ClausesAndConnectives. Paragraphing: The 1-3-1 - Key Stage 2 Literacy. Writing prompts. Slow Writing: how slowing down can improve your writing. NB – my latest thinking on Slow Writing can be found here. Exam season is nearly upon us and English departments across the land will be gearing up to the Herculean labour of training students to churn out essays which, they hope, will earn them the much coveted A*-C grade in English Language. The AQA paper gives candidates just a meagre hour to write a short descriptive, explanatory piece and then a longer piece which asks them to persuade and argue.
This isn’t much time and most students default position is to race into it, cram in as much verbiage as possible and then down tools to watch the clock tick away the purgatory of the exam hall. This is not a great strategy for producing great writing. So, we teach them to plan (of which there’s a fine example from Lisa Janes Ashes here) and to proofread in the hope that maybe, just maybe they’ll approach their writing more thoughtfully and produce something that won’t make the poor examiner groan in anguished suffering. Here’s how it works. Alan Peat Limited - FREE resources. 10 Videos You Could Use to Inspire Writing. From the time teachers first viewed The Piano by Aidan Gibbons on a training course, it suddenly became legitimate to use short independent film to inspire writing. Films like the Piano are perfect for lessons as they are often: Emotive and thought-provokingAesthetic - the animation is often captivating and of high qualityShort and therefore easy for children to take in and teachers to build questioning aroundOriginal – as the children have not seen the film before they do not come at the clip with expectations or baggage.
I love finding clips which I use with my class as a weekly alternative to class story. Alternatively I use a well-chosen piece as part of our literacy work for a way into poetry or story writing. I have also found that embedding a clip on our class blog has led to some excellent review writing. Though I have watched these myself and feel they are appropriate to use in class, I do advise you to watch any of these clips all the way through and make up your own mind. The Literacy Shed - The Literacy Shed Home. The Literacy Shed - The Literacy Shed Home.