NON-FICTION WRITING AQA QN5 DAVE THE DOG

Writing non-fiction such as an article or opinion piece for AQA Language Paper 2 Question 5 involves abstract ideas and technical terms. Young learners can struggle with these. Dave the Dog, a writer for Sports Hound, describes each stage of writing a non-fiction piece. How to get ideas, planning the bones of an argument and writing with flair - Dave the Dog walks us through it all.

There are three worksheets:
How to Plan and Article, How to Plan an Article if Your Mind Goes Blank,
and How to Write an Article. Download each one as a PDF or a Word Document so you can edit it if you like.

These three sheets provide a clear and memorable way into non-fiction writing. Once learners have gone through them, you can set simple topics for opinion writing, such as ‘Which make better family pets - dogs or cats - and why?’ ‘Which would you rather be - a cat or a dog - and why?’ You can get some quite moving pieces from a title such as ‘What My Dog Taught Me About Love’. Learners can focus on what they want to say and how to say it - drawing on their own experience and/or that of their peers.

The third worksheet has spaces for learners to fill in their own examples of each technique. It’s well worth making sure that learners do these, maybe in pencil so they can change their minds! It’s a quick mark to check their grasp of the techniques. They often come up with some wonderful sentences, free from the pressure writing a whole piece. If a child who struggles can come up with a really good simile that makes the whole class laugh, this can boost their confidence no end. This can also lead to great discussion about reader response.

You can give Dave the Dog to young learners and then bring him back for revision in Years 10 or 11. That way, GCSE learners will be drawing on long-term memory, which is stronger than short-term memory. Exam students may also feel surprisingly nostalgic about something they were given so many years ago, when they were young!