Catch Me If You Can – Creative Writing Task

Okay, imagine once again that you get this, or something like it, based on a film. It is a creative writing assessment. We as teachers, or those who are as ancient as me, will know this sort of task as a piece of ‘Original Writing.’ It is a [600-word] diary extract, or monologue [see my other blog piece on this website, called ‘Monologues and how to write them’] and is one of the most enjoyable assessments you are likely to have to do simply because you can be creative, cheeky and humorous.

One would think, as a teacher, that the group of students have seen the film before getting this task. If someone had not seen the film before the assessment then said students would not know what to do or how to write this task.

The task

Apologies for the cut-off of one word. This is how I received it.

Notes on the film

• Catch Me If You Can stars Tom Hanks and Leo DiCaprio
• It tells the tale of Frank Abagnale Jr [true story – Google it]
• Young Frank sees his Mum and Dad divorce in the 60s [I think]
• He runs away and forges a cheque [it was a lot easier then to do that than now]
• He does this again and again and again and for over a decade is chased by the FBI
• His attitude is one of CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
• In the end, he is caught and serves a lot of time in jail in America
• The anti-fraud department who caught him use him to develop their skills
• Eventually, he is freed on licence and has to serve his time working for the FBI
• If he flees the country, he will be caught and serve his time in jail
• Eventually, his time served, he comes to work for the FBI and is a major cause of the things that banks now have in place to stop fraud. Those things you take for granted each day were put in place by him
• This is a TRUE STORY and is widely available on the Internet

The Task

You now have to prepare a 600-word diary account about a new scam/fraud he has dreamed up. Now on face value, that sounds okay, but what is the ‘scam’ to be? That is the hard part. If you are honest, law abiding, then you will not have a clue. So what kind of frauds are there [considering this is set in the 1960s]? This is where Mr Google comes in.

If you type “cheque fraud in the 1960s” into Google, you are likely to get the first link appear as a pdf. If not, then use the link below…

http://www.chequeandcredit.co.uk/files/candc/press/04_cheques_&_cheque_clearing_-_an_historical_perspective_v11_(may11).pdf

I advise you to download this. It will tell you of some of the things you may then be able to use, in your own words of course. For heaven’s sake, do not copy bits of this word for word. Rehash the ideas and use them.

You simply HAVE to try to be as cheeky as Frank Abagnale Jr in your writing. This is where seeing the film is a good thing so if you have Netflix or Now TV, then get the thing watched before you do this writing, or even before preparing it.

So, let us now say that you have watched the film and that you have seen the task and have prepared some ideas about frauds that did happen. You find on the Internet, the ‘pdf’ mentioned below and you use an idea from it. Which one do you use? The answer is up to you but if this was me preparing for this assessment, then I would see the picture below on page 13 of 50 of the pdf I mentioned and jump for joy…

The reason is that there is a reference to a machine there and Frank used machines he bought from the money he stole by cashing cheques to write new cheques. I would see the picture above and see that there was a Recordak Microfilm Apparatus used in the UK by banks for cheques that had been lost.

This is the way my brain works….

1. If Frank bought machines then he would buy one of these
2. So he goes and buys one when a bank closes and sells off its stuff [see the film for a scene where this happens]
3. He then uses it to create cheques that are supposed to be ones lost but have not even been written yet
4. He tries it out and it is successful but he does it in banks that are in different parts of the USA
5. He manages to steal $50,000 as a result
6. And then he writes it down [this is where the task fails because he wouldn’t do this for fear of being caught]

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to write the thing.

Now go and have a go. Be as creative as possible. Write it in PAST TENSE because it has already happened. But please note this: there will be other things in that pdf that you could use so if your teacher sees 32 of these all mentioning a Recordak device, then she will know 31 of you have cheated and disqualify the lot of you if you write something that is simply copying.

Do not forget that this task, when you come to write it, should take 80 minutes. I would prepare it so that it took me 60 minutes; to make sure I can get this done. 600 words of type is one page. 600 words of handwriting is more like 2-3 pages. Planning is vital for your success.

As the Balkan man says in the film ‘Taken,’ “good luck!”

Spoken English Component

Sometimes, we teachers can over think something when it comes to assessments.

When it comes to the spoken language component here is an example, that I was handed today by a former student of mine, who has a friend from Kurdistan, who is doing GCSE English language this year.

This is the controlled assessment he received recently.

[I would complain if I was a student and got this as a Controlled Assessment].

Here it is.

The key words in the initial title are “language features” which need to be discussed in detail by anyone writing an answer to this one. So what does that mean? Well, it means how language features, such as ellipsis and fillers are used. There is usually a transcript given at this point.

Here it is below.

The man speaking is the actor Ray Winston. For those who have no clue, here is a picture.

Now he has been around the block in terms of acting, usually playing the thug, or the killer. He is known for playing the hard man roles and has made a living doing so, becoming famous as a result. He is a Cockney, one who is born under the geography of the Bow bells in East London and conventionally is known to be “a bit of a geezer” when it comes to his style of speaking and living. He is one of my favourite actors mainly because he brings an honesty and the use of real language to films. When he swears, it seems natural and not convoluted in any way.

Back to the assessment. Here are some notes the student received. Have a look at them and check out the way the teacher expects the student to answer the questions or complete the task set.

Are you confused yet? I was when I looked at these items. The first look is sometimes where confusion comes. It can be a time when you scratch your head and wonder what is happening, as if you have been given something in a different language. For this student, who is from Kurdistan, who will speak another Mother Tongue, other than English, this would be a terrible assessment to choose.

Imagine how hard learning another language would be and then try to add in this assessment. I would have no clue if I was a student in Kurdistan doing this in his Mother Tongue.

Bravo that man!

So, how do you write an answer to this one? With all this information, there seems to be one thing missing; the context. What the hell is “Luke’s English Podcast?” Is it radio because of the word “audio?” Is it television because of the words “chat show?” Because there is not enough information given, it is impossible to determine the full social context, so I am assuming it is a television chat show. This would explain Winston’s use of profanity [swear words]. It would also suggest how comfortable he feels when speaking. Here, he is much at ease with himself, leading to the use of the swear word.

So, with context, one can begin.

One of these sheets gives us a chance to write some detailed stuff about Ray Winston. I would avoid that in any detail. I would do it, but only in passing. I would want to get my PEE [D] chains going as soon as possible into the essay. Quotes prove what you are saying is true. If they can be ‘proven’ from the text, your answer is correct. So go for it, big time, to answer the question or complete the task. The trick is to write this and add key words in from the transcript. They are your “Evidence” required in the essay to gain full marks.

Then there is a short section about the ‘language features’ such as ‘fillers’ and the effect they have on the speaker and the audience; this is where I would write in detail for this is where the points are to be had. That is where you can really go to town on the use of pauses (.) and explain how he is thinking the words before he is saying them, how he is being careful so as not to wander off the track of the story. It could also suggest that in the Green Room, the room where the television crew prepare the guests, there is usually a lot of alcohol and Mr Winston may have had a few, so the pauses may be commensurate with drunkenness.

The word counts given are a guesstimate for the writer, but they are also useful. If you was to go for the throat of number 1 on these sheets, you could avoid numbers 2, 3 and 4, or write a lot on 1, but then try to squeeze 2, 3 and 4 in at the end. Each one needs to be of roughly equal length. The suggestion is a 1200 word assessment that has to be hand written in controlled style in a period of 80 minutes.

Good luck with that one!

The Moment

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

Analysis

Have you ever questioned your own perceptions?

If so then you will read this poem in a certain way. That is the joy of poetry for me, that three different people can say “this poem is about…” and each one be correct in their assumptions because of their life experience. Poetry is a living thing and should always be treated as such. This is why we write about a poem as if it is still living, in the present tense, using words like “this poem IS about” rather than “this poem WAS about…” If you want to get the A grade or higher, learn this one fact.

Back to the perceptions.

Our thoughts are important. They are important to our life. They shape who we are and how we act and react to different stimuli. So when something happens that shakes us to the core, we have to rethink our thoughts and perceptions about life. To me, that is what this poem is about, a “moment” in life when “after so many years,” we come to a blinding realisation that what we thought about this or that, was in fact, a lie.

If we go verse by verse, as usual, then we will see this, but take specific note about the tenses used in the poem as we do. The first line begins without tense, misleading as ever and very cleverly laid down. The word “after” denotes a possible tense that is coming, like looking back over so many years. Is this an example of future tense? I doubt it. Line three is in fact, the first example of a tense, when we see the word “stand.” This is present tense. [stood = past tense etc]

So, after a long voyage, or a lifetime of living, one comes to a realisation, standing there in your room, that what you thought was right and good is in fact a false realisation. You stand there, “in the centre of your own room” or “house,” in other words wherever you call home, thinking and “knowing at last how you got there.” This is the moment in time when you know fully how and why you are where you are. In essence, this existential knowledge comes only by experience. As you stand there you think you “own this,” moment in your life and that you alone have been in control all your life.

You feel good about it. You feel as if you have been successful in life, that your efforts have been worth it, but then, as you think this, you begin to realise just what a load of rubbish this really is. Now for a 16 year old student, who has little experience in life and has little experience in studying, this poem will be too much like hard work. One needs a few years under the belt for this one to hit home, or some really tough experiences as a child. Realising in that “moment” that life is not all it is “cracked up to be” is something that comes with time.

So, that false realisation makes us realise that the “moment” we think of is in fact “the same moment when the trees unloose their soft arms” and we begin to see something else. Is this line about death? Could this poem be taken this way, to reflect that all this is happening at death? Possibly, but as stated earlier, three different readings can give three different responses. The whole second verse seems to be leading towards the demise of the protagonist because of words like “the air moves back from you like a wave,” offering a simile and metaphor to reflect death in pure beauty. Air moves back from you, in a way, when you die.

Words like “collapse” are also indicative of death and decay. Coupled with “you can’t breathe” such words bring the reader to the point where they see that in life, whatever this person has thought has now been set in place by death, or by the very thought of it. What is then left is the thought of what is actually the truth behind the greatest adventure we face; life itself. These cliffs and waves that are mentioned “whisper” to us saying “you own nothing.” That is a very definite statement indeed, for we are only here on this earth for a short time. If the earth has been here for millions of years and we only live on average for “three score and ten,” then seventy years is nothing in comparison.

So now the reader is left with a feeling that they “own nothing,” being made to see that whatever they did in life was just their way of saying it was theirs, but what is the truth of the matter is that they [we] were “just a visitor” in this life. Everything that we hold dear will not last. Everything comes to an end. We never “found” things because things find us. That is what the poem is saying.

Notice now the use of the tense in the word “were.”

The poet says “you were a visitor.” This for me, is important because it makes us as readers think back over our life [in my case 54 years of life, marriage, children, career, joyous times, sad times etc] and see that what we think we owned was in fact given to us on loan for a brief span. We do not own the land. We do not own each other. We do not even own life itself, for it is given to us [by whoever or whatever] and we take what we can from it for the betterment of humanity.

So, as the poet suggests, we may go about “planting the flag,” making our mark in the soil of earth [or even the moon], we may proclaim that we have lived a life that has been full of things we have owned, but in the end, the message is simple; life speaks back and says “it was always the other way around.”

Does this suggest that we humans have got something wrong? If so, then what? Is it that we need to stop hating, coveting [look it up], lusting for power and that we need to be more loving towards each other? Is this poem saying that we need to be more careful with the world’s resources? We own nothing so be more careful with what we have got? Possibly so. In the end, what comes from reading this poem has to be that what we consider to be the truth, to be real, and factual and accurate is in fact, a false realisation, so we should consider our perceptions when we consider the life we live.

Spellbound – EJ 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;
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.

Analysis

Let me ask you a little bit of a rhetorical question and let you decide what the answer will be; if this poem was about you, what would it be about?

The answer to that question will dictate just how you write about this short little poem. If you are of a spiritual nature, then you may write about death. If you are interested in the way nature enfolds around us, how it enables us to love and to live, then you may write about something entirely different, but at the end of the day, the true meaning of this poem rests on something that I was taught in my studies, about how as readers we need to consider the social and historical context of this poem.

Social and historical context? To what does this refer? Well, it is the social and historical context of the day when written, but the joy of literature is that over time, meaning can change as society changes and as beliefs change. Thus it may be the case with this poem as well.

Bronte was born in 1818 and died in 1848 aged just 30, when mortality rates were lower; in other words, when people died younger than they do now. She wrote in a time when it is perceived that people in society were more religious and the UK was more solely Christian than it is now. Now I am not too sure if that is an accurate depiction of life at that time because the history books are littered with lies and falsehoods, where the victor writes down what will then be considered to be the truth about those times. Who are we to know if people went to church or prayed more back then, than they do now? Yes, records show that to be the truth, but records can be distorted to show a ‘better age,’ a ‘bygone era’ that is somehow considered to be better than today.

So, we need to consider what it may have meant to a reader back then, over 200 years ago, and then consider just what it might mean for us reading it today. As we unpack this little gem, we do so with bifocals on, crossing the boundaries of time as we read on.

So, line 1 says that “the night is darkening round me,” which may suggest that either night has come where day once was, or if read as metaphor, then it reflects that the light is beginning to extinguish itself from her body as the point of death approaches. When we die, there is that sense that we are drifting off into something quite ethereal. Those of us who have been brought back from the brink of death by paramedics, will say that the time just before one loses consciousness is one that is spellbinding in every manner, at times too beautiful to contemplate. It certainly was for this writer!

So as the night is darkening we then read on into the next line and see a bit more, another snippet of information for us to work out, where we read “the wild winds coldly blow.” This use of alliteration helps the reader to feel the emotion being expressed here, the sense of cold as we shiver out our final breath. The sense of wildness about all of this suggests someone who is unsure in her faith, for one who was confident in going to heaven would anticipate the bright lights and warmth of heaven rather than coldness.

The next two lines however, show us why the person feels as if she is “spellbound,” or bound by a spell that keeps her here for she “cannot go” to where she believes she is going next. The word “tyrant” is a strong one indeed, one that denotes or even implies the Devil being the one who has cast the spell in the first place. A worse or deeper understanding might be that someone here on earth has cast the woman in a spell keeping her here on earth. If this is your thought too then the suggestion of witchcraft at play has to be adopted.

I however, take the approach that the “tyrant spell” is one that has been set there by the one person who Bronte would have undoubtedly believed in; Satan himself. It is something that is avoided in modern understanding of ancient poetry but one that has to be taken on board, even if not believed. I did say there was the ‘then’ approach and the ‘now’ approach when reading these old poems.

So, the woman feels that even in the throes of death, she cannot go, cannot depart this earth, or as Shakespeare might add, cannot “shuffle off this mortal coil.” But what then follows? Where we have seen the darkness of night approaching, we now see “the giant trees [that] are bending” in the night as the wild winds sway but these “bare boughs [are] weighed with snow.” There is more than a coldness being shared here, for if the natural elements are not cold enough, the introduction of snow compounds the deep seated feeling of despair at the person about to lose their life. Indeed, the use of the words “the storm is fast descending” show us that there is trouble brewing, where the passing of a person from this life to the next can be seen in terms of storms, but still this person “cannot go.” At this point as I am reading this, I am thinking to myself does the person actually want to go? Does the person want to die? Or is there a sensation that there is still work to do here on earth?

If my interpretation is correct then one then has to ask have I got something special I should be doing still in my life? Now if my answer to this is yes, then I am left with a dilemma where my body wants life to end, but my mind and my spirit do not. Now that would be a true dilemma, a spellbinding problem that needs fixing.

Finally, notice before now it has been a case of the night, the wind, the trees and the boughs that have been over her? Now it is the “clouds beyond [and] clouds above [her]” that make for the final stanza of the poem. Clouds are generally wispy when there is wind. Clouds are ethereal and spooky so to feel that clouds are “wastes beyond [and] wastes below” does show us a person who sees the oncoming storm, the prospect of death as something that for most people would be all consuming, all engulfing, but that for this person, “nothing drear can move” her forward.

Let me ask one last question and your answer will dictate how you read the last line of the poem; do we have control over death? In the poem, Bronte says she “will not, cannot go.” This suggests that we have a control over death but when our time comes, we do not. Yes we can fight it. And yes, we can breathe in our last breath and accept what is coming. But total control? No, we do not go in for that do we any more?

So, what is your take on this one? Do you agree with the 1848 rendition of this and other poems of the same ilk or does your modern mind say no to some of these thoughts? As there is no real wrong answer when it comes to literature, especially with poetry, your answer can be a good one.

Enjoy!

A Vision

The future was a beautiful place, once.
Remember the full-blown balsa-wood town
on public display in the Civic Hall.
The ring-bound sketches, artists’ impressions,
blueprints of smoked glass and tubular steel,
board-game suburbs, modes of transportation
like fairground rides or executive toys.
Cities like dreams, cantilevered by light.
And people like us at the bottle-bank
next to the cycle-path, or dog-walking
over tended strips of fuzzy-felt grass,
or motoring home in electric cars,
model drivers. Or after the late show –
strolling the boulevard. They were the plans,
all underwritten in the neat left-hand
of architects – a true, legible script.
I pulled that future out of the north wind
at the landfill site, stamped with today’s date,
riding the air with other such futures,
all unlived in and now fully extinct.

Analysis

Whenever there is a title like this I am led to wonder just what is going on, especially when it comes to my old friend Mr Armitage here. I feel as if I know this man well, after all the years of teaching his poems at GCSE and below and feel that there is a closeness to him for me. I see the words “A Vision,” in bold at the top and think okay, just what does he mean by that? Does he mean the sort of vision that one has of something beautiful, or does he mean that what follows is about somewhere or someone that is simply a vision?

But when I read on, I begin to see just what is happening in the poem. His first line gives us a time frame to work from. He writes that “the future was a beautiful place, once.” When we look back like this we are doing so from the benefit of hindsight [Google to the rescue again?] and so he is possibly being romantic or even sarcastic in his words.

It is as if he is addressing these opening words to someone who is close to him, for he asks the person to “remember the full-blown balsa-wood town” that was “on public display in the Civic Hall.” This would suggest that he is talking about some form of plans that were made up in 3D, alongside a series of “ring-bound sketches, artists’ impressions” and “blueprints of smoked glass and tubular steel.” What is being painted here in the mind is the image of an architect’s plans that are on show.

Alongside such things are “board-game suburbs, modes of transportation like fairground rides or executive toys.” These are the images and the ideas that are being shown here, a sense of something special being viewed, something that would make an improvement to the life of the town or city that they are living in. As such, what becomes true is that cities are “like dreams,” images and metaphors for something brighter and more glorious in the future.

So far so good, with the image of the city of the future, but then the reader sees that there are people involved in this poem, people who are important to that someone who has created this vision of a glorious future for the place he lives in. There are images of people, miniatures who are “dog-walking over tended strips of fuzzy-felt grass.” They portray a sense of the contentedness that living in this utopia can bring and as such, bring hope where there was once despair. They are, in both senses of the word, “model drivers” in someone else’s mind.

But where there is hope, there is also despair because as much as we see someone “strolling the boulevard,” we also see that these plans have been found at the “landfill site,” a scene of decay and decomposition, where all the rubbish that gets scrapped is sent to in order to decompose into compost or some other material. The neatness of the “legible script” is balanced with the image of the landfill as the poet relates how he “pulled that future out of the north wind at the landfill site.”

In essence, this is a poem of two halves, two sides to how we view our hopes and our futures. We can have all the plans in the world but if they are not acted upon, then what are we left with but decay? In the end, says the poet, there are only two choices, invest in the future and make the right decisions, or end up like these plans; “unlived in and now fully extinct.”

How many times have you had a situation where you have had a choice to make? How many times have you created plans for something? Perhaps those plans have come to fruition and you have been successful? But equally so, perhaps they lie on the waste land of our hopes and dreams; that is the nature and the meaning in this poem.

The idea behind this task is to use a character from a literary text that you have read this year and use him, or her, as an inspiration for a piece of your own writing. But the first question can sometimes, be the question that ends this task. You end up befuddled.

Let me explain what I mean.

Imagine for a moment: you have read Woman in Black, by Susan Hill [you may have, if you have been searching this site] and you think to yourself that there is only one main character, Arthur Kipps. He is such a dour character. He seems to be so dry at times, so unable to think for himself. He is, in a word, boring! [As an aside, I saw the play the other week and Kipps was nothing like that].

So what do you do with Mr Boring?

In a word, nothing. You opt for someone or something with some life in it. Mr Sam Daly? The solicitor? Kipps’ boss? Or Spider, the dog [yes, the dog]? All except one will be difficult to do, apart from the dog, but then you are sorely tempted to wander off into what I might call a “silly language” style of writing. Do not do it! Do not go there! You will most likely get a U grade.

Instead, think wider. Think about something or someone you have read. You may have read some poetry this year. You may have read the poem called The Clown Punk, by Simon Armitage. If that is the case, there are three characters there who you could choose. There is the driver [Armitage himself] or his daughter in the back of the car, or the Punk himself.

You may have read the poem called The Horse Whisperer. There are two types of character there to choose from. There is the man with the skill and then there is the sort of person who is bigoted and does not wish to allow such ‘witchcraft’ to exist in the world any more. You could get some really interesting ideas from that.

So, you then make your choice. You have it sorted in your head. But what next?

In yet another word, planning.

Planning is vital for this to work. Using a diagram, you need to think of all the possible things that person might say. Then you can begin work. Imagine for example, you did this on the Clown Punk. You may just do this like you see below:

1. People call me names
2. They have no idea who I am
3. My story is a different one
4. I am a clown, yes. But…
5. I have many faces as a clown
6. These faces make me who I am
7. I am a denied father
8. I am a long lost son
9. I am damaged goods
10. I cannot keep a relationship
11. My childhood was an abusive one
12. I gave as good as I got
13. I went into care

Just a few ideas for you. They took me 90 seconds to write down…. Free thinking. If each was one paragraph of a half a page, there would be 6 pages [far too much!] of writing.

Imagine then you rearrange them to make your account, from the point of view of the Punk himself and you get a thought provoking commentary on life in the modern age, a piece of writing that criticizes the social care system, the education system, the way we deny fathers their rights as parents, and so on. All these things can find their way into your piece of work.

So, with all that in mind, go on…. Have a go at one. Have a go at this one if you like. But above all, there is one thing I can say and it is this; enjoy the process.

There are times in life when I want to shake my head and if I was living in America, I would exercise my 2nd Amendment right to bear arms and take my life; this moment in my life is one of those moments.

I find today that the single most famous character in English [and American] Literature is in fact, as racist as they come, or so it seems if reports are to be believed.

I have read about Atticus Finch all my life. In 1991 and 1992 I read the book. I have seen the film more times than I would care to mention. I see images of Gregory Peck in this most famous role and I remember the feeling I get when Atticus walks out of that court room and the only people left rise to show their respect of him and what he has done for Tom Robinson, who we suspect will then go on to his demise.

Now I have to suffer this:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/11/atticus-finch-racist-go-set-watchman

and I see that things I have thought, as well as taught over the years, need to be changed, if reports are to be believed.

If, as we suspect, Go Set A Watchman, the new novel by Harper Lee, shows Atticus, the God of the courtroom, the epitome of fatherhood, to be an ageing racist, then this guy is going to be one disappointed individual indeed. I will cry bitterly.

With this in mind, I ask that you view any comments made on this blog about my favourite novel and character as what they are, a reflection of the novel at the time it was written and a critique of the writer’s skills in the time I was writing them.

When I have read the next novel and have stopped crying, I will venture forth into a critical review of the book for you all and a blog piece on how the 2nd novel makes reading the first a different task indeed.

Until then, happy reading.

Explore the ways Harper Lee presents the differences between the Ewell and Finch families and the significance of these differences in To Kill A Mockingbird.

When I saw this title I nearly had heart failure – what a title to get a group to do. But the question, as always, is how to get them from the point where they have read the book to the point where they can write an answer to this task. Now that is not an easy task for a teacher, I can tell you.

So, here is tip number 1, the numero uno tip of the year: as soon as you start the GCSE course, find out what the title is of the set text you are to study and READ THE THING!

It is that simple really.

The chances are you will not have to actually do anything on it, so if it is Of Mice and Men, or Mockingbird, or Mr Pip, whatever it is, get it read and completed by the end of October in the academic year. You will see the benefit.

Then when your teacher says something like \”right, we are now going to study Book X, you just sit there and think “okay.” Do nothing at that point, especially bragging that you have read it. Then, as your teacher brings you resources about themes, topics, plot structure etc, your knowledge can increase as you prepare for the assessment title.

When you then get the title, you need to do several things:

1. Look at the wording. There are always key words to look for. In this one, they are explore, presents, differences and These will need to be charted in a spidergram picture or something to fully get the ideas out.
2. You need to PLAN this essay in full, selecting quotes that are no more than 10 words long. This is important when sliding them into PEE[D] chains mentioned elsewhere in this blog. You will need to know how to write these so check out my other pages.
3. You will need to select an order to your essay. Structure is vital for success; I care not what anyone says on this one. Without it, do not expect a C grade. With it, you can get the magical A*.
4. When all that is done, type up a DRAFT Work on all the inaccuracies to get it right. Then learn it.
5. Then, create a plot diagram, spidergram etc, for the front sheet of the CA [final year is 2016 for this. After that, you will need to write a plan diagram in the exam as it will all be exam from 2017 exams onwards.

And then of course, you are ready to rumble!

So, what would I put in this thing? Good question!

Well how about:

There is enough to go on there for you.

Have a go yourself at finding quotes for this title and these ideas. Then have a go at the essay and share it here.

RJ

In recent posts I have mentioned when writing something for the exam or coursework, that planning is vital, but how do you go about this?

I have also suggested writing an introduction, followed by a 3 point midsection and then adding a conclusion and in the right context, that would be one way to write an essay, but some students I have been speaking to recently have found that either to be too structured or have said that it does not allow them the chance to be creative enough to write freely and fluently.

So, they asked me to come up with something else.

Then, when teaching one particular student, we came up with something easier for him to remember, especially as the exams are coming up and it came out as a picture, which is now placed below for you.

In essence, it is a diagram that should help you to structure your writing.

Imagine you had to write a description of a time when you had to make a difficult decision. If you write a bullet pointed plan, or numbered, with 1, 2, 3 etc down the page then things can be written down in the wrong order. If you try however, to make a diagram of it, then you use such as this diagram to jot down some ideas.

So, in the centre circle, you add the title task, say for example, the words “DIFFICULT DECISION” and then you think of a time when you have had a difficult decision to make. Then, using one strand at a time, you add single words into each box, but be careful. Be logical. Be prepared to make it up in the exam as well. The more unique the better in exam answers.

Start with the decision, so [for example] the top right strand might use words like [and using the centre circle as well] DECISION – OPERATION – TRUST – FEARS. The second thread might read DECISION – FAMILY – CONCERNS – FEARS and so on, around the diagram. When all four are completed, you then need to think which strand naturally comes first and label them as 1, 2, 3, 4. [The same would be true is writing about a poem in an exam or for coursework].

This entire task should be able to be completed within 10 minutes! It is that simple for a reason, to make you think in terms of one word answers that you will then develop in your writing.

Go on, have a go now. Using the same title as here, use this diagram planner to make your plan in order to write one. Then, as exam practice [this is posted just before the exam in 2015] actually write a 600 word answer.

Happy writing!

Some of the different exam boards, like WJEC [Welsh Board] and the 9715 [AQA] have a thing in the Lit exam where you are required to write an analysis of the texts you have studied and then you have to spend some time writing about a poem, or a pair of poems [WJEC] so that you can show you can write about something literary without any revision or planning.

Now a few years ago, my school opted to take part in the WJEC course and I write a full 2 year scheme of work for it. Indeed, the thing on here called UNLOCKING A POEM is from their teacher pack and appears as guidelines for students as they write their answer in the literature exam.

So, how do you answer it when it appears? For the purposes of this, I am going to use something from a previous AQA exam paper where a poem appeared called Long Distance II. It is a poem about loss and the student is expected to write an analysis on this one. My question then, relates to how you view this and what you do with it, in the first few seconds.

You need to annotate it [make notes near it] so that you can then have something to guide your writing. Here is what I did with it for a student.

The comments in red are short and snappy, for a reason and took about 30 seconds to add in. They are put there to make me see the thing I need to write about. If you like, each one is my point I will then make in my PEE chains, with the idea of the PEED, or development, [see previous posts if seeing this first] being my thoughts from life that I can add into it.

As each verse progresses, so too would my thoughts and ability to use each word and phrase, mentioning any stylistic devices [similes, metaphors etc] as and when needed in my analysis.

This would make me find it very easy to write about this unseen poem, but I also see that the exam texts it was paired with [Duffy etc] were all about loss as well, so there seems to be a link between section A and section B like in the other exams. Thus, when you are completing section A and it is on a certain theme, do not be too surprised if this theme carries on into the final section.

Finally, one thing for you to consider. You may think that this poem has a slightly different meaning to the notes I have put on. This is for one simple reason; your life experiences are different to mine. Because of this, you will react to this poem slightly differently and this is perfectly normal for you to do so, but the thing to remember is that you need to get both ideas written into your analysis [more than two is even better].

In other words, you need to write about your thoughts and then add words like “However, these words could also mean that…” and add other thoughts. The more varied your answer, the higher the grade. The more ‘sophisticated’ the answer, the better chance of getting the A grades and above.

Using this poem, write an analysis of this poem called Long Distance II. Over the next few days, I aim to do the same to show you what I mean, so watch this space. Happy reading folks.