GCSE English
Support Event
12th December 2012
Agenda
 9.15am
 9.30 -10.00am
 10.00 -10.20am
 10.20 - 12.30pm
 12.30 - 1.30pm
 1.30 - 2.30pm
 2.30 - 2.45pm
Registration
Welcome and
Introduction
Tea/Coffee
Unit 1
Lunch
Unit 2
Evaluation
Today’s Focus
Examination Preparation
 providing resources
 general advice and guidance
 deconstructing questions
 exemplar responses
How the exams are marked
 The exams will be marked using positive
assessment.
 The Examiners/Markers are solely concerned
with crediting what has been achieved in
an answer.
 They will ignore what the candidate has
overlooked, misinterpreted or added
irrelevantly.
 The Mark Schemes are written to tie in with
this positive approach.
Assessment Objectives
 Examiners/Markers are required to make
a series of assessments.
 These are based on the specific
Assessment Objectives that are set out
in the Mark Scheme for each question.
General Information
 We are not looking for perfection
 We are aware of the pressure of
exams, the time limitations, etc.
 Answers that receive maximum marks
may contain some errors (expression/
spelling/ punctuation)
Myth
 You don’t need to study
for GCSE English.
Timing
 2 exam papers
 2 X 45 minute questions
Unit 1 Section A
Personal Writing
45 minutes
(p2-14)
The Assessment Objectives (p2)
1. Writing clearly, effectively and imaginatively to
engage the reader
2. Using a style that matches vocabulary to
purpose and audience
3. Organising ideas/information logically into
sentences and paragraphs
4. Making use of language and structural
features for effect
5. Using a range of sentence structures as well
as punctuating and spelling accurately.
The type of question
Candidates will be asked to produce a single
piece of writing on a given subject. They will be
required to write in one of a variety of forms:




a magazine article for your school magazine
a letter to a friend or a local newspaper
a speech or presentation to other pupils, or,
a personal essay for the examiner.
Writing – 24 marks
 AO3 (i) and (ii) – structure/development
16 marks
 AO3 (iii) – use of sentences and accuracy
spelling, punctuation and grammar
8 marks
A typical task
(p4)
Form: a speech
 You have been asked to make a
speech to your classmates on your
favourite possession.
Audience: classmates
Purpose: to describe
Topics
 Your favourite ….
(teacher/
possession/ holiday,
etc)
 Your worst ever
holiday
 A memorable
journey
 Your closest friend
Section A – Personal Writing
 45 minutes
 10 mins – planning your response
to the task
 25-30 mins – writing your
response
 5 mins – checking your work
Writing Techniques (p5+6)
 Rhetorical
Questions
 Rapport
 Emotive Language
 Indirect
involvement
 Hyperbole
 Assertive
Language








Repetition
Alliteration
Statistics
Humour
Personal Anecdote
Tone
Effective opening
Strong conclusion
Example Openings (+ Conclusions)
p38-39

An unusual detail: “A typical child needs 2,000 calories for an
entire day and Burger King’s Whopper with triple cheese has
1,300 calories”
 A strong statement: “Fast food consumption has risen 500
percent since 1970 and today pervades nearly every segment
of society, including school canteens”
 A quotation: “Shakespeare said, ‘All the world’s a stage ….’”
 An anecdote: “My hands felt sticky after pulling open the doors
to “Big Bobby’s Boisterous Burger Hut”. The odor smelled of
fried everything. I ordered a Big Bobby Combo #2. There was
enough food to serve a small third world country on my tray.”
Example Openings (+ Conclusions)
 A statistic or fact: “There are over 2.7 billion
searches on Google each month.”
 A question: “Have you ever considered how
many books we would have read if it were not
for television and the Internet?”
 An exaggeration or outrageous statement:
“The whole world watched as the comet flew
overhead.”
Hooks or Grabbers!!
 Unusual detail
 Strong statement
 Quotation
 Anecdote
 Statistic or Fact
 Question
 Exaggeration or Outrageous
Statement
 Under
 Some
 Quilts
 Are
 Surprisingly
 Quick
 Elephants
Good Opening statements
Topic: “The worst day of my life”:
X
 I am going to write about the worst day in my
life.
 I’m sure you all have heard of the expression
“getting out of the wrong side of the bed in the
morning”.
 The piercing 6:30 alarm jarred me out of a
restful sleep. It didn’t get any better after that.
Task - p8 + 9
 3 examples of writing – different
approaches to personal writing
task
A lively start that addresses the
reader directly - ‘you’.
So you’re going on holiday to KL! It’s a brilliant place, a real mix of
Malay, Chinese and Indian culture. There’s so much going on that you
won’t want to go to bed at night. Now you’re probably thinking, ‘I hope
she’s not going to bore me writing some tedious travel guide.’ Well I’m
not. You’ll find your own way, but here are a few suggestions about
things that you can say or do.
Your first adventure will be negotiating the airport. I don’t like it, even if
it is very modern and impressive. I went there when it was first built and
got lost it was so big. Every time I tried to find our departure lounge I
ended up wandering into a different shop. Apparently the airport was
designed so that people could be channelled into retail outlets to buy
more goodies.
Anyway, if you manage to get through the airport, you’ll need to get a
taxi into the city centre, which (I say should) will take about an hour. Have
you been to the Far East before? If you haven’t, the traffic might come
as a shock. Sometimes it gets gridlocked for hours on end and nothing
moves except the meter on the taxi. If you’re lucky, though, you’ll end
up in the middle of town in time to see some of the city before dark. There
are so many things to do, like going to Petronas Towers, visiting the
National Museum, taking a trip on the elevated railway – or simply
indulging yourself in a delicious local meal from a hawker stall.
Unusual choice of
location grabs the
reader’s attention
One of my favourite places is the bus shelter outside school.
Most people would not think a bus shelter is very interesting,
and would expect a favourite place to be somewhere exotic. I
suppose the main reason I like it so much – at least in the
winter, is because it is one of the few places anyone can keep
dry and reasonably warm on a main road when you need to get
off the school premises at lunchtime. If you think a bus shelter
is an odd place to choose, there are others who seem to share
my odd choice. The other day for instance, the shelter was
packed full of people chatting and nobody got any of the buses
that pulled up. You’ll see now that it is not the décor or the
architecture that makes the shelter a favourite place; it’s the
company and the social diary. Yesterday I met up with three
of my closest friends who I hadn’t seen for three days. We
solved the world’s problems, swapped gossip and sorted
out the weekend before getting back to Maths in Lesson 4.
If you had to face Maths Lesson 4, you’d begin to see why
the bus shelter is a favourite place.
metaphor
Short sentence
for effect
simile
Late November. The centre of the city lies still as a
tomb, grey in the cold earth. Silent buildings are
gravestones to the living cemetery beneath. A chill
Adjectives
build blows the hair across my face. Dust and dirtpersonification
wind
up a misty,
swirl
desolate
feeling from the gutter and in a tin can rattles down the
pavement, its half-consumed contents dribbling
stickily behind. A cheeseburger carton limps
unwillingly along before lodging beneath a bench.
Strong, well-chosen
The smell of stale onions lingers from an abandoned
verbs in the present
hot
dog stand, and beside me, in the wide shoptense
door,
Adverbs
create
‘sleazy’
a sign of life. A cardboard box shifts in the gloom and
impression
a dark shape shuffles. A cupped grey hand extends,
alliteration
yet I move away ashamed.
onomatopoeia
In the distance, the cars on the by-pass busily hum.
Connectives (p10)
 Make writing more fluent by linking information,
ideas and events and showing the relationship
between them.
 Act as signposts for the reader.
 Without connectives, writing reads like a list.
 Learn them and use them in your writing!!
Top Answer (p12)
 Read the response
I hated that place. I hated everything about it. Before I
went to hospital I was terrified, and when I was there I
was traumatised. I feared every step that walked past
my door, fearing it was my surgeon.
My surgeon was a plump and stumpy man, who in my
opinion had a heart of stone. He wore black framed
glasses that made his eyes look like pin pricks, and
his lips were constantly pursed. The day he told me I
needed life-threatening surgery was routine for him,
but tore my world apart. This lack of concern and
sympathy for me made me detest this man with every
possible bone in my body.
Blink Test – What Grade?
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Blink Test – What Grade?
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a
Paragraphing
Remember P.E.E:
Paragraphing
Equals
Excellence
Paragraphing
REMEMBER TIPTOP
When you skip to a new time
When you skip to a new place
When you start in on a new topic
When a new person begins to speak
Plan
Subject: ____________________









______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Flow Chart
Subject:
Spider Diagram/Mind Map
Topic
Planning
Remember P.E.E:
Planning
Equals
Excellence
Ending
If a student runs out of time:
 Do not end writing tasks with a series of
bullet points.
 If they have only a couple of minutes left
they should write a concluding paragraph.
Exemplar Responses
Paper 1 Section B
Reading Multi-Modal
Texts
45minutes
(P15-31)
Target skills
1. read and understand texts, and
2. read and understand images
 select material appropriate to purpose;
 make connections between ideas, texts, words
 analyse how the language used varies
according to audience;
 explain how writers use language in particular
ways and employ presentational features to
capture the reader’s attention;
 draw together material from different sources.
Assessment Objectives (p16)
 AO3 i: selecting material appropriate to
purpose/ collating & making c-refs
 AO3 ii: dev. and sustain interpretations
 AO3 iii: explaining and evaluating how a writer
uses linguistic, grammatical and structural
devices to achieve effects
Question : 45 mins
This DVD cover helps to advertise and sell this film.
How does the language used in both DVD covers help
promote/ sell the DVDs?
(15 marks)
This DVD cover helps to advertise and sell this film.
How do presentational devices help to promote/ sell this
DVD?
In your answer consider:
 the layout
 the use of images
 the use of colour.
(9 marks)
How to use the time
45 minutes
 15 mins – reading + annotating
texts
 20 mins – Q1 – Language
 10 mins – Q2 – Presentational
Devices
Multi-modal texts used in the exam:








DVD covers
Advertisements
Leaflets
Websites
Book covers
Magazine covers
Posters
Promotional flyers
Compare + Contrast
Ice:
Makes one think of
a cool, refreshing
drink
Word “Enjoy!” – with
an exclamation mark
emphasizes the
pleasure associated
with this drink.
Colour Red:
Dominant colour
Striking colour/
stands out
Associated with
strength, energy
Dramatically
different colour to its
main rival Pepsi
Simple and distinct
red and white
colour scheme
Beads of condensation
create a cool and
refreshing image
Worldwide
instantly,
recognizable global
brand
Font – Spencerian
script – dominant
form of formal
handwriting in the
19th Century in
USA when Coca
Cola was first
created
Coke bottle
Instantly recognizable
shape
Symbolic (iconic
symbol) of the popular
drink
Compare + Contrast
Dominant colour
is blue:
dominant colour
water, ice,
coldness,
refreshing
Blue:
dramatically
different colour to
its main rival
Coca Cola
Font used is bold
and masculine suggests strength /
power – very
different from font
used by main rival
Coca Cola
World-wide
recognized logo
Red, white and
blue colour
scheme is simple
and distinctive
Bright colours
used in logo
stand out
May also suggest
country of origin USA
Icicles create a sense of
dramatic movement
suggesting Pepsi is a
sharp and powerfully
tasting drink
Also suggest a cool
refreshing drink
Compare + Contrast
Name ‘Fanta’ is an African
word meaning “beautiful
day” – a symbol of
happiness and good spirit
Simple and distinct
orange and blue
colour scheme
Logo:
Reminds one of a
stalk/leaf at the top
of an orange
Bubbles suggest a
cool, fizzy and
refreshing drink
Green which
suggests
nature/naturalness
Colour Orange:
Instantly
recognizable global
brand
Dominant colour
Colour of the actual
drink
Striking colour/
bright/ stands out
Associated with
energy, health,
natural, happiness
Font: soft and rounded
like an orange
Droplets of the
orange and the
bubbles swirling
around helps you
visualize and
ultimately desire
the drink.
‘Sprite’ is an elf-like
creature implying this
is a fun and playful
drink
Dominant colours
are blue and
green:
World-wide
recognized logo
Blue: suggests
water, ice,
coldness,
refreshing
White , blue,
green colour
scheme is simple
and distinctive
Green: suggests
nature
Bright colours
used in logo
stand out
Yellow: reflects
the lemon flavour
of the drink and
the yellow dot
above the letter
“i” looks like a
lemon
Font used is bold
and masculine suggests strength /
power
Swirls: create a sense
of dramatic movement
suggesting this is a
sharp and powerfully
tasting drink
Bubbles: suggest the
drink is cool and
refreshing
What do you learn
about this film by
studying the
presentational
features used in
this poster?
Strange characters,
costumes, settings
and animals imply
that the genre is
fantasy
An array of familiar
characters from
“The Lord of the
Rings” films will
appeal to fans and
suggests continuity
An action shot
from the movie
suggests conflict
and possibly war
Scenes from the
film indicate where
some of the action
will take place – the
setting
Colours?
Unfamiliar character will
arouse curiosity. Is he on
the side of good or evil?
Large photograph of the
main character
dominates the centre the
poster.
He is focused on a
document which will
clearly have a key role
in the plot of the film.
Iconic ring is also
placed in a central
position to emphasise
its importance in the
film/story
Exciting tagline reflects the
subtitle of the film –
suggest that audience will
be brought on a journey of
some kind through
watching the film/story
Image of a
Harrowing front cover uses iconic symbol of
Use of light beginning to
‘crisis centre.’
Christ the King found on a mountain overlooking
permeate through storm
Worried
Rio de Janeiro. Why choose this? It suggests that
clouds- symbolic of hope?
officials
the swirling, rising tides have risen to such
preside over
sinister levels that the safety of this statue has
This is juxtaposed with the
incoming
been compromised. It has cracked and is now
swirling, rising water which
information
falling down upon the people below. Does it
topples the formidable
with screens
suggest that even God/faith is powerless in the
statue of Christ.
and busy
face of such Apocalyptic danger? Interesting
Suggestive/evocative of the
employees
absence of a protagonist on the DVD cover
Great Flood in The Old
behind them.
makes us realise that this danger is being faced
Testament?
This creates a
by all of mankind. Very evocative use of symbol
mood of
and colour. The bridge crowded with people
panic.
below hints at a possible scene in the film’sPromotional features highlighted
effectively through bullet points. Language
Perspective
narrative and makes the people and their plight
used helps to promote the film and
in image
look insignificant in the face of this unfolding
persuade viewers to buy/ watch it.
gives a wider
disaster. Threatening slogan. Register/
Bold use of modern
sense of
tone is very intimidating.
e.g. Sense of exclusivity/uniqueness,
font‘Never
to capture a
Whereas the image
crisis.
before…’
‘catchy’
film title.
above suggests that
Image of plane heading towards
Apocalyptic/action
officials are struggling totoppling buildings of similar
Repetition ‘so many…’
films like this
keep a sense of control of
symmetery is reminiscent of
use dates as
the situation, here we see
9/11.- as is the cloud of debris Rule of three: ‘religions, scientistssometimes
and
markers for danger.
how the crisis is affectingemerging around them.
governments’
2012- provocative and
individuals. Medium
frightening? Why?
Catchy adjectives and nouns: ‘epic
close-up of man and child
Creates intrigue. We are
adventure,’ ‘global cataclysm,’ ‘heroic
(perhaps father and son)
only in 2011. Does the
struggle’
with faces in shockfuture really hold such
suggests that the dangers
dangers? Global
they face may be too
warming?
difficult to overcome.
Makes viewers want to
find out what happens to
them.
Analysing Colours (p20)
Example responses to avoid:
 “The colour red is used and could mean that the film is
a romantic film as red is a colour associated with love.
However, sometimes red is used to symbolise danger
therefore something terrible might happen in this film.”
 “Gold is used in the title to suggest time is precious.”
 “Black and white relate to death, purity and wellbeing.”
Meaning of colours
 Would you rather be green with envy,
green behind the ears, or green
around the gills?
Analysing Colours
 Sometimes colours are symbolic.
 Sometimes colours may be used
because they are bright and eyecatching and therefore stand out.
Presentational Devices
p18
A FOREST MAP
A FOREST MAP
A
ALLITERATION
F
FACTS
O
OPINIONS
R
E
REPETITION
EMOTIVE LANGUAGE
S
T
M
STATISTICS
THREE (RULE OF)
METAPHOR
A
ASSONANCE
P
PERSONIFICATION
Persuasive Language (p17)
Used to persuade someone to do
something:
 buy a product
 believe in a particular argument
 donate money to a charity, etc
The Donna by Emma Howard
Britte feels lost when her recent behaviour places her into
donna training. The school is known for turning spirited girls
into obedient, cultured young women. Numerous appalling
romours surround the donna profession – rumours that Britte
hopes are unfounded.
When Britte arrives at school, her leaders are polite but vague
and evasive and Britte is sure they are hiding something. Once
Britte learns their secret her world is turned upside down.
“The Donna is an imaginative story of a young girl facing new
experiences and dangerous circumstances. You’ll fall in love
with characters and get wrapped up in the excitement.”
Melissa N. Arizona
The Donna by Emma Howard
Britte feels lost when her recent behaviour places her into
donna training. The school is known for turning spirited girls
into obedient, cultured young women. Numerous appalling
rumours surround the donna profession – rumours that Britte
hopes are unfounded.
When Britte arrives at school, her leaders are polite but vague
and evasive and Britte is sure they are hiding something. Once
Britte learns their secret her world is turned upside down.
“The Donna is an imaginative story of a young girl facing new
experiences and dangerous circumstances. You’ll fall in love
with characters and get wrapped up in the excitement.”
Melissa N. Arizona
P.E.E.
Answer the questions using P.E.E:
 Point
1. State something relevant
 Explain
2. Explain why it is relevant
 Evidence/Example
3. Give an example to back it up
REPEAT THIS OVER AND OVER THROUGHOUT THE ANSWER
Introductory Paragraph??
 “Both of these DVD covers use
presentational devices such as pictures,
layout and colour for effect.”
Get straight into answering the question:
 “The DVD cover of Hurt Locker uses …”
Compare + Contrast p23
A
A
A
B
B
B
 Compare and
contrast Text A +
Text B throughout
your response
highlighting
similarities +
differences
Compare + Contrast p24
 Text A - analyse in detail
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
 Text B – analyse in detail
but refer back to Text A
regularly to compare and
contrast: highlighting
similarities + differences
Exemplar
Candidates should use a cross-reference style
of response
 the front cover of …DVD contains a tagline to
promote the film: “...” whereas the cover of …
DVD relies on a review “...”
 ‘Product A is marketed more aggressively, e.g
“...”. In contrast, the marketing of Product B is
more conservative and restrained.
Comparative Connections
(p10/24)







however
in spite of this
whereas
on the other hand
in other respects
on the contrary
rather







nevertheless
differs from
also
in that respect
alternatively
instead
elsewhere
Vary Your language (p25)
means
creates
reflects
gives rise to
indicates
emphasises
conveys
implies
demonstrates highlights
reinforces
strengthens
Top answer
 p28 to p30