English Language

1. Facts and inform/explain
2. Presentation - image and headline
3. Thoughts and feelings - travel writing, biography (autobiography)
4. Comparison (2 texts) - language devices

Denotations - pictures can have literal meanings

Connotations - pictures can have suggested meanings

Headlines

• alliteration
• irony
• rhetorical questions
• rule of three
• word play/puns
• onomatopoeia

Explode the headline

• key words
• language devices
• overall impression

Example - asbo elephants (www.livingwithelephants.org)

• more information www.livingwithelephants.org
• written by 'Nick' about Doug Groves and his life with three elephants

Chunks

• A couple have decided to care for and save young, maybe troubled, elephants who may have been destroyed if not for the couple
• When humans and the elephants try and live in the same areas, there is a high chance of 'clashes' that could effect both sides considerably

Audience

Purpose

Format

Purposes

• Writing to inform
• Writing to persuade
• Writing to argue (Q6)
• Writing to describe (Q5)
• Writing to diescuss - opinions
• Writing to report (iGCSE?)
• Writing to entertain
• Writing to explain

Visuals

• simile
• metaphor
• capitalistion
• personification
• repetition

Sounds

• hyperbole
• rhythm
• colloquial
• monosylabic
• onomatopoeia
• alliteration
• polysylabic
• assonance
• rhyming
• phonology

Text organisation

• irony
• paragraphs
• ambiguaty
• font size/style
• columns
• dialogue

Sentence organisation

• adjectives
• ellipses
• rhetorical questions
• triad/rule of three
• pronouns/nouns
• verbs
• clauses
• caesura

Other

• oxymoron
• anaphora
• pathetic fallacy

Tips

• look at the sources on the back page
• nearly always a book
• narrative point of view
• beware pronouns

Example answer - Saved (excerpt from Alive:The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read)

This passage is from a book in the style of travel writing. The two boys, Parrado and Canessa, both have very different thoughts and feelings about the task ahead in the passage. Parrado is more inquisitive than Canessa at first but as the text progresses Canessa also becomes anticipatory about what is 'at the end of the valley'. They both have doubt about their survival and, although the relationship between the two boys is unclear, thr survival of the other. The 'paradise' they both experience give the pair a sense of relief and appreciation. By the end of the text they have experinced a moment of hope and peace and are strategising a logical way around a rock 'almost sheer in front of them' to reach a definite point of safety.

Tips on this

• SPaG
• Be specific

Comparison between 'Lifesaving with Class' by Rory Stamp (source 1) and 'Saved' by Piers Paul Read (source 3)

Source 3

Text type: travel writing, book

Description: descriptive, tension, suspense, dramatic, graphic

Devices: hyperbole, sensory

Source 1

Text type: company magazine, article

Description: factual information, informing, persuading

Devices: onomatopoeia, alliteration

Rhetorical devices

• rhetorical question
• emotive language
• parallel structures
• sound patterns
• contrast
• description and imagery
• the 'rule of three'
• repetition
• hyperbole (using exaggeration for effect)
• anecdote (short and interesting story taken from your past experience or that someone you know or have heard about)

There are three people you may be asked to write to: headteacher, newspaper, local MP

Ending the letter

'Yours sincerely' - if you know the person

'Yours faithfully' - if it is Sir/Madam

Writing to your Headtecher

• 'Dear Miss Richards' (the Holt School)
• At the end write Year 11

Newspaper

• choose the paper wisely - local
• 'Dear Editor'
• it will be on the 'letters' page
• to gain public support
• don't sign off with your name

Local MP

• 'Dear Mr Redwood' (Wokingham)
• who are you? why are you writing?
• what do you want done?
• don't need addresses

You are usually asked to write about a person, palce or event

Person - someone you know

Place - Classroom is a good one/Bedroom (make sure you can describe it/know it well)

Event - read the question/choose well/examiners want to be entertained

Tips for Descriptive Writing

• What can you hear?
• What can you see?
• What can you smell?