of the corridor?

6. Paragraph 2 - A memorable person from your early years
Her name was Mrs Pratchett. She was a small skinny old hag with a moustache on her upper lip and a mouth as sour as a green gooseberry. She never smiled. She never welcomed us when we went in.
By far the most loathsome thing about Mrs Pratchett was the filth that clung all over her. Her apron was grey and greasy. Her blouse had bits of breakfast all over it, toast crumbs and tea stains and splotches of dried egg yolk.
It was her hands, however that disturbed us most. They were disgusting. They were black with dirt and grime. They looked as though they had been putting lumps of coal on the fire all day long. The mere sight of her grimy right hand with its black fingernails digging an ounce of chocolate fudge out of the jar would have caused a starving tramp to go running out of the shop. We often watched in sullen silence while this disgusting old women stirred around inside the jars with her foul fingers.

7. Making verbs more interesting through personification
Example of straight forward verb use:
My homework lay under my bed.
Example of personified verb:
My homework surrendered under my bed.
Expanded example:
My abandoned homework helplessly surrendered itself to a lifetime of solitude under my bed.
Use personification to change the verbs and then make one or two of these sentences more interesting:
The bell rang for the end of school.
The trees blew in the strong wind.
The alarm clock sounded in the morning.
For extra challenge, try to expand the example by extending the structure of the sentence.