GCSE English Revision

1. GCSE English Revision Writing Triplets

2. Writing to Inform, Explain, Describe • Writing to Analyse, Review, Comment • Writing to Argue, Persuade, Advise

3. Writing to Inform, Explain, Describe • Means putting information across as clearly as possible (sometimes including descriptive detail) often to help your readers to understand an idea or point of view. • Features include: • Clear, logical sequence, including connectives • Use of facts and specific examples to add detail • Sentences can tend to be short and clear • Opening including general info; later paragraphs give more detail; summarising conclusion • Descriptive techniques (senses, imagery, sound effects, adjectives and adverbs) where appropriate

4. Writing to Analyse, Review, Comment • Weighing up the good and bad points about a particular topic or issue and then presenting your personal opinion • Features include: • Shows strengths and weaknesses of issue • Uses connectives to link points together logically • Vocabulary describing judgements will show personal opinion e.g. ‘involving’, ‘thought-provoking’ • Written in 3rd person; 1st person mainly in conclusion • Uses evidence to support points made • Opening statement; explore range of key points; summary or conclusion

5. Writing to Argue, Persuade, Advise • Expressing a point of view as convincingly as possible to affect your readers’ feelings and influence their opinions. • Features include: • Opening statement of argument; reasons backed up with evidence; closing statement of view • Should include counter argument • Range of persuasive devices (appealing to logic; creating emotional appeal; personal appeals; stylistic tricks)

6. Writing to Inform, Explain, Describe • Synonym Snap • Group writing task • A strange day in July • Two friends (a young boy and a young girl) are spending the day together skimming rocks and playing on the beach. For this memory the group should either take the young girl or the young boy’s perspective of the day. • Under the rug • Someone (it is up to the group to decide who the someone is!) remembers the night a creature was stuck under the rug and their father was trying to capture it.

7. Examples of exam questions ‘Hopes and dreams.’ Write a letter to a friend, setting out your hopes and dreams for yourself and the future. ‘Entertaining relatives: heaven or hell?’ Write a magazine article, drawing on your own, or your friends’, experiences, explaining how to make things go as well as possible and pointing out what should be avoided. A publisher has asked for ideas for a new magazine for teenagers. Write a letter informing the publisher of your ideas for such a magazine; you should describe your suggestions for title and content and explain why you think the magazine will be popular. “What really annoys me!” Explain clearly what annoys you, and why you feel so strongly. ‘The photograph in the album.’ Describe in close detail a particularly vivid or memorable photograph of a place, a person or people. (This may be a real picture or one drawn from your imagination.) There are many ‘reality TV’ programmes in which people are presented with various challenges. Write a letter to the producer of such a programme describing yourself and explaining why you wish to appear on the show, what you would hope to gain from the experience, and what you could contribute. A website is inviting contributions on the subject ‘Which item or items could you not live without?’. Write a contribution to this website explaining your choice. ‘Sounds and Sights to Remember.’ Write a magazine article describing a market or a festival, at home or abroad, which you have visited, explaining how this experience has made a memorable impression on you.

8. Writing to Analyse, Review, Comment • Connective Collation • Creating a balanced analysis • Criticising with style

9. Examples of exam questions Write a contribution for a website forum called ‘Youth Speaks’, reviewing the extent to which television and magazines have positive and/or negative influences on the attitudes and behaviour of young people. ‘Making a fresh start.’ Analyse how the start of a new stage of life, such as changing school or college, starting a job, or moving to a different place, can give opportunities to change the way you live, think or act. You have a friend who joined a gym shortly after having been inspired by watching the Olympic or Commonwealth Games on television. Write an article for a magazine reviewing the reasons why people join or attend gyms at certain times of the year rather than others. “It’s not the winning that’s important; it’s the taking part.” “Winning is everything; nobody remembers those who come second.” Analyse both opinions in relation to sport, recreation, careers, or any other context of your choice, and comment on why you agree with one view more than the other. Some countries have introduced a total ban on smoking in public places, such as hotels, pubs, restaurants, shops and workplaces. Comment on whether you agree or disagree with these moves to limit, or ban totally, smoking in public places, giving reasons for your point of view. Most schools and colleges organise foreign trips for their students. Analyse the advantages and disadvantages of such trips. “Too many people jump in their cars rather than walk, cycle or use public transport.” Comment on this point of view. More and more people are living in cities and large towns than in the countryside and rural areas. Write an article for your school or college magazine analysing the advantages and disadvantages of being brought up as a teenager in either a city or town, or in the countryside.

10. Critical comments • I enjoyed the film • I thought the film was rubbish

11. Cut to 90 minutes later, as the die-hard devotees who had actually made it to the end of Night Terrors (aka Tobe Hooper's Nightmare) slowly straggled out of the auditorium, their faces riven not with terror, but tedium. • It's with a heavy heart, therefore, that I have to report that, with this earnest updating of the Pocahontas story, Terrence Malick has finally put a foot wrong - or rather, several feet. • The style is flippant, vulgar and solidly unamusing. • The entire venture seems aimed at viewers with the attention span of a gnat. • The writing is as smart, witty and ultimately moving as anything I've seen in recent years. • It is magnificent and I'm getting shivers just thinking about it again.

12. Writing to Argue, Persuade, Advise • Persuasive techniques pick-a-pair • Analysing a response

13. Examples of exam questions Write a letter to the catering manager of a school or college, arguing why certain foods should be included on the menus for the coming term. ‘I shall lose my personal freedom if I must have a national ID card.’ ‘National ID cards will help protect us.’ Write a speech for a school or college debate in which you argue the case either for or against compulsory national identity cards. You are speaking in a class debate on the following topic: “A fit and healthy lifestyle is essential to the well-being of the younger generation as a whole.” Write the text of the speech which you would make to argue either for or against this topic. Your school or college is in financial difficulties. In order to balance the annual budget it is considering selling part of the playing fields to a property developer. Write a letter persuading your local Member of Parliament either to support or to oppose the sale of part of the playing fields. Write an article for the school or college magazine arguing against an example of discrimination that you feel strongly about. You may choose to write about discrimination based on one of the following: • race • age • disability • gender • any other type of discrimination. Some people view climate change as the most serious threat facing mankind. Write a letter to the Prime Minister arguing why the Government should or should not make the prevention of climate change its No. 1 priority in the immediate future. In order to reduce poverty and the demand for food and other resources, some countries in the developing world have strict birth control policies limiting by law the number of children which families can have. It has been suggested that the Government should introduce a similar policy in the UK. Write a letter to your local MP arguing either for or against this proposed policy.

14. Sample response Get out there, live a little… It’s a fact; educational visits are fun, beneficial and encourage bonding. Every summer, thousands and thousands of schoolchildren all over the country take part in Activities Week. Off-timetable, out and about in England or abroad, it’s a time for celebration and enjoyment. The sun is scorching, the iced drinks are flowing and there’s laughter and excitement in the air. Those who think educational visits are an expensive waste of time have obviously never been on a school trip. Besides, they’re probably busy hoarding their pennies for a rainy day, or saving up for a new ensuite bathroom. Or else they’re trying to safeguard their children’s future by thinking about trust or university funds, as opposed to freeing them up to live a little and experience life. And let’s face it, what could be more boring? And so, to my own past life… I remember one school trip in particular. I was in Year 7. 1st July – ice cream and ‘for goodness sake take off that jumper’ weather. Thirty of us frog marched along the road to the Black Country Museum. ‘Oh God,’ I can hear you thinking, ‘Just a few dusty relics and signboards… what’s the big deal?’ But somehow, it was more than that. Excited, energetic and enthralled, I entered the world of the past, a place I’d never been before. For me, it was spellbinding. It’s a bit of a no-brainer really, isn’t it? School trips cost money, of course they do, but there’s a chance they’ll be remembered for a very long time.

15. In conclusion • Don’t forget to read the question carefully • Identify the form, purpose and audience of what you are being asked to write (and make sure you match it) • Brainstorm 6 key points and select a logical sequence • Think carefully about your language choices, punctuation and sentence variety • Read through your answers carefully at the end