Approaching GCSE English Paper 1 Question 3 - STRUCTURE

AO2: Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views.

Paper 1 Question 3 is the structure questions where learners are asked how a writer has structured a text to interest them as a reader. The class is designed to build concepts from the students’ level of understanding.

As such, this lesson teaches structure by building up complexity gradually. The first part of the lesson will simply be reading a very short story, making short notes where structural features are spotted and discussing what was good (or not) about it. The story is deliberately very short and has been written specifically with this question in mind. It covers temporal features, shifts of focus, exposition, paragraph lengths, flashbacks and has a cyclical ending.

The next step will be to continue with an activity that draws on the notes made – or perhaps even prior knowledge of structure. The list of structural devices is not exhaustive – they may well spot additional ones – but there are two (dialogue and twist ending) which do not appear in the story.

The aim is to match up straightforward textual structural features with those that happened in the text. This can then, finally, be turned in to an exam-style response.

First, though, there will be a short discussion about how to write an exam response. There are plenty of hints given here – but again there are elements of the example sentences used which are of no great use in this example (this is deliberate, to see whether the correct ones are chosen and can be adapted).

Finally, the students will attempt an “exam style” response

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