Here is a list of creative writing prompts I like for generating ideas/practice plans/responses in the final push (for AQA Eng Lang GCSE, but maybe useful for other boards too…) these are all ones which don’t use a photo and aim to make the mundane beautiful…

🧵 #ExamPrep 1. Write a story which starts: ‘The wolves are coming…’

(hint: it doesn’t have to be literal wolves!)

Right - here’s a massive list of GCSE English Language P2 writing tasks in case anyone is running out of ideas… (use your judgement - not all of these will be appropriate for every class)

🧵🧵🧵 1. ‘Social media platforms do more harm than good by perpetuating unrealistic standards of beauty and fostering unhealthy comparison among teenagers.’ Write a blog post for your school website to give your view on this topic.
…

My favourite vocabulary to teach (or consolidate) with Y11 in the run-up to exams...

1. At this point in the course, I like grouping words in clusters. The primary reason is that clusters of words can allow us to teach students how to make nuanced, deliberate choices... 2. ... one example:
possibly = it might be the case
arguably = there are reasons why this could be the case
clearly = it is obvious and observable that this is the case

Teaching all three of these together enables us to give students the option. We might model the same...

Great question - sorry I didn’t see this earlier! I’m sure you’ve already started but here’s an overview of WHAT I DO WITH RESULTS DATA 🧵 ⬇️

https://twitter.com/nattejones/status/1694479187988369845

1. Work out basics (4+, 5+, 7+) for Lit, Lang & combined
2. Break down for all significant groups (PP, EAL, male, female - whatever is relevant in your context)
3. Compare with previous years, and with national (JCQ have now published national grade distribution by subject)… 2/

RELUCTANT WRITERS: a BIG 🧵

📝🖊️✍️🖋️👩‍💻

I say reluctant, but really that describes a whole host of young people who struggle to put pen to paper for a diverse range of reasons.
1/ 2/ Writing is an act of commitment. Think about that. When you write something down you literally put your thoughts out there for everyone to see. It can be deemed right or wrong: clever or stupid: mature or childish…

Unseen poetry.

My approach for how to write about an unseen text is called: THREE things about THREE things, and you’ll find it explained in this blog here:

But there’s something else I do, too. 🧵 ⬇️funkypedagogy.com/unseen-poetry-… 2/ Before they can write anything, students need to deal with that initial encounter. It can feel quite daunting to be faced with a new text, especially as poems aren’t always written to be fully understood.

I’m sorting through things in my office at home, and have found an absolute gold mine of mad stuff from the first few years of my career…

I give you: ‘STUFF I HAVE LAMINATED - A MINI-SERIES’ 1. Teaching Chaucer.

Designed and laminated a full deck of 52 cards using Medieval social hierarchy (from ‘God’ to ‘Peasant’) and then let Y13 play poker for a whole double (TWO HOURS) in the hope that the kinaesthetic learners* would remember…

*LOL

Revision - a thread of things (in no particular order) which you might find helpful in the final push...

1/ Poetry anthology - here is a blog I wrote a while ago with some downloadable resources: funkypedagogy.com/poetry-2-knowl… 2/ I like using this grid: the most profound; the climax; the journey; the least profound; the calm; the lesson. 💭Which points in the text meet each description and why? This resource is on my website here and is explained better in this post: funkypedagogy.com/quotation-revi…

I felt extremely privileged to deliver the opening keynote for @FSDConferences yesterday - what a joy to do something in The North and spend the day with my lovely colleagues and other like-minded educators. Here are a few of the things I said:
⬇️⬇️⬇️ 1/ Writing can be defined in many ways:
NOUN: a thing we produce
VERB: a thing we do to get better
VERB: an artistic endeavour
…and there are loads more. I wonder how often we use it as a processing tool in its own right…

Cat Mann is phenomenal - really powerful talk on writing for pleasure - she has had us all writing today and it’s been such an effective way of demonstrating its meditative potential. @FSDConferences #FSD2023 Cat teaches sonnet writing to all her students - how often do we ask them to transform writing from one form to another? How often do we let them see things from all angles? Writers of sonnets will be better readers of sonnets… #FSD2023 @FSDConferences

Adult ADHD: a thread 🧵

Note - ADHD is a broad spectrum taking in a number of different tendencies, opportunities and challenges. This is just my experience - I am a 35 year old mother of two with combined type.

Common things which happen in my day… 1/ Put bread in toaster. Wander upstairs to get a bobble. Start rearranging earring storage. Hooking earrings into tiny holes feels like sorting and connecting ideas. Find, 14 mins later, that toast is cooked but cold. Take banana to eat in car. Again.

I had to think REALLY hard yesterday when Y7 got two similar concepts confused. I wasn’t immediately sure how to explain this clearly. Rather than launch into a half-baked re-teach, I set a 5 min writing task and took that time to work out examples in my modelling book. 1/

https://twitter.com/FunkyPedagogy/status/1598964805691269120

2/ Doing that intellectual prep is so so important - don’t ever feel compelled to give instruction if you aren’t 100% certain of the best way to proceed - crafting precise explanations and models is extremely difficult to do.

How do you tackle misconceptions? I have a section at the back of exercise books where we track misconceptions as they arise and I try to create examples which are rock solid (not always possible, but important to craft them as carefully as you can to avoid further issues…) 🧵 2/ Here are a few misconceptions from my Y7 class this term so far:
- Abstract nouns are something you can’t see.
With this one it’s important to make it clear that MOST abstract nouns follow that misconception but not all.

🧵 By far the most common type of question I get through DMs is about how to get staff on board when introducing new T&L strategies in school. Here is my best advice… 1/ Start external AND internal research to ensure that what you want to introduce is actually going to meet a need in your context. Is it rooted in the reality of your school? Has anyone tried this before and shared their experience? What can you find in academic literature?

Some last minute Y11 creative writing work from yesterday 🧵
1. Looking at writing simple but effective descriptions of the mundane as a way to DROP in to whatever narrative it is - this one starts with a reaction, then describes the thing being reacted to (a car) and a sound. 2. But I then show students how this could be mimicked using a different set of verbs and a different noun selection… see the same structure but a different car and completely different meaning…

1/ We have done enormous amounts of work on Literacy this year at @TrinityAcademyC and we are starting to see some very encouraging signs that our approach is working. Sharing everything here in the spirit of collaboration and general good cheer... 🧵🧵🧵 2/ Our approach broadly falls into two areas - curricular and extra-curricular reading.

Curricular Reading:

We are currently trialling the use of booklets as a way to immerse students in as much rich text as possible across the curriculum.

I haven’t had a push on this for a while. With the help of lots of you lovely English teachers and some fancy website plug-ins, I’ve collated a list of diverse texts for KS3.

CAN YOU HELP make this resource even better? Keep reading thread 🧵🧵🧵

funkypedagogy.com/the-reading-li… /2
If you’ve read something great recently which you think would work for KS3, please take a moment to fill in the simple form on my website, then let me do the rest!

We need EVERYTHING:
- prose, poetry, drama
- fiction, non-fiction
- diverse voices & perspectives

Mini-white-boards in the Secondary English classroom: a thread 🧵

I use them a LOT. Mostly, they make for really easy and effective AFL.

Note - it is an expectation at our school that students have their own white board pen. MWBs are provided in each classroom.
👇👇👇 1. Regular retrieval tasks.

Questions on the board, students write answers on MWBs and after a few minutes I say “boards up in 3, 2, 1”

I get an instant understanding of who knows the content, who doesn’t, who is engaging and who is not. No opt-out 👌

Whole Class Feedback 🧵

1/ I love WCF. Not just because it has transformed my work balance (traditional book marking in English is a different class of madness).
I love it because it facilitates greater understanding of where my students are, which makes me a better teacher. 2/ My process is: READ all work; make notes of common errors as I go; make notes of individual student need which isn’t generic; make notes of things I clearly haven’t taught very well first time around…

Priorities and short cuts - a thread:
People regularly ask how I ‘do it’ because I give off the impression that I do a lot. I don’t. I’m just good at prioritising and have learned some good habits. My priorities are: my kids, my marriage, my work. That means that, any task which is NOT about one of those three things is something I have stopped doing. I have found ways to streamline and outsource, but also to work smarter.

*NQTs* take care of your health!

1/ Schools are veritable Petri dishes. You WILL get a stinking cold at some point in the first term - it’s standard. You DO NOT, however, have to lose your voice. This will only happen if you don’t take care of yourself... 2/ You don’t need to shout to be heard. The only time you need to shout is if you need to get students’ attention quickly because something is dangerous. If you’re shouting because of poor behaviour, you’ve already lost the battle...