Autobiography: Jessica Ennis Extract

In this lesson students are asked to explore how a writer can write in vivid detail and create tension. It would ideal to use as part of a KS3 unit on autobiography.

The lesson starts by asking students to write down what they know about Jessica Ennis. Other suggested starter tasks include listing synonyms for the word ‘victorious’. There is a slide with explains who Ennis is and why she is famous as well as a link to an online video narrated by her. There’s also a list of synonyms that they may wish to use later in the lesson.

There is a group task for students to do after reading the extract from her autobiography where they are given 4 questions on the board and a challenge task. All questions are linked to the GCSE reading skills AO1, 2, 3 where they have to think about language, structure and the readers’ reactions.

Students are then asked to colour code where in the article Jessica uses particular devices in order to create tension (emotive words, feelings, senses, metaphors). The extract has been pasted on some slides with the devices already shaded in for you so it’s quick and easy to go through with the class. There is some space around the text if you want to annotate it.

The plenary asks students to write a paragraph describing their own victorious sporting achievement in an interesting way, using the key descriptive skills. There is a slide to set up a peer assessment.

This lesson, as my other lessons do, includes:

Starter tasks which introduce the main idea of the lesson
Handouts of extracts/text
Differentiated tasks
Opportunities for pair and group talk within activities (‘Talk for Writing’)