Friday 18 May 2012

Text type mnemonics

So close to the exam and my Y11s are still really struggling to answer the 'How does the writer use language to...' (Question 3 of the AQA Foundation paper). They have real difficulty finding things to write about unless it is a persuasive text. So, I decided if I could come up with a mnemonic that matched the text type it should really help them remember what kind of things they could write about.

So here it (far from perfect) is:

Adjectives
Direct address
Verbs (modal)
Imperatives
Sentence length
Empathy

Pattern of three
Emotive language
Rhetorical questions
Statistics
Use of assertion
Anecdote
Direct address
Exaggeration

Detail - adjectives and adverbs
Evoke the senses
Sentence length
Colour
Repetition
Imagery
Brilliant vocabulary (not proud of this one!)
Emotions

In sections / sequence
Numbers
Facts
Opinions
Rhetorical questions
Mostly neutral tone

EXPLAIN is, of course, a mixture of DESCRIBE and INFORM (good luck coming up with something for x!

I've just remembered it to write this, so it does work! It should also help them to plan for the writing tasks too. Of course, there are other things you can include, but it it gives them a start, and they can also use it to plan for the writing section.

1 comment:

  1. These are brilliant - I borrowed these to use with my Year 10s today! Thank you!

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