AQA Language GCSE: Paper 01B Narrative Writing (Home School Friendly)

This writing challenge focuses on narrating the beginning of a story about an orphan - it might be worthwhile showing students short video extracts from ‘Oliver Twist’ as they enter the room as a bit of inspiration.

KS4 students would benefit most from this writing activity which could be done as a stand alone lesson or to support the teaching of English Language paper one, section B in general.

This activity would be useful as stretch activities for more able students, although it would be possible to run through it as a class activity (perhaps planning together) for less able students.

For students who are just coming across writing narrative for the first time, it would be useful to run through how to plan and write it up separately, before focusing on editing and improving. The Writing Revolution would suggest that approaching it through describing as a teacher (modelling how it’d done), then in pairs and then indvidually would lead to better responses too.

In terms of writing narrative, writing the beginning means that students should have an idea of where the story is going but are not required to race through it an write the entire thing. Using something like a ‘story mountain’ to plan it quickly and then circling the beginning section that they will actually write is often useful.

Additionally, the formatting and layout has been influenced by ‘The Learning Scientist’ and their principles on how to make resources most accessible.

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