Congratulations!

First up, congratulations for checking the blog! My plan is to update this every couple of days with handy tips and ideas to help you with your revision over the holidays.

If you have any questions or queries about your revision (or indeed recipes for the perfect Christmas turkey), you can post them as comments and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Today's revision idea: Grab a copy of the Metro (other newspapers allowed!), choose any article which interests you and answer the following 8 mark question in 15 minutes:

How does the writer show his thoughts and feelings in the article?

Post your response as a comment and I'll mark it and give you feedback.

One more thought for today which is taken from Steve Jobs' (founder of Apple) biography. In 2011, Jobs was dying of cancer and met with Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) to talk about their careers. They got to talking about learning and discussed the following:

"Jobs asked some questions about education and Gates sketched out his vision of what schools of the future would be like, with students watching video lessons on their own then using class time for discussion and problem solving."

If two of the greatest and most creative minds in our lifetime think it's a good idea, who am I to argue! Feel free to also post any of your thoughts on this quote...

Happy holidays!

Tuesday 18th December

Objective: To learn to create an accurate and original piece of descriptive writing

Task 1: On the previous post, copy and paste your comparison from last week as a comment. Remember to select "Name/URL" from the drop down list and to enter your name before posting

Task 2: Complete the Question 5 task which we began last lesson:

The travel section of your local newspaper is inviting readers to write about their favourite place.

Write a letter to the editor describing a favourite place you know and explaining why others would like it.

Focus on meeting the following objectives:

1) Varied sentence structure

2) Sophisticated vocabulary

3) Creative and original answer

The following videos will help you:

Homework due by Thursday

Read all of the comments on this post and the previous one and, for each post, write a comment explaining which answer you think is best and why.

Classwork and Homework on Question 4

Do Now:

· Read the two non-fiction texts on bears and, on the sheets, highlight 3-4 pieces of evidence from each text which you could compare to one another. Think about:

oUse of adjectives

oEmotive language

oThe way tension is created

oLinked words or phrases

oLanguage features (e.g. alliteration)

Task 2:

· Working with a partner, write an answer to the following question in a word document:

Compare the ways in which the language of the two texts impacts on their readers. (16 marks)

· You should aim to make at least 3 comparative points

· When finished, copy and paste your answer as a comment on this post and leave your names

Task 3:

• Write an answer to the following 8 mark question (1):

What do we learn about the writer's experience with bears from either article?

Homework due Thursday:

· Read all of the other answers to the question. Write a new comment explaining which one you think would receive the highest mark and give at least three reasons for your answer

Lesson Summary 10th December

In today's lesson, we went through each of the the four questions of the reading paper in turn. We raised the following points:

Question 1
Spend around 10 minutes and try to make between 5 and 8 points summarising the text

Question 2
Spend around 10 minutes and make 3 points in which you describe a presentational feature in detail and link to a quotation from the text

Question 3
Spend around 10 minutes on this question and make 3 points each of which identifies and analyses a different feature

Question 4
Spend around 25 minutes on this question and make 3 comparitive points. Try to find similar features to compare such as emotive language and adjectives

Homework due Monday 10th December

Watch this video:



Complete the tasks in your exercise book and submit on Monday. Any questions, post them as comments on this post.

Welcome to Your Blog

Welcome to this blog which I will use to support your learning in the run up to your GCSE exams. Check back here regularly to see things like:

• Summaries of important lessons
• Revision videos
• Homework tasks
• Examples of work
• Exam tips

I hope it's helpful, please take the time to write a comment and let me know what sort of things you'd like to see here.