| | The use of “epitome” is a sophisticated without being overly complicated |
The phrase “a shadow if its former glory” uses vocabulary successfully to develop the description | ||
| The image of the lively house is contrasted with the word ‘dead’ to add emphasis | |
The focus on time adverbials emphasise the change e.g. “now”, “no longer” and “once” |
Use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation |
| | The separation of the clauses using a semi-colon in this long sentence is effective as the second phrase directly builds on the first |
Below is an example of a full-mark Level 4 model story:
|
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Sam is a graduate in English Language and Literature, specialising in journalism and the history and varieties of English. Before teaching, Sam had a career in tourism in South Africa and Europe. After training to become a teacher, Sam taught English Language and Literature and Communication and Culture in three outstanding secondary schools across England. Her teaching experience began in nursery schools, where she achieved a qualification in Early Years Foundation education. Sam went on to train in the SEN department of a secondary school, working closely with visually impaired students. From there, she went on to manage KS3 and GCSE English language and literature, as well as leading the Sixth Form curriculum. During this time, Sam trained as an examiner in AQA and iGCSE and has marked GCSE English examinations across a range of specifications. She went on to tutor Business English, English as a Second Language and international GCSE English to students around the world, as well as tutoring A level, GCSE and KS3 students for educational provisions in England. Sam freelances as a ghostwriter on novels, business articles and reports, academic resources and non-fiction books.
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Spent the whole day doing maths and further maths. I’ve only got about 2 hours to do Spanish writing. I had a decent speaking but pretty atrocious listening and reading
What’s the best way to go about revising with about 2 hours?
Posted on August, 2022
Having plenty of ideas for creative writing is one thing, but nailing down the right structure can be a bit more challenging.
There are several steps for children to think about before they begin writing, and that includes creating a structure or plan for how their story will flow.
Creative writing is all about grabbing the reader’s attention immediately, so children in their GCSE years need to understand the importance of structure when writing, in order to organise their ideas and make sure their work reads cohesively.
In this post, we will go through everything your child needs to know from paragraphing, to creating a satisfying ending, providing examples along the way to demonstrate the best way to structure their creative writing.
There are several types of creative writing questions that could come up on the GCSE reading and writing exam. There will be the option to either write creatively based on an image, or a made-up scenario.
Having a solid structure for longer creative writing questions and exercises helps to ensure your child is prepared.
By using a structure that helps to organise your child’s ideas, it helps their writing to flow. It also allows your child to become more confident in their creative writing process.
Planning is more important than you might think, as mark schemes from most exam boards include ‘well-controlled paragraphs’ or something very similar within the top band of criteria for creative writing.
Therefore, children should practise planning out creative writing structures well before their writing exam. Planning gives them time to get into the habit of always providing themselves with a simple, but focused idea of what they are going to write.
Introduction.
Understanding the fundamental structure of a story is crucial for crafting engaging narratives. Beyond basic sequences, story archetypes provide a deeper framework. Christopher Booker , a renowned scholar, identified seven main story archetypes.
Each archetype outlines a distinctive journey and the challenges faced by characters.
This archetype portrays an underdog’s quest to conquer a formidable evil. Examples include the epic tales of Harry Potter battling Lord Voldemort, the classic struggle in Jurassic Park, and the timeless narrative of Jack and the Beanstalk.
Embarking from a starting point of poverty or despair, characters rise to newfound wealth and success. Witness this transformation in stories like Slumdog Millionaire, The Pursuit of Happyness, and The Wolf of Wall Street.
A hero’s journey to discover something, overcoming trials and tribulations along the way. Iconic examples include the Fellowship of the Ring’s quest in The Lord of the Rings, Marlin’s journey to find Nemo, and the epic adventures of Odysseus in The Odyssey.
Protagonists venture into unknown territories, facing adversity before returning home transformed. Dive into this archetype with examples like the curious escapades in Spirited Away, Bilbo Baggins’ journey in The Hobbit, and the enchanting Chronicles of Narnia.
Contrary to our typical perception of humour, this archetype involves destined lovers kept apart by conflicting forces. Delight in the comedic twists of relationships in classics such as 10 Things I Hate About You, When Harry Met Sally, and Notting Hill.
Protagonists with major flaws or errors leading to their inevitable downfall. Witness the unraveling of characters in tragedies like The Great Gatsby, Requiem for a Dream, and the Shakespearean masterpiece Othello.
Characters succumb to darkness but redeem themselves throughout the narrative. Experience the transformative journeys in stories like Atonement, American History X, and the animated Beauty and the Beast.
Beyond literature, these archetypes seamlessly apply to filmmaking and photography. A well-crafted photograph or film can mirror the same narrative arcs, captivating viewers on a visual adventure akin to storytelling. Explore these archetypes to infuse depth and resonance into your creative endeavors.
First of all, paragraphing is central to creative writing as this is what keeps the structure solid.
In order to stick to a creative writing structure, children must know exactly when to end and start a new paragraph, and how much information each paragraph should contain.
For example, introducing the main character, diving into the action of the story, and providing 10 descriptive sentences of the weather and location, could be separated and spread throughout for impact.
Structuring a creative writing piece also involves creating an appropriate timeline of events. Then, you must map out exactly where the story will go from start to finish. This is assuming the writing piece is in sequential order.
Occasionally, there may be a question that requires a non-sequential order.
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This list below details every section in a creative writing piece and should look something like this:
With this structure, it is important to bear in mind that for the AQA GCSE English Language paper 1 reading and creative writing exam.
You can also use Freitag’s pyramid or a story mountain to help you understand the basic structure of a story:
Children will be expected to spend about 50 minutes on the creative writing section. It’s therefore vital to get them into the habit of planning their writing first. As with anything, practice makes perfect.
If you want to find out more about GCSE English Language papers 1 and 2, check out our blog .
We will dive deeper into the creative writing structure further on in this post, but first, let us go through the importance of paragraphing, and how TipTop paragraphs can help to improve children’s writing.
Before children begin to plan out the structure of their stories, it’s essential that they know the importance of paragraphing correctly first.
At this stage of learning, your child should be comfortable in knowing what a paragraph is, and understand that they help with the layout of their stories throughout the whole writing process.
Paragraphs essentially help to organise ideas into dedicated sections of writing based on your child’s ideas. For example, having a paragraph for an introduction, then another paragraph introducing the main character.
This means your child’s writing will be in a logical order and will direct the reader further on into the writing.
To avoid your child straying from their creative writing structure and overloading paragraphs with too much information, there is a simple way to remind them of when they need to start a new paragraph.
Using the TiPToP acronym is such an easy way for you to encourage your child to think about when they need to change paragraphs, as it stands for:
When moving to a different time or location, bringing in a new idea or character, or even introducing a piece of action or dialogue, your child’s writing should be moving on to new paragraphs.
During creative writing practice, your child can ask themselves a series of questions to work out whether they need to move onto a new paragraph to keep their story flowing and reach that top band of criteria.
Providing opportunities to practise creative writing will help your child to get into the habit of asking themselves these questions as they write, meaning they will stick to the plan they have created beforehand.
Now it’s time to get into the all-important creative writing structure.
Producing a creative writing structure should be a simple process for your child, as it just involves organising the different sections of their writing into a logical order.
First, we need to start at the beginning, by creating an engaging opening for any piece of writing that will grab the reader’s attention. You might also be interested to check out this blog on story structure that I found in my research.
This leads us nicely onto step 1…
There are several ways to engage the reader in the opening of a story, but there needs to be a specific hook within the first paragraph to ensure the reader continues.
This hook could be the introduction of a word that the reader isn’t familiar with, or an imaginary setting that they don’t recognise at all, leaving them questioning ‘What does this all mean?’
It may be that your child opens their story by introducing a character with a description of their appearance, using a piece of dialogue to create a sense of mystery, or simply describing the surroundings to set the tone. This ‘hook’ is crucial as it sets the pace for the rest of the writing and if done properly, will make the reader feel invested in the story.
Read more about hooks in essays .
If your child needs to work more on description, I definitely recommend utilising the Descriptosaurus :
Additionally, it’s important to include a piece of information or specific object within the opening of the creative writing, as this provides something to link back to at the end, tying the whole storyline together neatly.
Providing a complication gets the storyline rolling after introducing a bit of mystery and suspense in the opening.
Treat this complication like a snowball that starts small, but gradually grows into something bigger and bigger as the storyline unfolds.
This complication could be that a secret has been told, and now the main character needs to try and stop it from spreading. Alternatively, you could introduce a love interest that catches the attention of your main character.
In this section, there should be a hint towards a future challenge or a problem to overcome (which will be fleshed out in the development and climax sections) to make the reader slightly aware of what’s to come.
The development seamlessly extends from the previous section, providing additional information on the introduced complication.
During this phase, your child should consider the gradual build-up to the writing piece’s climax. For instance, a secret shared in the compilation stage now spreads beyond one person, heightening the challenge of containment.
Here, your child should concentrate on instilling suspense and escalating tension in their creative writing, engaging the reader as they approach the climax.
The climax is the section that the whole story should be built around.
Before creating a structure like this one, your child should have an idea in mind that the story will be based on. Usually this is some sort of shocking, emotion-provoking event.
This may be love, loss, battle, death, a mystery, a crime, or several other events. The climax needs to be the pivotal point; the most exciting part of the story.
Your child may choose to have something go drastically wrong for their main character. They must regardless, need to come up with a way of working this problem into their turning point and resolution. The should think carefully about this will allow the story to be resolved and come to a close.
After the climax, the story’s turning point emerges, crucial for maintaining reader interest.
During this post-climax phase, address and resolve issues, acknowledging that not every resolution leads to a happy ending.
Turning points need not be confined to the story’s conclusion; they can occur at various junctures, signifying significant narrative shifts.
Even in shorter pieces, introducing turning points early on can captivate the reader.
Creative writing allows for individual storytelling, and effective turning points may differ between your child and you.
Maintain suspense in this section, avoiding premature revelation of the ending despite the climax’s conclusion.
The resolution should highlight the change in the story, so the tone must be slightly different.
At this stage, the problem resolves (happily or unhappily) and the character/s learns lessons. The close of the story must highlight this.
The writer should also not rush the resolution or end of the story.
It needs to be believable for the reader right until the very end. The writer should allow us to feel what the protagonist is feeling.
This creates emotion and allows your reader to feel fully involved.
Remember the piece of information or specific object that was included in the story’s opening?
Well this is the time to bring that back, and tie all of those loose ends together. You want to leave the reader with something to think about. You can even ask questions as this shows they have invested in the story.
To enhance your children’s GCSE creative writing skills, allocate time for practice.
Plan a structure for creative writing to guide children in organising their thoughts and managing time during the GCSE exam.
Apply this structure to various exam questions, such as short stories or describing events.
Focus each creative piece on a climactic event, building anticipation in the beginning and resolving it at the end.
Consider a tutor for GCSE preparation to help children focus on specific areas.
Redbridge Tuition offers experienced tutors for learning from KS2 to GCSE, providing necessary resources for your child’s success.
Get in touch to find out how our tutors could help.
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It really does have a lot to do with plot, as writing about something mature and thoughtful makes your writing inherently more mature and thoughtful. Obviously, if your style is not developed, two days are not enough to change it but at least with a good plot you give yourself chance of a better grade. 2. Reply.
Obviously language choice, etc. will get you the marks but you need to train yourself to not cringe at your own stuff. That's regarding general writing. After that, the real trick is to take that and turn it into something decent language-wise. Focus more on how you tell the story as opposed to what it actually is.
Had a lesson on this question this morning. For creative writing my teacher suggested having four paragraphs where setting is described, questions are asked by the reader tension lowers down and you answer some of the questions big, dramatic scene resolution/outcome of situation you don't need to deliberately write lots.
Yes, creative writing is worth 25% of your English GCSE. Yes, and if you want to get good grades, your eon a good start. But, you need to vary the structure- some one line paragraphs, some short ones, some long ones. That's how you get top marks. Yes, there are two questions.
Me omw to make up a cartoonishly evil Margret Thatcher quote and immediately follow it with "God, I hate Margret Thatcher". 1. Reply. Award. 119K subscribers in the GCSE community. r/GCSE is the place for tips, advice, resources and memes for your GCSE exams.
Unit 2 Reading and Writing: Description, Narration and Exposition gives two prompts to choose between, for an account and an essay perhaps, and Unit 3: Reading and Writing: Argumentation, Persuasion and Instructional sets up a letter, or similar. Jump ahead to WJEC Eduqas non-fiction writing prompts from past GCSE papers.
Before embarking on your creative writing journey, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the assessment criteria is imperative. The evaluators of your English language GCSE creative writing piece will scrutinise several key areas: the coherence of your narrative structure, range of ideas you explore, the variety and complexity of your sentence structures, and the precision of your spelling ...
r/GCSE. r/GCSE is the place for tips, advice, resources and memes for your GCSE exams. MembersOnline. •. 1zzieeeeee. ADMIN MOD. could anyone help me out ( english ppe/mock ) Tips/Help. ive done a practice q5 ( creative writing ) but have no way of marking it, as all my teachers are busy helping the year 11s ( im yr10) could any of u guys read ...
365 upvotes · 35. 217 upvotes · 12. 234 upvotes · 73. 119K subscribers in the GCSE community. r/GCSE is the place for tips, advice, resources and memes for your GCSE exams.
Retold Fable. Prompt: Modernize a classic fable or story, such as the Boy Who Cried Wolf, in a contemporary setting. Potential Story Directions: The story could be set in a modern city, exploring current social issues. It might be told from a different perspective, offering a fresh take on the moral of the story.
Lastly, it's important to stay calm and confident during your exam. Stress and anxiety can hinder your creativity and writing ability. Practice relaxation techniques and believe in your preparation to help you stay focused and composed during the exam. Remember, creative writing is an opportunity to express yourself and let your imagination run ...
The key components of a grade 9 creative writing answer. i. Descriptive Words…. ii. Action Words…. iii. Sensory Details…. Why Showing is Better Than Telling. Let's recap on what we mean by 'descriptive language'.
Narration - the voice that tells the story, either first person (I/me) or third person (he/him/she/her). This needs to have the effect of interesting your reader in the story with a warm and ...
creative media? does anyone actually feel confident about the creative media exam because my school has literally taught us nothing about it and i've just accepted the fact that i'm probably gonna fail😭. Don't worry, I've found some helpful resources online that might help you prepare for the exam!
AO6 (16 marks) Use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation. Overview. Question 5 is a writing question. Question 5 is worth 40 marks. You should aim to write 5-7 paragraphs. You should spend approximately 45 minutes on this question.
The style of the writing (sentence structure and overall structure) is dynamic and engaging; Below you will find a detailed creative writing model in response to an example of Paper 1 Question 5, under the following sub-headings (click to go straight to that sub-heading): Writing a GCSE English Language story; Structuring your story
r/GCSE is the place for tips, advice, resources and memes for your GCSE exams. Best way to revise Spanish writing. Spent the whole day doing maths and further maths. I've only got about 2 hours to do Spanish writing. I had a decent speaking but pretty atrocious listening and reading.
Producing a creative writing structure should be a simple process for your child, as it just involves organising the different sections of their writing into a logical order. First, we need to start at the beginning, by creating an engaging opening for any piece of writing that will grab the reader's attention.
4 words to describe the sky. inky; overcast; dim; colourless. 4 verbs for shouting. shriek; roar; yell; bellow. 7 verbs for talking quietly. whisper; buzz; mumble; murmur; mutter; sigh; breathe. Study with Quizlet and memorise flashcards containing terms like 5 words for bright, 2 words for walking slowly, 4 words for walking lightly and others.