1. GCSE English/English Literature Be informed: What your son/daughter should be doing to revise for their exams & what you can do to help.
2. GCSE English/English Literature What is in each exam and when are they? English Literature – Tuesday 25th May (1 ¾ hours) Section A – Short Stories Section B – Armitage, Duffy, Pre-1914 Poetry English Paper 1 – Tuesday 8th June (1 ¾ hours) Section A – Non-Fiction & Media Texts Section B – Writing to Argue, Persuade, Advise English Paper 2 – Thursday 10th June (1 ½ hours) Section A – Poetry From Different Cultures Section B – Writing to Inform, Explain, Describe
3. GCSE English/English Literature If you want to know more about anything mentioned this evening, please ask! Use the chat box in the bottom left of your screen… There are some other teachers online right now who will answer as many questions as they can. If your question is not answered please don’t worry. Just send your child’s English teacher an e-mail and they will answer any queries that you may have. I will put all of the departments e-mail addresses up at the end of the presentation.
4. GCSE English/English Literature What should your son/daughter be doing at the moment to get ready for their exams? They should be revising already…this will need to be planned – they are taking multiple subjects many of which have more than one exam. You can help them by discussing their revision plan – help them set one up on a calendar – on paper, online or on their mobile phone. For English/English Literature there is a lot of content – at this stage they should be revising the materials in the AQA Anthology as much as possible. Reading will not suffice though – encourage them to make posters, mind-maps, charts, flash cards etc – revision needs to be active!
5. GCSE English/English Literature What are we doing to in school to help get your son/daughter ready for their exams? At the moment all Year 11 classes are finishing off learning any poems that they have not covered. Every Friday they are having a Paper 1 Skills Lesson to revise for and prepare for this exam. Each week they receive a homework from this lesson in the form of a past exam question. You can help by asking about this and making sure that they are doing it.
6. GCSE English/English Literature What will we be offering in the near future? On Wednesday 7th April there will be an all day revision session for students who are on the C/D borderline. There will be 4 follow up sessions after the Easter Break Letters will be sent out at the end of this week. There will also be sessions after the Easter break for those students who could achieve a B grade. Again letters will go out to parents of these students. Similarly, we have identified the students we believe are capable of achieving an A* - there is to be a double session on Wednesday 31st March for these students and one follow-up session on . Again, a letter will be sent out.
7. GCSE English/English Literature 3 ways to revise short stories: Write a 200 word summary of each of the short stories that you have studied. Then reduce the summary to 100 words. Then reduce it to key words. Make a chart with the key themes along the top / stories down the side – fill in the chart with notes about how each story fits in with each theme. Each story uses “Extended Metaphors” – create a poster or mind-map that shows what each metaphor is and how they develop within each story. Include quotes to add detail.
8. GCSE English/English Literature 3 ways to revise poetry: Using the following themes: Death, Loss, Love, Relationships, Growing Up, Isolation – list all the poems that can fit under each one. Create comparison grids for sets of 4 poems – in each box write down how the poem compares with one of the others and write down 2 key quotes you could use to support your points. For each poem write down a key quote and then explain what we learn from the quote. (This is a good “flash-card” exercise)
9. GCSE English/English Literature 3 ways to revise non-fiction & media texts: Read as many media texts as possible including the backs of Cereal Boxes, biographies, news articles, magazines, posters, web pages. Read over your completed skills homework – where you didn’t get full marks – do the task again and re-submit it. Create a list of persuasive devices – write down what they do and find examples of them. (another good flash-card exercise)
10. GCSE English/English Literature 3 ways to revise poetry from different cultures: For each poem you have studied write down what you learn about the specific culture the poet is writing about. This is “language” so you must have an understanding of the techniques used – explore these by creating mind-maps or posters. Layout and structure are also important. For layout draw the shape of each poem – annotate this explaining what it represents' For structure – write down what the purpose of each stanza is? What unusual patterns can you see?
11. GCSE English/English Literature 3 ways to revise writing: Practice using devices and the senses in your descriptive writing by describing your own house at breakfast or dinner time. Use Sam Learning to practice your spelling, punctuation and grammar. Write a leaflet to your fellow students advising them about the benefits of revising – offer them practical ideas about how to do it.
14. GCSE English/English Literature Revising offline: AQA Anthology Posters Mind-mapping Charts Flash cards Practice essays Past papers Practice writing tasks CGP Revision Guides York Notes (for Poetry) Revising online: The VLE GCSE Bitesize English GCSE Bitesize English Lit Sam Learning Buzan Mind-maps universalteacher.org.uk englishbiz.co.uk s-cool.co.uk revisioncentre.co.uk
15. GCSE English/English Literature Revising online: www.chalfonts.org - click on the link for the VLE http://learning.chalfonts.bucks.sch.uk/ - or go straight to this address Or Google “Chalfonts Community College!
