Service Description

Phase 2: GCSE Creative Writing 2 SOW: Graham Strugnell Summer 2024 The course will introduce students to questions and techniques from across the range of the major exam boards. I will provide tips and model answers when necessary to help students grasp correct methods that will bring good results at GCSE. The creative tasks include writing a description, writing a story, writing a letter, article, or speech; writing to persuade, explain, argue or advise. These constitute 50% of the overall mark for most exam boards, so these are important skills to master. The course will address some of the reasons students do badly at GCSE. We will look at how to avoid the common errors — work that is unplanned or full of grammar and punctuation errors — and work towards creating work that has variety, clarity, accuracy and purpose, as well as creative freshness and originality. 1. Common errors: changing tense of no reason; comma splices; telling not showing. Task: using the picture of an old man. How to use the senses and imagination to turn this into an effective description. Zooming in on details. Adjectives. Metaphors. Sentence variety. 2. Science fiction picture. How to structure a story opening: using the senses; narrative hooks; effective openings; characters; jeopardy. Establishing a mood and setting. The pathetic fallacy. 3. Storm picture. How to describe weather and create drama and tension. How to avoid 'telling a story' in a descriptive task. Other descriptions of storms. Steinbeck, etc. 4. Gate to cemetery picture: creating a gothic atmosphere. Using weather to create mood. 5. AQA. People on a bus. Describing people in a confined environment. Box planning (AQA resource). Example: Rosabel on bus. 6. Transactional writing. 'A time when you broke the rules.' A memory of primary school. Autobiographical writing. 7. Writing a speech: 'Education is about more than what happens is the classroom.' How to structure a speech effectively. Persuasive writing to engage an audience. 8. Writing a magazine article: 'Modern parents are over-protective.' Arguing for or against. Planning and structuring an argument. 9. Newspaper article: 'Identity has nothing to do with nationality.' Arguing a case. Using your own experience. Using facts and statistics, emotive language, etc to be persuasive. 10. Writing a letter. 'Who deserves to be famous?' How to write an effective letter to an editor expressing views in clearly organised paragraphs.