Should we have grammar schools? Persuasive Writing.

What this resource includes:

1. Mnemonic to remember rhetorical, persuasive techniques: MAD FATHERS CROCH
2. How to plan an answer
3. 9 skills necessary in a top answer
4. The mark scheme explained
5. Model answer
6. Model answer, annotated and explained
7. Why exam topics will never be interesting
8. Sample topics and question

Here is the beginning of the text:
Countdown to Grammar Schools

I’ll have an opinion please Rachel. And a hyperbole. And another hyperbole. Yes, now an opinion…(repetition)

Michael, you have a six letter word: Brexit. Congratulations. Yes, it is now in the dictionary. And Theresa, you have a seven letter word: grammar, where would we be without it? Congratulations, you are today’s winner. (anecdote and humour)

And so we sprint towards an uncertain future, stiffened by the shouts of opinion and hyperbole: parents of progress or decline? The countdown clock will tell. (several metaphors, using emotive language, alliteration, contrasting pairs)

But what if we count up, instead of down? What if we looked at some numerical facts about grammar schools? What if, unlike the fact-free Brexit debate, everything we needed to know were contained in one place, indeed, one spreadsheet? Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Gov.uk performance tables. Make yourselves at home in a world of facts.* (rhetorical questions, rule of three, creating an enemy, alliteration, emotive language, direct address, metaphor)*

Opinion 1: grammar schools increase social mobility.
Fact: The number of disadvantaged students in year 11 in selective schools in 2015 was 1389, 4% of their year 11. Social mobility, or mobility scooter? How do these students do? With these cherry picked few, 89% make expected progress in English, and similarly in maths. Not shabby. So, for disadvantaged students, grammar schools could work, if only they could push through the weighted doors. We need to dramatically increase their number. *(fact and opinion, statistics, metaphor, contrasting pairs, emotive language, metaphor, direct address) *

By this stage, then, I have already used all the rhetorical techniques in MAD FATHERS CROCH. That’s in the first 215 words. You have 45 minutes, in which you ought to be able to write double this length. If you practise using these techniques, one at a time, they will become second nature to you.

Here is an interesting fact for you. Yes, I am an English teacher, but I have only been commissioned to write articles since I published my book on the 15th of August 2016. In other words, the only training I have had in using these techniques is teaching them in class. This means that over the course of year 10 and 11 you can practise them at least as many times as I have.