Activity: Co-construction


Paragraphs can also be co-constructed by the teacher with the class. The teacher can do this either on a Word document with an enlarged font or on a smartboard. The teacher types the PEE paragraph with suggestions from the class. This is a very useful activity to make implicit writing skills explicit. It helps students see that even confident writers make mistakes and have to proof- read and redraft passages.


Activity: Speed Dating


Read a text or extract as a class. Then pupils sit opposite one another and the teacher asks them to discuss, for example, language use.


Then they rotate and they discuss characterisation. And rotate again to discuss plot development. Then they rotate...


Activity: Exploring Structure


Cut-up a text and ask students to re-order it to enhance their understanding of structure; this activity works well with poetry. It is important that once the teacher reveals the correct order for the text, the teacher explores with the students why the writer structured their text in the way they did. Groups can then focus on analysing just the opening or the ending of the text to encourage close textual analysis. For instance, put these stanzas in the correct order:


You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum,


I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again.


Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go. Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark.


It should read: I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark.


In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again.


You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.


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