Year 11 Homework - Writing Assessments

Here are the key points to the on-going Year 11 Homework.

You are going to be asked to write two contrasting pieces: one fiction and one non-fiction as part of your on-going GCSE controlled assessments.

Your fiction piece is going to be a recreation from a poem of your choice (two poems also suggested below), which means you need to use the poem as inspiration.

This could be:

1) Use some lines of the poem to build a new story around.
2) Explore the theme of the poem in a story of your choice.
3) Evoke the atmosphere of the poem in your own writing.
4) Modernise the poem creating your own story.

Just let me say now - YOU ARE NOT WRITING YOUR OWN POEM.

The homework for this unit of work involves you writing 100 words per week based on a poem of your choice. This does not have to relate to your final piece, this does not have to be a complete story and this does not have to be perfect.

You may choose to write the opening or describe the setting, or write some sections of dialogue or describe a key event or write the ending. The key is that you write.

The homework is necessary because like everything, writing takes practice. Writers re-draft and re-draft down to the most minute word or sentence until they are happy.

You need to practice so you can develop your own style, the rhythm of writing and so you can make mistakes.

All through last year when we were studying literature, you were reading as a writer (you read looking specifically at the writer's craft). Now it is key that you write as a reader (everything you write should be deliberate in order to influence the reader).

Here is a key diagram to help you:

Every Wednesday, you are expected to bring in your writing to present to the class for suggestions and praise.

The poems covered in class are below but you can choose any poem you wish:

Spellbound

  by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16632#sthash.TEtsRmRK.dpuf

The poem Spellbound by Emily Bronte
 

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

Spellbound

  by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16632#sthash.TEtsRmRK.dpuf

Spellbound

  by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16632#sthash.TEtsRmRK.dpuf

Spellbound

  by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16632#sthash.TEtsRmRK.dpuf

Eyes Look Into The Well

Eyes look into the well,
Tears run down from the eye;
The tower cracked and fell
From the quiet winter sky.
Under a midnight stone
Love was buried by thieves;
The robbed heart begs for a bone,
The damned rustle like leaves.
Face down in the flooded brook
With nothing more to say.
Lies One the soldiers took,
And spoiled and threw away.

 

W.H Auden 

You must bring the homework in typed or written neatly on a piece of paper. I will not accept scrappy bits of paper done on the bus. 

 

The purpose of this homework is to practice writing. If it is done on the bus or at the last minute in school then you have not given the task enough thought and wasted the opportunity to truly improve your skills.

 

Happy Writing!

 

Mr Milne