"Edusites English has been a game-changer for my classroom, providing expertly crafted resources that make teaching complex texts straightforward and enjoyable." "The revision guides and practice papers have given my students the confidence they need to excel in their exams, with noticeable improvements in their results." "Edusites English saves me so much time with its comprehensive lesson plans and study guides, allowing me to focus on what matters most—teaching and supporting my students." "The diverse range of materials, from text analysis to creative writing resources, keeps my students engaged and inspired in their English studies."
Back in the 1990s I read a play called ‘The Beauty Queen of Leenane’ by Martin McDonagh, and decided that I would like to be a playwright. So when the opportunity arose to do a playwriting unit, when I was an undergrad, I grabbed the chance with my ink stained hands. Although I enjoyed it immensely, the one thing I really took away from it was: reading a play is fun, writing a play is hard.
The only thing I wrote that was half decent was when we did ‘Car Tales’. The whole class was given the task of writing a play set in a car, and we could only have two characters, and they had to stay in or around the car. We then performed these pieces, with the audience sat in the back seat, and they moved around from car to car to see the whole class’ work.
There is a lot of research into how placing restrictions upon a creative process can actually result in more creativity (Gruber, Lubart and many others), and these car tales were on my mind as I was thinking about how I could adapt it to suit the creative writing section of the Language GCSE.
Register now for our subject updates and FREE instant access to this article.
Already registered? Login below to continue reading this article.
Precise responses Grainne Hallahan AQA Paper 1 English Language Memorising Quotes with Amy Forrester GCSE English Literature Slices Taxi Tales from @heymrshallahan
Edusites Slices show you how to enable students to consider how to ‘use’ quotations in their exam responses. However, the quotations need to be placed in long term memory to be available during the exam. What are some of the best ways of helping students to do this?
Back in 2015, when the first exams of the new spec rolled around, I knew the importance of quotations - it was a closed book exam after all. However, over time, I began to realise that the key wasn’t just in the retention of quotations, but in the knowledge of what to say about them.
So often students don’t speak up and let us know when they don’t understand a piece of vocabulary. Why? Embarrassment. Awkwardness. Indifference. But there are those other times, where there is a word in a sentence that they do not understand the meaning of, but they don’t speak up because they don’t realise themselves.
Videos and images used in the classroom can be huge distractions if used ineffectively. Chris Curtis has spoken about this very problem at the recent Team English National Conference and Rugby ResearchEd, and written about this very problem in his excellent blog here (http://learningfrommymistakesenglish.blogspot.com).
Catching up with your reading? Some expert subject based strategies for you to delve into.
