Examination Skills and Revision (scroll down for Years 7, 8 and 9 details).

What am I being examined on?

Before you can revise, you'll need to know what you're being examined on.

Year 7:

• Reading: language analysis questions based on an unseen poem (PEE skills) - you should spend 60 minutes on this section. This will be done in class.
• Writing: a creative writing piece that will require you to use literary techniques and accurate/varied SPaG - you should spend 60 minutes on this section. This will be done during 'Exam Week'. A selection of practice writing tasks can be found below on the PowerPoint together with some stimulus / guidance for working from images for inspiration.

Year 8:

• Reading: an essay on an unseen poem in class before Exam Week (week c/o 12th May).
• Writing: a reflective/personal writing piece that will require you to use literary techniques and accurate/varied SPaG - you should spend 60 minutes on this section. 

VICTORIAN POETRY

Here is some guidance on 'Excelsior' by Henry Longfellow which is a poem with some similarities to the unseen Victorian poem for your class essay:

ROLE MODELS

This is a link to a Quizlet set to help you to revise relevant vocabulary for discussing role models: https://quizlet.com/1036705267/role-model-qualities-flash-cards/?i=jbic3&x=1jqt 

Here are some details on interesting role models  (Malala Yousafzai and Christy Brown) often studied in class:

How to succeed in the unseen poetry task:

• Highlight the key points of the question - this will help you stay focused on the question.
• Use the key words of the question and refer to them in each paragraph of your essay.
• Plan your answer so you deal with BOTH the structure and the language of the poem.
• Use the PEE paragraph structure - look to extend and develop this if possible.
• Remember to be specific. Do not start narrating the poem's content; the examiner knows this already! Your examiner wants to know if you can successfully link the techniques to the feelings and message of the poem.
• Use appropriate formal vocabulary including poetic terminology.
• Keep your quotations short and embed them in your sentences to keep your essay moving - don't let your quotations 'float' on their own.

How to succeed in the speech task:

• Come to senior debating and see some of the best students in the school delivering persuasive speeches.
• Read / watch some of the famous speeches of the past on youtube (revise your class coverage here and remind yourself of some of the key principles of rhetoric).
• Consider real world contexts in which you might deliver a speech - for a school assembly, for example, and then how you would approach writing such a speech.
• Think about subjects on which you could get passionate and deliver a rousing speech to practise...
  - perhaps promoting your favourite hobby / TV show / computer game;
  - persuading students of your opinion in a debate;
  - or even arguing for the abolition of homework and return of mobile phones!

Click the link below to access SPEECHES WHICH SHOOK THE WORLD, the full documentary:

https://elizabethcollege.planetestream.com/View.aspx?id=6569~4A~CMLGdUaP

TWO GREAT SPEECHES TO FINISH FROM THE US ELECTIONS:

One of the most complete and rousing speeches this century, delivered by Barack Obama on his succession to the presidency in 2008.

One of the most creative and original inauguration speeches, delivered by poet Amanda Gorman in 2021 for new president Joe Biden.