Happy Ed Balls Day - A question 2 / 3 gift.

As it is Ed Balls day today (check twitter if unsure), I've decided to give you a little question 2 treat. In fact this article is also very good for Thoughts and Feelings  - a gift that keeps giving. Remember the two key areas you need to focus on to get the top bands for both these questions: Q2 - You need to make consistent links to the text. An examiner has recommended that you draw lines between the headline, subheading and image to the......

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Year 9 Homework Project

Your homework will be to create an anthology of 15 poems you have enjoyed from the list of poets on the next page. You must bring in 3 of your favourite poems from 3 different poets each Friday. These will form part of the discussion on Friday's lessons so don't forget. By the end of the half term you will be carrying out a written and oral presentation on your anthology covering: Why you chose the poems? What do you think caused the poets to write the poems (3 of your 15)? What feelings are apparent within the poems (3 of your 15)? Why you think poetry is given value in the curriculum? Extended......

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Revising with Skeletons

In the session on Monday, I stated you could know what you were going to write for Section B in the exam without even seeing the question. This was to be done through having practised skeleton paragraphs, which contain 'writing style' rather than content. I put together 10 Skeleton Paragraphs for you to experiment with in class and these are posted below. The key is practice and powering through the revision pain like our deadlifting friend below. Great example of powering through the pain, which you should all take as inspiration. Use these skeletons to practice your own writing. Deliberately......

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Weekend Treat - Question 1

If you look in the examiner's report article I posted here , you'll see the wording of question 1 has changed from 'learn' to 'understand'. This means that you need to vary your answers slightly from being mainly fact based to mainly inferential. What is inference? Definition = the process of arriving at some conclusion that, though it is not logically derivable from the assumed premises, possesses some degree of probability relative to the premises. So it is a skill of coming to a conclusion based on evidence that is not definite but highly probable. E.g. - Someone is crying - inference -......

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Foundation Exam Paper

Here is a posting for those of you doing the Foundation Exam. It is a full paper I've put together which you can answer question at a time and post in the comment box below.  Remember your question timings. You should be spending: 12 Mins on Question 1 and 2.  18 Minutes on Question 3 and 4. 25 Minutes on Question 5. 35 Minutes on Question 6. When you attempt a question, make sure you time yourself. Good luck and happy revising!   Section A Source 1 - Is from an online newspaper. Source 2 - Is an extract and photo from Bill Bryson's book 'Wigs for all Occasions' Source......

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