https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/glowblogs/
misscpacker/

Second draft of folio 1 (in
class)
Creation and production
finished

Folio 2

1 short story

Prelim

3 poems

Resists
August – October:


Analysis and Evaluation first 
Short stories
sitting
April – June:
November – December:

Revision

Folio piece 1

Finish poems (3)

Close reading
January – April:
Nat 5 Plans
Texts
Scottish Text: Jackie Kay
poetry
Critical Essay: 4 Short stories
Plan
Your study:
 Today: Folio overview and plans
• Reread the texts: 6
poems and The
Hw: Finish folio plan and research for
Lighthouse
• Memorise important
Monday 11th January.
quotes for both
• Look at themes
Monday: Writing 1st draft of folio.
• Links between ideas in
the poems
Hw: Prepare for critical essay be
rereading The Lighthouse and your notes • Practice the 8 mark
question (SQA website
for past papers)
Thursday: Critical essay exam practice
• Close reading practice
(SQA website)
• Practice critical essay
plans
National 5 Portfolio

What you need to know
•
This portfolio is worth 30 marks out of the total of 100 marks. The marks contribute 30% of the overall marks for
the Course assessment.
•
This portfolio (writing) will have 30 marks and will contain two essays. Up to fifteen marks will be awarded for
each essay chosen for the portfolio.
•
This assessment will be externally marked by SQA.
•
You will get marks for the quality of your writing. It does not have to be completely perfect to get a 15.
•
You writing will be assessed on both content and style.
•
Satisfactory technical accuracy is a requirement for the piece to meet the minimum requirements for the 9-7
Band. Your writing may contain errors, but these will cannot be significant. Paragraphing, sentence construction,
spelling and punctuation must be adequately accurate.
National 5 Portfolio: What you need to do
• Write two essays of no more than 1,000 words each, one of which is broadly creative,
the other broadly discursive .
Discursive writing
Creative Writing
Personal — Personal writing (real or imagined) will focus on
a specific event/s or situation and your reactions to it/them.
Transactional — Transactional writing is informative, and might include
a film review or a biography. It should be written with a specific
audience in mind, and seek to engage that audience.
Argumentative — Argumentative writing will present an issue or topic in
such a way that a line of thought is developed dealing with two or more
points of view, making clear the argument to be presented.
Reflective — Reflective writing will aim to interest or give
Persuasive — The aim of persuasive writing is to persuade the reader
pleasure, rather than purely convey information about an
What
I
can
help
you
with:
experience. It will concern itself, usually, with a single idea, towards the writer’s adopted point of view or purpose. It usually focuses
on a single topic or issue and it will carry a sense of conviction,
• The
planning
stage on
insight or experience
andinitial
will include
some reflection
commitment or belief through the conscious manipulation of language
knowledge, thoughts
or feelings
this.
create an appropriate tone.
• Written
or created
spokenbysuggestions
for toimprovements
on a first draft
Imaginative — This can take a very wide range of forms such Report — A report contains a number of key characteristics. It must
contain information relevant to the chosen topic/issue drawn from at
‘Once
workfrom
on the
assessment
has begun,
the candidate should be
as: a short story;
an episode
a novel;
a drama script
least two sources and the material drawn from those sources must be
(scene, monologue,
sketch)
; poetry; the script for a radio
recast and paraphrased appropriately according to the purpose of the
working
independently’
report.
play, television drama or soap; a piece of description or a
Report writing will have an appropriate sequence and structure.
series of linked or contrasting descriptive literary sketches.
Diagrams, tables, charts and graphs may be included if appropriate to
the chosen form. Headings, appendices, bibliographies and a lettering or
numbering system to separate topics may also be used.
Any direct quotations from source material used in discursive writing must be clearly
acknowledged by the use of quotation marks. Specific details of sources must be given – eg dates
and writers of newspaper articles, specific web pages, titles and dates of publication of books; it
is not acceptable to say, for example, “various newspaper articles” or “environmental websites”
or “the internet”. Unacknowledged use of others’ material such as copying and pasting from the
internet or any other source, or re-wording or summarising information from another source and
passing it off as the candidate’s own, is plagiarism and this carries severe penalties.
Discursive Writing
 Step one: Decide on a topic (you could look at your
Creation and Production essay for inspiration)
 Step two: Conduct your research. I have asked you to do
this outwith class time. There will be no extra time to
do this in class.

You must make sure to reference your sources.
 Step three: Create a detailed plan for me to provide
feedback on.
 Step four: Write a rough draft that I will comment on.
 Step five: Writing the actual essay.
Selection of a Topic: What to Consider
1. Originality does help an essay to stand out. With this in mind, it is worth rejecting common topics such as euthanasia, legalisation of
drugs, drugs in sport, death penalty . . .

Apart from their lack of freshness, these topics are very wide and are likely to be covered in a superficial way in 1,000 words.
2. Select a topicFor
which
is of personal interest to you.
example:
“Britain should abandon nuclear power”
3. Broad topics cannot be covered in 1000 words. For example, the topic of “Global Warming” has multifarious aspects. Narrowing the
topic down to one aspect will allow that aspect to be covered in more depth and hence show complexity of argument. Subsets of this
topic could be: issues relating to power generation; carbon emissions; government actions. These topics alone are more than complex
enough to be successful.
4. Complex arguments do not lend themselves well to simple lines of thought (for/ against). A persuasive essay should present a depth of
opinion.
5. Selection of topics from other school subjects.

SQA regulations do not prohibit this. You need to consider the limited extent to which a piece of work from another subject will
meet the success criteria for a persuasive essay in the English Portfolio. It may well present facts/ opinions but it has to do it in the
correct way to achieve success as a persuasive. At best, you should see prior study of a topic as useful background knowledge.
6. When looking for topics, examining current news stories can be productive. There will be many current opinions about the subject and
it is also likely to be an issue which is of social relevance.
Persuasive Essay Style
The main requirements of the persuasive essay are
that it will:
 carry a clear sense of conviction or inducement;
tone may range from encouragement, through
cajoling to pressurising
 make effective use of a number of persuasive
techniques, such as manipulating
 information, claiming necessity/exclusivity,
flattering, employing technical jargon/rhetoric.
Essay Structure
 Introduction
 4-5 body paragraphs
 Conclusion
Persuasive Essay Plan
My topic:
What I will persuade my reader of:
What evidence I will use to do this:
What persuasive techniques I will
use:
Create a plan for your essay. Once this is
complete you can begin the rough draft.
Example:
My aim: To explore the issues relating to nuclear
waste. Overall, I will persuade the reader that
the nature and problems in relation to nuclear
waste make nuclear power unacceptable.
Plan – I need to find out how waste is disposed
of at present and the length to which it remains
harmful. I will manipulate this information to
claim necessity that we have to stop nuclear
dumping now. I expect to find that sources such
as the government, nuclear energy companies
claim that current practice is safe but I will find
disproof or counter- argument from those
opposed to nuclear energy. I intend to use the
first person plural to emphasise how this issue
affects everyone. I can use a rhetorical question
to ask how can we pass our toxic problem on to
future generations.
The Writing Process
Linkage/ signposting
Importantly, ...
In fact, ...
More importantly, ...
Furthermore, ...
Moreover, ...
Changing direction or creating a
comparison
Summarising
Finally, ...
Lastly, ...
In conclusion, ...
In summary, ...
Overall, ...
The three main points are ...
Rather, ...
Being more specific
In contrast, ...
Conversely, ...
In particular, ...
In comparison, ...
In relation to ...
Compared to ...
More specifically, ...
Another point to consider is ...
With respect to ...
Adding a similar point
In terms of ...
Similarly, ...
Likewise, ...
Giving an example
Again, ...
For example, ...
Also, ...
this can be illustrated by …,
…, namely, …
…, such as ...
Acknowledging something and
moving to a different point
Although ...
Even though ...
Despite ...
Notwithstanding ...
Following a line of reasoning
Therefore, ...
Subsequently, ...
Consequently, ...
Accordingly, ...
As a result, ...
As a consequence, ...
Effective Persuasion

Make it sound as if it is important.

Appeal to their feelings and emotions: make them feel sympathy, empathy or feel

guilty! If you are raising money for a charity make them feel guilty if they don’t donate.

Threaten them – tell the person what will happen if you don’t get what you are asking for. Make it
sound as though their doing what you want is crucial.

Ask rhetorical questions – questions that don’t actually require an answer, like ‘Do you want all the
children in school to suffer?’, or ‘Can you really live without this marvelous pen?’

Make use of three-part lists – three reasons, three benefits, three emotive words.

Give your audience strong statements of belief - then go on to justify and expand on your ideas.

Use strong adjectives (‘best’, ‘most important’, ‘stunning’) and verbs (‘will’, ‘need’, ‘must’, ‘should’,
‘could’). Use the first person (‘I’ / ‘We’) to make your writing strong and personal; use the second
person (‘You’) to involve your audience.

Show, where appropriate, that you can employ formal language. Organise your writing in paragraphs (or
use other appropriate structural devices) and link ideas by connectives from the page before
Ways to Make Impact
Dramatic impact
• emotive words
• forceful phrases contrasts
• play on the reader’s guilt
imagery
• exaggeration (hyperbole)
shock tactics
Logic
• quote a reliable source
statistics
• criticise the opposite
opinion
• make negative points
impersonal
Stylistic tricks
• clusters of three
• catchy phrases or slogans
figures of speech
• short sentences/
paragraphs rhetorical
questions repetition of
words/ phrases
Introductions
You should aim for this to be no more than one-tenth of the word
limit. A successful introduction will:
 Set out the topic clearly
 Give an indication of the current importance of the topic
 Set out a few facts which will contextualise the topic
 Give some indication of the main aspects to be studied
 At this level, there should be no need to make statements like
“This essay will . . .”. Also avoid any lengthy explorations of the
history of your topic
Conclusions
In your conclusion, include an overview of the main arguments
with perhaps one main idea from each paragraph. Don’t just list
them and state where your opinion lies. Conclude strongly by
evaluating the nature of the arguments and make a final statement
of conviction.
Bibliography
 BOOKS
Authors name(s) in italics, Title of Book, Publisher,
Date of publication WEBSITES
 Name of website with date of production (if known)
in brackets, name of article (if known), full URL with
[date accessed in square brackets] e.g.