This very focused PPT takes an extract from Bleak House to show you 7 secrets of Dickens' description, including how to use contrast, why metaphor and personification trump metaphor, the power of listing and the subtlety of alliterative sound and rhythm. When we look at marking criteria we tend to befuddle the students with lists of descriptive techniques. Notice that listing, rhythm and contrast probably don't make it onto most teachers' lists, but these are the most powerful ways of improving their description. The kind of all writing techniques, or indeed the queen, is the use of the right verb. Dickens masters that too. The resource will also be linked to a video you can use to teach this, or plan your teaching from. Also included is the extract from Bleak House in Word.

What this Resource Includes 6 A4 pages: 7 steps: just tell me what to do to get 100% Sample question Sample Text Model answer Explanation of the mark scheme 4 Common mistakes which students make 4 great jokes

This resource includes: Timing of Questions Paper 1 Exam Tactics Timing of Questions paper 2 Explanation of Grade 8: Critical reading and comprehension Reading skills checklist for papers 1 and 2 Grade 8 Writing Skills Papers 1 and 2 How the Grades 8 and 9 are Calculated 8 Reasons not to read the exam paper first, before you start answering questions The importance of handwriting The importance of spelling The marking tolerance per question, which shows why spelling and handwriting are so important

Here is the beginning: Princess Mathilde and Cupid’s Arrow Mathilde knew she looked amazing. But then it was her duty as a princess. She loved being the centre of attention, loved dressing up: the chiffon and silk; the velvet, the fun of display. She was a girl, wasn’t she? She was sixteen. Her father, the warrior king, McArthur Glen the Great, was a wonderful father, she had to admit, but he was still first and foremost a king. And a king is bound by tradition, much the same as a princess. So, today was Suitor Day, when the 16-year-old princess must begin the long and frustrating selection of a husband. They would compete for her in an archery contest. Problem number one: she was beautiful, but Mathilde didn’t want a husband. Problem number two: the suitors on offer, even if she had been in the market to buy, wouldn’t have made her part with a bag of farthings, let alone gold. Jacob the Just from the McDuff clan was ‘duff’ by name and nature, and ‘Just’ about had a brain, was skinny and ‘just’ barely male.

This story is written to model exactly what students should do to write a story that they can finish within 40 minutes, which is roughly the amount of writing time they get at GCSE. There are no published stories of around 500 words, so I have begun to write my own. Writing one on a real character takes away the fear of planning - students already know how the story starts. You get a comprehensive PowerPoint with the story on it. The first section explicitly teaches skills that English teachers may be ignoring. a. The Power of Verbs b. How to introduce the character in an interesting way c How to use humour, not jokes d How to build tension using contrast and juxtaposition e How dialogue must reveal character before plot f The power of repetition and rule of three, or triplets, in building a rhythm h Paragraphing for impact The second half of the PowerPoint teaches more conventional story telling skills, with an additional focus on the importance of sound. a. Metaphor b. Similes c. Personification d. Alliteration e. Assonance, Half Rhyme and Hidden Alliteration Finally, you also get a completely free video on how to teach this at: http://bit.ly/WriteAboutARealCharacter All the PowerPoint slides are included in the video, so you can see how to teach each skill explicitly. If you would like copies of the story, it is available as a separate resource.

This resource teaches students how to take even ordinary people they know and shape a story round them. Teach 7 techniques which guarantee a good story. It shows them how to structure what they know so that it has a beginning, a middle and an end. It illustrates how to craft the ending with a twist. It provides the full short story, as well as questions to help students realise how it is put together, so that they can plan and write their own. The story is also provided in Word form, so you can adapt it for your class, or annotate it with them, or print it for them.

Here’s the beginning. I hope you like it. Dear Bedroom, Two years after my mother died, I think of you. When did childhood end? Was it when I gave the eulogy, told the impossible, hilarious, tragic, extraordinary life she had? There were earlier endings. At five, my grandmother died, and I didn’t speak for a week. You remember me then, in the womb of your white walls, weeping, kicking against the sides, against the tides, against death. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Leaving Spain was another death – when dad left, and mum started dating the bank robber, and the dream of Disneyland died, our savings taking us only as far as Canada – right continent, wrong country. I didn’t say goodbye, or send you a postcard from the border, leaving the sun and crossing into the snows. Nor a photograph, a snapshot of me ballooning to eleven stone: ten years old, and a giant snowball of a kid, out of place. Yes, that was a kind of ending, but really, I think the damage was already done, further back, when you still knew me.

Here is the beginning. I hope you like it. The Act of Killing The killings always happened in bright sunlight. The smell of burning hair brings the first killings straight back to me, and I am five again, thirsty in the hot sun – all of us at break time queuing at the well. No running water. Just down the hill, in a hollow, squatted an open shell of a building– whitewashed walls splashed with blood. Once a month, the snuffling pigs ambled up the path, to the pen. They gathered nonchalantly. Then the show started. First, a hook like a giant question mark was stabbed through a snout. The disbelieving pig was pulled, squealing in shock, and just as suddenly, three shirtless men lifted it. The hook fitted onto a rail above head height. Below, a bucket, for the blood. The screaming pig hung from its snout, legs kicking at the empty air.

This story is based on homophobia. My daughter is bisexual, and training to become a teacher. When I released this on video, I was astonished at the number of English teachers who assumed both characters in the story were dislikable, simply because they are both gay. It is also based on the Daphne Du Maurier extract from the 2017 AQA paper. It keeps exactly the same grammar and sentence structure and punctuation. This means that you can rerun all the 2017 questions using this text, to see if your students have learned anything from doing their mock. Here is the beginning. I hope you like it. Twitter Queen Over the face of her keyboard, Regina began a barrage of abuse, and that was usually the way she spent such a brilliant evening – because a Twitter account, and a poisonous tongue and a quiver of quips are just perfect for some social media trolling on a laptop. As she tweeted the world on the web, swigged her wine with one gulp and spat at her victims in 140 characters, Regina decided she could have sold her mother for a viral tweet, something vindictive and destructive and glorious. Regina gazed down at the screen; her fingers were buzzing and furious, the tweets whipping through the ether lacerated her victims with sarcasm and emojis, and their pathetic replies tweeting about this were drowned kittens. Her eyes were blazing hot, and she imagined the tips of her fingers and teeth could be sharpened with cold, mercilessly steel. There was an exponential trend of outraged followers – it seemed to be exploding out of every screen in the city – and each sought the same target, crying so softly, sobbing in her room. Regina laughed delightedly and shrieked at the 10 best tweets from her followers… she felt almost invincible. Inside her power crazed mind, the whole Internet of users across the planet seemed to worship her blank, airbrushed face.

Learn the 12 techniques my students used in getting grades 8 and 9 in the 2017 exams. Use these to show students what to do, rather than refer to wordy and ambiguous mark schemes. Use a PPT with highlighted paragraphs of the full essay, all coded with the 12 techniques. See which 3 skills are demanded of the best conclusion. Also included is the whole essay in Word.

Students struggle to create interesting plots and characters. This story and presentation shows students how to use a celebrity they know a bit about, and choose a moment of crisis in their lives. Yes, it covers all the usual techniques we all teach: alliteration, simile, metaphor, the senses, etc. But it also pays particular attention to: Repetition Allusion Powerful Verbs Contrast. Overdoing some techniques Minimising adjective and adverb use Showing the character's state of mind. Each paragraph has 3 explicit teaching points. You get two copies of the story - one as a Word document for you to customise or read. The other, in Word, to teach each of three explicit points for each paragraph.

Brilliant though this resource is, question 1 is only worth 4 marks. So, you will lean the common misconceptions students have with this question that prevents them getting full marks. And there is some really useful stuff you can do with the problem of complex sentences. There is a sample question and model answer. But, I’ve really uploaded this so you can get the bundle of Q 1-4 for the whole reading paper. That really is awesome, and at only £5, is probably the best resource available on the TES for this paper. No, seriously, I really think it is.

Here is the beginning. I hope you like it. Revolver Impossible colours exploded in her head, her skull, her head, her skull. The images flickered like a strobe light, like Morse code, like a stroke…Christ she was high. No, she was low, so low. The song would not come to her; its words fled from her: birds in a field. Did that make her the hunter? Guns. Revolver. She gazed at her tattoo – the revolver was famous, her first. Thousands of fans had copied it in homage to her music, to her pain. Everyone identified with her pain. Was her pain a drug? It fuelled her writing. She didn’t write happy songs did she? No, her voice was the voice of longing, of longing, of longing…she needed another hit. But she should pace herself. Revolver, and the memories revolved in her head. The album had gone platinum, global, crazy, and her life had changed for ever.

This resource includes: 9 Steps: Just tell me what to do Sample question What does the examiner really want? To sample texts Student misconceptions and the need to infer even though the question does not specify this. Question 2 Just tell me what to do Model answer Model answer annotated for inference Model answer rewritten so that it can be done by a student in 200 words Here is the beginning of the model answer: Below is the model answer again. Bold and green shows you where it infers. Phelps and Finley are both female writers with similar experiences of writing, but they have completely different attitudes to their work. Phelps combines writing with motherhood, as her daughter remembers “I cannot remember one hour in which her children needed her and did not find her”. So perhaps this explains her desire to write children’s stories “written for ourselves” (her children) and not for public consumption. In contrast, Finley chooses to remain a “spinster” and also published books “for children”, rather than keeping it for her own children. Although she has no children of her own, so she could have written them for those she taught or for those in “Sunday school”. Both women suffered from ill health. Finley seems, to a modern reader, to have little wrong with her, as she survives many years in apparent ill health: “has been an invalid for a number of years and has done much of her writing while prostrated by illness.” It is unlikely that a writer could continue with serious illness, as Phelps’ history indicates. Phelps died, according to her daughter, apparently from overwork, “The struggle killed her, but she fought till she fell”. This is in complete contrast to Finley, who despite her claimed illness wrote many books and looked a picture of good health, with “a figure inclined to plumpness. Her hair is snow white.”

This resource includes: Sample question Sample text 8 Steps: Just tell me what to do Annotated text, to show students how to think about language Model answer using all the analysis, 450 words Model answer reworked to be student length, 250 words Explanation of the mark scheme, applied to the model This is the beginning of the sample analysis: Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views *Five minutes’ walking brings you to the fair itself; a scene calculated to awaken very different feelings. The * • Direct address places us directly at the scene • Dickens foreshadows the text by signposting us towards different feelings to bring it to life • He writes in the present tense to make the experience more immediate and real entrance is occupied on either side by the vendors of gingerbread and toys: the stalls are gaily lighted up, • Adjective ‘gaily’ to describe the lighting actually describes the mood and atmosphere the most attractive goods profusely disposed, and un-bonneted young ladies induce you to purchase half a • Long clauses keep us at the scene, as though giving us time to look at the listed sights • Perhaps male readers of the time are enticed by the provocative detail that the ladies are both “young” and “unbonneted”, the adjectives suggesting they are therefore attractive. • The assonance of “o” emphasises how “profuse” the pleasures are, and in forming the letter “o” the mouth is forced into an expression of wonder (19th century readers would be used to reading to their families out loud). • The juxtaposition of the “young ladies” with “the most attractive goods” encourages the male reader to see the women as commodities to be enjoyed. It is a sexist allusion to women as objects. *pound of the real spice nuts, of which the majority of the regular fair-goers carry a pound or two as a present *

What This Resource Includes 15 Steps: Just tell me what to do The mark scheme Sample question Examiner’s Advice 10 ways to think about structure How to write about the structure of an ending Extract of the ending of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens How to work out Dickens’ purposes as a writer Sample Question Sample Answer Text based on Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene Understanding the context of historical texts Sample text: The Doll’s House, by Damon Runyon How to analyse the structure of each of the 10 paragraphs of The Doll’s House Model Answer getting 100% Model Answer rewritten to 300 words, and still getting 100% 12 things to learn from the model answer How to edit your answer to improve your writing, using far fewer words 7 techniques to reduce your word count 10 great jokes

What the resource includes: How do you get ideas from the news. 8 story writing ideas from the news How to pick a news story to turn into a narrative Model answer using Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Model answer reworked so it is only 500 words long What the examiner wants 8 Things great writers do, explained 9 steps to writing your story