ONLINE IGCSE ENGLISH - Writing and Reading techniques.

 

                                                                     

The following reading and writing techniques that are commonly used in UK schools in preparation for GCSE & IGCSE exams. Using them will shape your writing and help towards gaining a higher grade.

Writing Devices

PAF (Purpose, Audience, Format)

This stands for:

Purpose- Why are you writing/ or the person who has written the text doing so? When you/ or they put pen to paper, what is the point? Is it to explain, describe, inform, persuade, argue or advise?

Audience- Who is the writing directed at?

Is it a formal audience? For example a Head teacher, a Prime minister, a Monarch, an Employer, a Newspaper editor etc. The tone needs to be polite and respectful.

Or is it an informal audience? The language can be friendly and appropriate to speaking to someone that you are familiar with. The letter may contain the odd slang term (but not swearing) if appropriate.

Format- How is the writing laid out on the page? 

If it is a speech, then it should have an opening address/ welcome and a closing statement. If it is a diary entry it should have a date and reflect it is a diary. If it is an advert it should have persuasive devices and message. If it is an explaining text then it should have imperatives and quite possibly be in a list.

 PALL (Purpose, Audience, Language, Lay-out)

This is the more advanced version of PAF. It is the same, apart from instead of format we say Lay-out. The extra L is for Language.

Language- What kind of descriptive language is used in the text? There could be: Alliteration, facts, onomatopoeia, repetition, rhetorical questions, exaggeration, statistics and themes (remember as AFORREST).

PEE ( Point, Evidence, Explain)

When writing an answer regarding a text you need to support your opinions with quotes from the text. You should do it like this:

Point- Make a point.

Evidence- Use a quote from the text to support the point.

Explain- Now you explain how the quote backs up the point you have made.

For example:

When answering a question about the extract ‘Touching the Void’ such as-

How does the writer’s choice of language show that he has been seriously hurt?

(Point) We know that Joe has been badly injured from his fall by the language he uses. (Evidence) ‘Then pain flooded down my thigh — a fierce burning fire coming down the inside of my thigh, seeming to ball in my groin, building and building until I cried …’. (Explanation) He has used an emotive word such as pain which lets the reader know he has been injured. He also uses a metaphor to describe the pain as ‘fire’. This image lets us know that he is in seriously injured.

 TWIST  

 This is a device used to describe and analyse poetry.

T-What is its theme?

W- What words stand out? This is the poet’s choice of vocabulary.

I- What kind of Imagery (mental pictures) have been used and how? Similes, metaphors, alliteration, personification, onomatopoeia etc?

S- What is the poem’s Structure? This could be comments on how many stanzas (verses) have been used, stand alone sentences, rhyming couplets etc.

T- What is the Tone of the poem? Is it happy and optimistic? Is it sad? Does it feel angry or humourous?

Structuring an extended response

Essay responses are where the bulk of the marks on an exam paper are.

Students need to be confident in three areas:

1. Content- What the text is about? Plot? Characters? Themes?

2. Method- How to write an extended answer (see below)

3. Timing- Be aware of the time limit and don’t run out of time.

(All of these above points will be covered in the course and practised in the final ‘revision units’ leading up to the exam in the 2^nd year).

Examiners are looking for students who can lay-out their work correctly as well as answer a question. The way to structure an essay response is such:

Introduction

Create a focused opening which answers the question and may list key points that you will raise in your response.

Main body

Use PEE! You should aim to make between 3 and 5 points in your response.

For each point you should aim to include 2 pieces of evidence from the text (quotes). Typically a point, with two quotes and an explanation showing how this evidence backs up what you say, can be fitted into a paragraph.

Conclusion

This is where you finish the essay.

To create a strong conclusion you should summarise your key points and evaluate. This is where you basically comment on the writer and how they have met the point/s that the question has asked. What was their reason for doing this eg why did they show a character in a particular way or what message were they trying to get across?

Reading techniques:

When tackling a reading exercise think of the following:

Pre-scan

Read the question. Highlight key words in it. For example:

In what ways does the writer Saki create a slightly chilling atmosphere in ‘The Open Window’?

You would highlight ‘ways’, ‘create’, ‘chilling’ & ‘atmosphere’.

This is there to direct you to what the task requires.

Scan

You now read the text focused on what the question wants. Remember the key words from the pre-scan. Let your eyes run quickly over several lines, left to right. Some people find having a ruler or piece of paper under the lines help to focus on the text, a sentence at a time.

When you find what you want.

Stop.

Re-read the line again and make a note of what you have found eg descriptive word etc.

Continue to read.

Finish scanning.

Check your list.

Have you found all that you were looking for?

Now it’s time to tackle the question armed with what you have found.

This blog post was written by Andy Mackay, Head of IGCSE English at Blackhen Education.

If you would like more information about our IGCSE English courses, please feel free to contact us at: sue@blackheneducation.com

5 Key Elements of a Gothic Story.

As Halloween rapidly approaches and the desire for all things ‘spooky’ rises, we are going to look at the lure of Gothic stories. At this time of year we see the popular images of what we take to represent scary and fearful things eg ghosts, witches, vampires and the odd zombie thrown in for good measure. All of these can be traced back to the genre of Gothic Literature.

So what is a Gothic story?

A Gothic story is a type of fiction that combines elements of horror, death and romanticism. It is a very stylized type of horror story. It generally contains these key elements:

1. Creepy setting- usually a castle, old house, forest or somewhere remote.
2. Weather- this is usually a storm or at the least heavy rain.
3. Supernatural threat- in the form of a Vampire, ghost, witch, ancient curse etc.
4. Isolated person or group- very often young or female in danger.
5. The location is cut off from the outside world, and so help is difficult to get.

When did they become popular?

Gothic stories first became popular in the 18^th century. The first ‘Gothic’ story is generally thought to be ‘The Castle of Otranto’ published in 1764, by Horace Walpole.

How did they cross over into Horror films?

With the growth of cinema in the early 20^th century, Gothic stories gradually became adapted and made into Horror stories. Most horror stories conform to Gothic story standards. This and the fact that people like to be scared.

   

What would be a good Gothic story to read this Halloween (or any time?)

1. Dracula by Bram Stoker
2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
3. The Turn of the Screw by M. R. James
4. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
5. Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
6. My Sword hand is Singing by Marcus Sedgewick
7. Twilight by William Gay*
8. Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
9. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
10. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

NB-

*This has nothing to do with teenage Vampires! It is a ‘southern’ Gothic story set in 1950s Tennessee and about a very creepy undertaker.

For more information about any of our online KS2, KS3 & IGCSE English courses, please contact us at: sue@blackheneducation.com or visit our website: www.blackheneducation.com

4 Great Ways To Connect Through Storytelling.

I really love stories. And they are way more powerful than we realise. Our children’s ability to talk about the past and future is linked to success in school, learning to read & write, and to social success. And we all love a good story, right?

Last night I read The Little Red Hen to my four year old daughter for the first time. I picked it because I remember loving it as child myself & it really is a great story for imparting values around work ethic & consequences. Stories have many purposes: to entertain, to teach, to transmit values, to show ourselves in a good light. You don’t have to confine yourself to story books either. Here are some ideas for weaving stories into the fabric of your everyday life:

#1 Tell your children stories from when you were little.

They really love this! Telling your own stories is such a wonderful way of connecting with your children and showing them your understanding of the challenges of childhood. It’s such a relief to hear it happened to someone else too- no matter what age you are!

On a train one day, I overheard a mother tell her son a story of something embarrassing that happened to her as a child- she was at the swimming pool from school & needed to go to the toilet but was too shy to tell the teacher, so she went to the toilet in the pool and the whole place had to be evacuated! I loved her for sharing this publicly and it worked a treat to diffuse her son’s upset when the picture he was colouring in did not go his way. You should have seen the attention he paid her- he was hooked on every word. Don't panic, your stories don’t have to be this dramatic- see # 4 below.

#2 Write a letter

We live about 3 hours away from my parents by car & they aren’t online. I feel sad about the impact the distance has on their relationship with my little girl. One day, I decided to write to my father & ask him to send her stories from when he was a child. I also put in a stamped addressed envelope to make it even easier. A few days later, a letter arrived for her with a story called Grandad Bernard’s Trip to Tipp to Sell the Geese – it was so vivid and lovely and a precious keepsake for her. 

#3 Make it up as you go along…

I came across a lovely idea in a Donna Leon detective novel recently where at dinner time, one of the family threw out a storyline & the others took it in turn to run with it. You could have great fun with this especially for older children & have wild imaginings over dinner.

Here’s an example from The Golden Egg by Donna Leon: …. Chiara set her water glass down with a thump & said, ‘They all lived happily ever after’. ‘Clorinda’s eyes met Giuseppe’s, & together they gazed happily down at the baby’, Paola said immediately in a voice she pumped full of emotion.  I love the way Chiara begins the story with what we would think of as an ending. You’ll have to read the book to find out where they take the story- it’s worth finding out!

#4 It’s not about what you get, it’s about what you give

‘So, how was school today?’ Fine. What happened? Not much/nothing.’ Sound familiar? Try this. To get a story, you need to tell a story. So instead of asking questions tell your own story first & leave the door open for them to participate or share if they want. So, as I said above in #3, your story doesn’t have to have major drama.  It just needs to relate an event that stood out because it was reportable; something unusual that happened.

For example, one day when my little girl was two & a half, I went to the library on my way home from work & witnessed an incident where a boy called Bernard threw an egg at the inside of the library door. I told her about it when I came home. Well, I must have told that story 20 times over the following weeks. Every now & again, for many months, she’d say ‘Tell me about Bernard and the egg’. So a little really can go a long way!

So how can you weave more stories into your life? What happened to you today that you could tell your children to get a conversation going?

If you would like to learn more about Mary Pat's work visit:  www.talknua.com .

Dr. Mary-Pat O Malley-Keighran is a lecturer, author, researcher, speech & language therapist, and lover of all things to do with speech, language, and communication. She has over 20 years’ experience of working with families & 14 years of teaching speech & language students.

This post was written by our guest blogger Mary Pat O'Malley, speech and language therapist, lecturer and author.