Starter
Building Materials
This lesson takes an extended analogy between writing and building and hammers
it home! Opening slides explain the analogy which is intended to deepen pupils’
appreciation of structure and the writers’ craft.
Main Activities
Blueprints
An Introduction
to Structure
Teaching Ideas
Learning Objective:
To raise awareness of
structure and ways in which
writers use it for effect.
Success Criteria:
• To have an appreciation of
the writing process.
• To consider structural
decisions at word, sentence
and whole text level.
• To play with the structure of
our own writing.
• To comment on the
structure in both our own
and somebody else’s writing.
Context
One of a series of An
Introduction to… lessons,
exploring language and
literature concepts that are
fundamental to academic
success at KS3/4.
Pupils to consider the elements of the writing process; examples come in
on click.
Story Arcs
An explanation of the story arc and some ways in which this can be bent
and twisted.
Choose a Path
Writing activity that challenges pupils to be creative with narrative structure.
Differentiated approaches are intended to cater to a range of abilities but
time constraints mean that teachers may also opt for whichever best suits.
Pupils are asked to share their work so that there is an opportunity to note
development between this activity and the plenary; however, if you wish pupils
to produce extended writing but time is an issue then one option is to skip the
following activity.
Beginning of the End
Previous activity is turned on its head so that the final line becomes the first
one, with the effect of making pupils engage ever more closely with the concept
of structure. The ‘things to consider’ go from big to small. You might wish to
demonstrate to pupils how sentences can be played with; for example, the
meaning of ‘It’s never going to happen’ could be altered with the addition of an
ellipsis, exclamation or speech marks.
Plenary
Pupils compare work and discuss structure as a means of demonstrating and
deepening understanding.