| | The use of “epitome” is a sophisticated without being overly complicated |
The phrase “a shadow if its former glory” uses vocabulary successfully to develop the description | ||
| The image of the lively house is contrasted with the word ‘dead’ to add emphasis | |
The focus on time adverbials emphasise the change e.g. “now”, “no longer” and “once” |
Use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation |
| | The separation of the clauses using a semi-colon in this long sentence is effective as the second phrase directly builds on the first |
Below is an example of a full-mark Level 4 model story:
|
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Sam is a graduate in English Language and Literature, specialising in journalism and the history and varieties of English. Before teaching, Sam had a career in tourism in South Africa and Europe. After training to become a teacher, Sam taught English Language and Literature and Communication and Culture in three outstanding secondary schools across England. Her teaching experience began in nursery schools, where she achieved a qualification in Early Years Foundation education. Sam went on to train in the SEN department of a secondary school, working closely with visually impaired students. From there, she went on to manage KS3 and GCSE English language and literature, as well as leading the Sixth Form curriculum. During this time, Sam trained as an examiner in AQA and iGCSE and has marked GCSE English examinations across a range of specifications. She went on to tutor Business English, English as a Second Language and international GCSE English to students around the world, as well as tutoring A level, GCSE and KS3 students for educational provisions in England. Sam freelances as a ghostwriter on novels, business articles and reports, academic resources and non-fiction books.
Gcse-grade revision from beyond, powered by twinkl, gcse creative writing tips.
GCSE creative writing is our favourite aspect of KS4 English here at Beyond. While it may be our favourite, we understand that it can be daunting for some students. To ensure everyone feels comfortable when expressing themselves, we’ve collated three top GCSE creative writing tips that are sure to coax out your inner author!
Your creative writing will be more engaging and sophisticated if you ‘show, not tell’.
But how do you do this?
Describe the action using a vivid verb to make it interesting and give more information.
e.g. The crowd screamed Beyoncé’s name.
This adds extra information in a creative way. It tells us what the crowd was like and how they were feeling.
Your turn: think of as many as you can…
Now, add some adventurous adverbs to add further detail and information.
e.g. Deafeningly, the crowd screamed Beyoncé’s name.
This adds extra information, building a clearer picture for the reader in just one word!
Now, add some ambitious adjectives to add further detail and information.
e.g. Deafeningly, the large, boisterous crowd screamed Beyoncé’s name.
This builds upon the image, adding extra information to help the reader imagine what is happening.
Now it’s time to put these GCSE creative writing tips to use! Below is a Beyond resource that you might find helpful!
Everything else you might need can be found in our GCSE creative writing category . You can find our other GCSE English blogs here and don’t forget to subscribe to Beyond for access to thousands of secondary teaching resources. You can sign up for a free account here and take a look around at our free resources before you subscribe too.
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Here are our top tips for acing any creative writing exam!
1. HAVE A BANK OF STORY PLOT LINES READY
One of our top tips for any creative writing exam, is to have a bank of easily adapted plot ideas up your sleeve. Time is precious in an exam and you need to spend minimal time thinking, leaving you with the maximum amount of time to crack on with your writing!
2. DON'T MAKE YOUR PLOT LINES COMPLICATED
Don’t make your plot too complicated- only one thing needs to happen- just DESCRIBE ONE TEN MINUTE MOMENT. If your story was turned into a film, it would be a 10 minute scene, not a 2 hour film! Keep it simple!
3. DESCRIBE DON'T EXPLAIN
This point carries on from point 2. When you have a complicated plot then you end up explaining and summarising. What any teacher or examiner wants to see in a story is description. One moment described very slowly, in lots of detail.
4. DON'T BE AFRAID TO 'MAGPIE' IDEAS
'Magpieing' is a phrase that teachers use to describe using other people's ideas for story writing. Authors do it all the time! Nothing needs to be original! If you hear a great phrase in a book that you are reading, use it in a story!
5. SHOW DON'T TELL
'Show don't tell' is phrase that teachers use all the time, when teaching creative writing. It means, don't TELL me that the character is nervous; SHOW me that they are nervous by describing their sweaty palms and butterflies flutterin g in their tummy.
6. PAINT A PICTURE IN THE READER'S MIND
If you write a simple sentence such as, 'The man walked down the road', you will conjure up different images in different reader's minds! Is it a tall man or a short man? Is he walking angrily or happily? Add description to paint the same picture in the reader's mind, as you have in your own!
7. USE POWERFUL VERBS
The difference between an ok story and a great story, usually comes down to verb choices. Every sentence must contain a verb, so why not use powerful verb choices! For example, 'said' is a boring verb. Swap it for a verb such as 'mumbled' or 'screeched' to add more description!
8. PERSONIFICATION
Personification is a writing technique, where an object is described like a person. The effect is that it tells you the mood of the story- how the characters are feeling. In a happy story, the sun might be smiling but if the mood of the story is angry, the sun might be scowling!
9. SIMILES AND METAPHORS
Similes and metaphors are both types of comparisons. We use these comparisons to exaggerate a quality. Similes use the word LIKE or AS- ' He ran as fast as a racing car' or 'He zoomed like a racing car'. A metaphor does not contain like or as- 'He was a racing car zooming.'
10. ALLITERATION
Alliteration is when words near or next to each other start with the same sound. An alliterative phrase like, 'flickering, firey flames' is effective because the repetition of the F sound emphasises the sound of the fire. This is a great way to add marks in an exam!
11. ONOMATOPOEIA
We always want to describe using our senses, and onomatopoeic words describe sounds. Using sounds as verbs in a sentence, for example, BANGING, CRASHED, RUSTLING, SCREECHED, is a great way to add extra marks in a creative writing exam.
12. AVOID REPETITION
Avoid repetition! Make sure that you vary the first word in every sentence- sometimes start with a verb, sometimes start with a preposition, sometimes sart with an adverb... Do NOT always start with He/ She/ The! Also, vary your sentence length- some short, some medium, some long.
13. GREAT WAYS TO START A STORY
Think carefully about the first sentence in your story, and more importantly the first WORD! Do not start with ‘Once upon a time’ or ‘One day’. Starting with a subordinating conjunction like ‘As’ or ‘While’, is a great way to open a story as you are instantly giving the reader additional information to paint a picture of the scene in their minds.
14. PREPOSITIONS
Use prepositions in your sto ry- particularly at the start of sentences. Prepositions are words that tell us WHEN or WHERE. Prepositions that show where, are particularly good when describing a setting. It allows you to be precise and to paint a picture in the reader's mind.
15. AVOID DIRECT SPEECH
Do not overuse direct speech- it tends to explain rather than describe. Direct speech can be a great way to start a story and it is effective in establishing relationships between the characters- but use it no more than twice. You will get a mark for correct punctuation but don’t waste dozens of lines on one mark!
16. USE THE ACRONYM MAPSO
Use the acronym MAPSO as a checklist to ensure that you have used a variety of techniques in your story. There are lots of acronyms out there, but I like MAPSO the best- it’s short, easy to remember and covers the 5 most important techniques- Metaphor, Alliteration, Personification, Simile, Onomatopoeia.
17. DESCRIBE ACTIONS NOT FEELINGS
Avoid using these phrases in a story- they FELT, they THOUGHT, they WONDERED, they REALISED, they DECIDED… all of these phrases TELL the reader and what we want to do is SHOW. The reader is able to work out for themselves what the character is thinking and feeling from the description of their ACTIONS.
18. WHO/ WHERE/ WHEN/ WHAT/ WHY/ HOW
By the end of the first paragraph, make sure that the reader has an idea of WHO your character is, WHERE they are, WHEN it is (time of day/ season), WHAT they are doing when the story begins, HOW they are doing it (the mood) and WHY (it does not matter what order you put this information in).
19. PLANNING
The key thing is to keep your plan short- spend no more than 2 minutes- it doesn’t matter if your plan is messy and you shouldn’t write in full sentences. A five part plan is ideal (just a few words for each section) as 5 paragraphs is about the right length for a story written in a half hour exam.
20. CHECK SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION
Always leave yourself a few minutes at the end of the exam to check for silly mistakes!
Posted on August, 2022
Having plenty of ideas for creative writing is one thing, but nailing down the right structure can be a bit more challenging.
There are several steps for children to think about before they begin writing, and that includes creating a structure or plan for how their story will flow.
Creative writing is all about grabbing the reader’s attention immediately, so children in their GCSE years need to understand the importance of structure when writing, in order to organise their ideas and make sure their work reads cohesively.
In this post, we will go through everything your child needs to know from paragraphing, to creating a satisfying ending, providing examples along the way to demonstrate the best way to structure their creative writing.
There are several types of creative writing questions that could come up on the GCSE reading and writing exam. There will be the option to either write creatively based on an image, or a made-up scenario.
Having a solid structure for longer creative writing questions and exercises helps to ensure your child is prepared.
By using a structure that helps to organise your child’s ideas, it helps their writing to flow. It also allows your child to become more confident in their creative writing process.
Planning is more important than you might think, as mark schemes from most exam boards include ‘well-controlled paragraphs’ or something very similar within the top band of criteria for creative writing.
Therefore, children should practise planning out creative writing structures well before their writing exam. Planning gives them time to get into the habit of always providing themselves with a simple, but focused idea of what they are going to write.
Introduction.
Understanding the fundamental structure of a story is crucial for crafting engaging narratives. Beyond basic sequences, story archetypes provide a deeper framework. Christopher Booker , a renowned scholar, identified seven main story archetypes.
Each archetype outlines a distinctive journey and the challenges faced by characters.
This archetype portrays an underdog’s quest to conquer a formidable evil. Examples include the epic tales of Harry Potter battling Lord Voldemort, the classic struggle in Jurassic Park, and the timeless narrative of Jack and the Beanstalk.
Embarking from a starting point of poverty or despair, characters rise to newfound wealth and success. Witness this transformation in stories like Slumdog Millionaire, The Pursuit of Happyness, and The Wolf of Wall Street.
A hero’s journey to discover something, overcoming trials and tribulations along the way. Iconic examples include the Fellowship of the Ring’s quest in The Lord of the Rings, Marlin’s journey to find Nemo, and the epic adventures of Odysseus in The Odyssey.
Protagonists venture into unknown territories, facing adversity before returning home transformed. Dive into this archetype with examples like the curious escapades in Spirited Away, Bilbo Baggins’ journey in The Hobbit, and the enchanting Chronicles of Narnia.
Contrary to our typical perception of humour, this archetype involves destined lovers kept apart by conflicting forces. Delight in the comedic twists of relationships in classics such as 10 Things I Hate About You, When Harry Met Sally, and Notting Hill.
Protagonists with major flaws or errors leading to their inevitable downfall. Witness the unraveling of characters in tragedies like The Great Gatsby, Requiem for a Dream, and the Shakespearean masterpiece Othello.
Characters succumb to darkness but redeem themselves throughout the narrative. Experience the transformative journeys in stories like Atonement, American History X, and the animated Beauty and the Beast.
Beyond literature, these archetypes seamlessly apply to filmmaking and photography. A well-crafted photograph or film can mirror the same narrative arcs, captivating viewers on a visual adventure akin to storytelling. Explore these archetypes to infuse depth and resonance into your creative endeavors.
First of all, paragraphing is central to creative writing as this is what keeps the structure solid.
In order to stick to a creative writing structure, children must know exactly when to end and start a new paragraph, and how much information each paragraph should contain.
For example, introducing the main character, diving into the action of the story, and providing 10 descriptive sentences of the weather and location, could be separated and spread throughout for impact.
Structuring a creative writing piece also involves creating an appropriate timeline of events. Then, you must map out exactly where the story will go from start to finish. This is assuming the writing piece is in sequential order.
Occasionally, there may be a question that requires a non-sequential order.
The Ultimate Creative Writing Workout!
This list below details every section in a creative writing piece and should look something like this:
With this structure, it is important to bear in mind that for the AQA GCSE English Language paper 1 reading and creative writing exam.
You can also use Freitag’s pyramid or a story mountain to help you understand the basic structure of a story:
Children will be expected to spend about 50 minutes on the creative writing section. It’s therefore vital to get them into the habit of planning their writing first. As with anything, practice makes perfect.
If you want to find out more about GCSE English Language papers 1 and 2, check out our blog .
We will dive deeper into the creative writing structure further on in this post, but first, let us go through the importance of paragraphing, and how TipTop paragraphs can help to improve children’s writing.
Before children begin to plan out the structure of their stories, it’s essential that they know the importance of paragraphing correctly first.
At this stage of learning, your child should be comfortable in knowing what a paragraph is, and understand that they help with the layout of their stories throughout the whole writing process.
Paragraphs essentially help to organise ideas into dedicated sections of writing based on your child’s ideas. For example, having a paragraph for an introduction, then another paragraph introducing the main character.
This means your child’s writing will be in a logical order and will direct the reader further on into the writing.
To avoid your child straying from their creative writing structure and overloading paragraphs with too much information, there is a simple way to remind them of when they need to start a new paragraph.
Using the TiPToP acronym is such an easy way for you to encourage your child to think about when they need to change paragraphs, as it stands for:
When moving to a different time or location, bringing in a new idea or character, or even introducing a piece of action or dialogue, your child’s writing should be moving on to new paragraphs.
During creative writing practice, your child can ask themselves a series of questions to work out whether they need to move onto a new paragraph to keep their story flowing and reach that top band of criteria.
Providing opportunities to practise creative writing will help your child to get into the habit of asking themselves these questions as they write, meaning they will stick to the plan they have created beforehand.
Now it’s time to get into the all-important creative writing structure.
Producing a creative writing structure should be a simple process for your child, as it just involves organising the different sections of their writing into a logical order.
First, we need to start at the beginning, by creating an engaging opening for any piece of writing that will grab the reader’s attention. You might also be interested to check out this blog on story structure that I found in my research.
This leads us nicely onto step 1…
There are several ways to engage the reader in the opening of a story, but there needs to be a specific hook within the first paragraph to ensure the reader continues.
This hook could be the introduction of a word that the reader isn’t familiar with, or an imaginary setting that they don’t recognise at all, leaving them questioning ‘What does this all mean?’
It may be that your child opens their story by introducing a character with a description of their appearance, using a piece of dialogue to create a sense of mystery, or simply describing the surroundings to set the tone. This ‘hook’ is crucial as it sets the pace for the rest of the writing and if done properly, will make the reader feel invested in the story.
Read more about hooks in essays .
If your child needs to work more on description, I definitely recommend utilising the Descriptosaurus :
Additionally, it’s important to include a piece of information or specific object within the opening of the creative writing, as this provides something to link back to at the end, tying the whole storyline together neatly.
Providing a complication gets the storyline rolling after introducing a bit of mystery and suspense in the opening.
Treat this complication like a snowball that starts small, but gradually grows into something bigger and bigger as the storyline unfolds.
This complication could be that a secret has been told, and now the main character needs to try and stop it from spreading. Alternatively, you could introduce a love interest that catches the attention of your main character.
In this section, there should be a hint towards a future challenge or a problem to overcome (which will be fleshed out in the development and climax sections) to make the reader slightly aware of what’s to come.
The development seamlessly extends from the previous section, providing additional information on the introduced complication.
During this phase, your child should consider the gradual build-up to the writing piece’s climax. For instance, a secret shared in the compilation stage now spreads beyond one person, heightening the challenge of containment.
Here, your child should concentrate on instilling suspense and escalating tension in their creative writing, engaging the reader as they approach the climax.
The climax is the section that the whole story should be built around.
Before creating a structure like this one, your child should have an idea in mind that the story will be based on. Usually this is some sort of shocking, emotion-provoking event.
This may be love, loss, battle, death, a mystery, a crime, or several other events. The climax needs to be the pivotal point; the most exciting part of the story.
Your child may choose to have something go drastically wrong for their main character. They must regardless, need to come up with a way of working this problem into their turning point and resolution. The should think carefully about this will allow the story to be resolved and come to a close.
After the climax, the story’s turning point emerges, crucial for maintaining reader interest.
During this post-climax phase, address and resolve issues, acknowledging that not every resolution leads to a happy ending.
Turning points need not be confined to the story’s conclusion; they can occur at various junctures, signifying significant narrative shifts.
Even in shorter pieces, introducing turning points early on can captivate the reader.
Creative writing allows for individual storytelling, and effective turning points may differ between your child and you.
Maintain suspense in this section, avoiding premature revelation of the ending despite the climax’s conclusion.
The resolution should highlight the change in the story, so the tone must be slightly different.
At this stage, the problem resolves (happily or unhappily) and the character/s learns lessons. The close of the story must highlight this.
The writer should also not rush the resolution or end of the story.
It needs to be believable for the reader right until the very end. The writer should allow us to feel what the protagonist is feeling.
This creates emotion and allows your reader to feel fully involved.
Remember the piece of information or specific object that was included in the story’s opening?
Well this is the time to bring that back, and tie all of those loose ends together. You want to leave the reader with something to think about. You can even ask questions as this shows they have invested in the story.
To enhance your children’s GCSE creative writing skills, allocate time for practice.
Plan a structure for creative writing to guide children in organising their thoughts and managing time during the GCSE exam.
Apply this structure to various exam questions, such as short stories or describing events.
Focus each creative piece on a climactic event, building anticipation in the beginning and resolving it at the end.
Consider a tutor for GCSE preparation to help children focus on specific areas.
Redbridge Tuition offers experienced tutors for learning from KS2 to GCSE, providing necessary resources for your child’s success.
Get in touch to find out how our tutors could help.
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Updated: Aug 5, 2021
How to revise for Creative Writing in GCSE English Language.
With the GCSE language paper coming up, the creative writing element is one that can easily be overlooked. Perhaps you wonder whether you can really learn how to do well in this part of the section or if it is simply down to talent. However, the key to excellent creative writing exam answers is imagination – using your creativity to come up with things to write.
A struggle that students I teach often find with creative questions is that the prompts are typically broad, and image prompts can be sparse with little detail. Sometimes they might spark inspiration, but sometimes you might be looking at them in despair, wondering what on earth you could write about.
Now, one huge advantage of these open-ended questions is that they allow you to have the prerogative to take the answer where you want it to go; there is no way for them to catch you out for not knowing any information. The broad question or image should not be restrictive: for instance, in a description you do not have to stick exactly to describing what you see; using poetic licence to imagine what might be there is strongly encouraged.
A general piece of advice that I give to my students is to plan the structure of your answer. When you hear “creative writing”, you may not think that a plan would be necessary. However, in the mark schemes of all exam boards, the phrase “well controlled paragraphs”, and “well-structured answer” almost always features in the top band. Of course, you do not need to plan out all your similes and metaphors, but setting yourself out a basic structure of what to say in each paragraph will help it to read more clearly.
A key way to make it clear to the examiner that you know what you are doing is through consistency . Ensure that you have the same tone throughout your creative piece, and that your narrative style and tense remains the same. This way, you can show to the examiner that your narrative choices have been deliberate, and based on the purpose and audience of the brief you have been given.
Each GCSE syllabus has a different way of assessing for the creative writing element. Find your exam board below for some tips on how to tackle the specific exam questions you will be presented with.
For the AQA creative writing section in particular, you will be asked to write either a description based on an image, or a short story. For the image description, as well as having a good standard of language, your marks will lie within your ability to use a wide range of language techniques: think metaphors, similes, sensory language, imagery, alliteration etc.
A description of this kind requires you to be very imaginative. If you are stuck on where to begin, look at the image and think about what mood you could extract from it. Does it look spooky? Does it look dangerous? Once you have identified this, try to reflect this mood in the tone of your description.
Some advice that was offered in the November 2017 examiners' report was to ensure that your writing is not too formulaic. For instance, try not to write “I can see… I can smell…” just to ensure you are filling in sensory language: this applies to both the short story and the description. This is perhaps the hardest element of the AQA creative language question: fulfilling all the criteria while making it flow and work as a creative piece.
My advice would be to read over your work after you have finished and try to imagine you are just reading this for fun, outside of the exam context. If it works as a piece of creative writing rather than just as an exam answer, you should be on the right track.
The imaginative writing section of Edexcel requires you to take on a broad prompt, such as the 2017 question “write about a secret” with the aid of an image provided.
For this question, the mark scheme is fairly open as to the approaches you can take. It allows writing in the form of a description, an anecdote, a speech, or a narrative. The image is also only there to provide inspiration – you are not required to reference it directly in your answer if you do not wish to.
A good revision strategy for this question would be to pick a couple of forms that you want to focus on, and practice them before the exam. Then you could pick the form most suited to the question you chose in the exam, and you will be an expert in writing for this form: something that will immediately boost your marks.
A large part of fitting in with the mark scheme is “using appropriate techniques for creative writing”. This may include using a wide vocabulary, imagery, alliteration, similes and metaphors in order to describe and explain.
For the OCR specification, the focus is on writing for purpose and audience . This is a large part of what you are being tested on, so you must always ensure that you identify these two things before you start writing.
In 2017, the options were to write a blog post describing how you successfully overcame a challenging situation, and to write a letter to an employer applying for a job you have always wanted. These two tasks clearly have significantly different purposes and audiences. A blog post would be for the general population, and the tone will need to be readable and informal, whereas the letter to the employer will need to be formal and tailored to the individual reader.
The mark scheme for these questions require you to cover the following areas: tone, style, register, and organisation. The first three in this list will need you to adapt for the purpose and audience. While going over past paper questions, if you’re unsure on how you should write, look up examples of that form online. For instance, looking for a letter to an employer online should give you some good examples, as would looking up examples of newsletter entries or blog posts.
My best piece of advice for OCR’s questions is to practise. Ask a parent or friend to come up with some different forms and audiences for you to write in, and practise adapting your tone, style and register for the different audiences.
OCR have also provided some helpful resources for creative writing (GCSE English Language 9-1 syllabus) .
Blog Post Crafted by Genevieve
Genevieve is currently working towards her bachelors in English Literature at the University of Warwick .
Born in Coventry, she now tutors English SATs and GCSE in her free time, as well as working for the university as an outreach ambassador in local schools.
She also enjoys playing piano and flute, and often performs as a backing singer at local gigs.
Whenever she has a moment to spare, you might find her driving to the beach or catching up on her reading!
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GCSE English: 3 tips to improve creative writing
Picture the scene: a published author sits down at a desk and knocks out a fully formed story with no prior planning. In 45 minutes. By hand.
It has all the components that make a story a story: interesting characterisation, rich and detailed description, a plausible plot.
It just wouldn’t happen. So why is it that we expect this of pupils?
At secondary school, the lower year groups have the luxury of immersing themselves in rich examples and then time to craft their narratives, honing their characterisation and playing with structure.
In an ideal world, we would extend this to GCSE - but with 25 per cent of the final grade involving unseen story-writing or descriptive tasks, how can we best prepare students for success? Here are my favourite strategies:
Sending students into an assessment or exam in which they have no idea what they’re going to be faced with is counterproductive. As teachers, we know the structures required for success. In creative writing, the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful short story is a sense of a “complete” story - one that follows Freytag’s pyramid .
This is a good starting point for preparing students, as it lends itself to sections that can be included in a checklist or a structure strip. We can’t say what the topic or title of this story will be, but we can give students the bones of the story.
I like to ensure that students know that they need to write within a set of parameters: they need to describe a snapshot of a moment in time; there needs to be detailed description, a finite amount of characters and sparse dialogue (I suggest no more than three lines in the entire piece).
Writing to these “rules” is freeing, as it reduces the realm of possibilities and allows students to focus on the task at hand.
JK Rowling is on the record as saying that Harry Potter “just sort of strolled into my head…fully formed”. This is not likely to be the case for students in the midst of an exam.
Authentic, sympathetic characterisation is difficult: we may identify character archetypes through the study of stories, but the creation of these under pressure, from scratch, is a big ask. We have to question what, realistically, the average 15- or 16-year-old can come up with.
Think of it like this: over their time at school, students have read, been taught or seen literally hundreds of stories, all with rich and varying characters whom they could incorporate into a story of their own.
By including or referring to a character from wider literature, they are showing the examiner that they can manipulate characters and events to create something new.
I have seen wonderful stories in which Jennet Humfrye from The Woman in Black has been transported to a modern-day black cab, her Gothic demeanour pervading the atmosphere around her, or a paranoid Macbeth has been seen, ranting to himself in an empty bus station.
Another powerful way to stimulate story-writing is to get pupils writing from moving image. I have found that short clips in which there is no speech can often be the most powerful.
In the past, I have used the music video for City Girl from the Lost in Translation soundtrack. The rich visuals of the Tokyo cityscape and the relative ambiguity of the female protagonist mean there is a lot to write about.
In a similar vein, a clip from 28 Days Later , in which the male protagonist finds himself alone in a seemingly abandoned London, provides much food for thought. The repetition of a single word - “Hello” - provides a recurring motif for pupils to structure their words around.
Another powerful clip is taken from the TV series Lost and starts with the snapping open of a human eye - a fascinating place to start and play with structure for students of all writing abilities.
Whichever you use, you’ll find that students respond positively to the movie providing them with ideas, and allowing their focus to be on using their writing skills.
Laura May Rowlands is head of English in a secondary school in Hampshire
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A whopping 25% of GCSE English Language marks are assigned to creative writing – such as a story or description in 45 minutes. Always a tall order as it needs to have all the right ingredients to WOW the examiner.
For starters, the question usually reads like this:
You have been invited to take part in a creative writing competition judged by people your own age. Write a description of this picture.
With just 45 minutes allocated time, you need to get your skates on fast.
Of course, this is just the start to becoming a fabulous creative writer. Something our experienced English teachers here at 121 Home Tutors always advise is to read. As many different genres as you can.
Check out the BBC Sounds app too. There’s all sorts of novels, short stories and podcasts to listen to.
Ready to transform your writing capabilities? Please get in touch with our tutor team. With a fantastic mix of tutors local to Manchester and Cheshire, or tutors available online, we can help you not only achieve your target grades , but smash them.
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Develop KS3-4 English students' confidence and enjoyment in writing for pleasure with a selection of inspiring classroom resources and activities.
One of the great pleasures – and challenges – of teaching English is helping students to develop their own 'voice' and style as writers of short stories. Assessing their creative, imaginative, descriptive and narrative writing skills at GCSE is a different matter, and can prove to be less rewarding for students, as writing on demand can test even the most confident of writers. The rich collection of creative writing resources on Teachit, generously shared by our fantastic English teacher contributors, are a testament to the creativity, resourcefulness and ingenuity of English teachers as we seek to tease out the best in students' writing. Here is a selection of popular resources for writing classes and lessons, as well as some of our newly published creative and narrative writing resources:
Story building grids is a flexible writing prompt resource to help students with the first steps of planning the writing process, with suggestions for different literary devices to include (metaphors, similes, alliteration, personification, dialogue, point of view etc.).
Another writing prompt resource, Beth Kemp's Imaginative writing: creating a scene , carefully walks them through the whole planning and writing process. Like a screenplay writer, students learn how to zoom in on key scenes to create pace, tension and atmosphere, while considering point of view and their main characters' traits. This resource also focuses on the importance of re-writing and editing their piece of writing. Fran Nantongwe's delightful and hugely popular The quest for a cure is perfect for younger students and will take your class through a range of different genres and written forms over several English lessons, and also includes some non-fiction tasks.
Ditch the adjective is a great new resource by contributor Sally-Ann Griffin, which include a range of writing tips to guide students through the process of making better word choices and focuses on the importance of re-writing.
English teacher Helen Down's Turning pictures into word banks helps students to select really engaging words to use. Writing pyramids is a flexible resource for students to refer to again and again to support their writing experiments.
For inspiration for creative writing activities, try Super story starters or Engage your sleeping author! which offers students a range of examples of creative writing and opening sentences which help them to explore different forms (diary, epistolary, historical). With imaginative writing, it's important to inspire students. Stephen Mitchell's Exploring beginnings and Attention-grabbing story starters both encourage students to consider the effect of different story openings. For a series of lessons, try the thoughtful Memory-inspired creative writing . And if you are looking for more imaginative writing, creative writing or narrative writing resources, try our Writing fiction or Writing techniques collection for hundreds of classroom resources for English students and teachers on the following:
For non-fiction and creative non-fiction writing, try our Writing non-fiction texts collection.
This article was first published as an Editor's pick newsletter in January 2022.
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Unit 2 Reading and Writing: Description, Narration and Exposition gives two prompts to choose between, for an account and an essay perhaps, and Unit 3: Reading and Writing: Argumentation, Persuasion and Instructional sets up a letter, or similar. Jump ahead to WJEC Eduqas non-fiction writing prompts from past GCSE papers.
Retold Fable. Prompt: Modernize a classic fable or story, such as the Boy Who Cried Wolf, in a contemporary setting. Potential Story Directions: The story could be set in a modern city, exploring current social issues. It might be told from a different perspective, offering a fresh take on the moral of the story.
II. Desire. [6] Small child really wants cake but has been forbidden from taking it down from the shelf. Start this story with the child lusting after the cake, which you should describe - baking, decorating etc - in delicious detail. [ read a short, very funny version of this here]
READ MORE: > 10+ GCSE creative writing ideas, prompts and plot lines Mastering Narrative Structure. A good story has a clear structure - a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning should hook the reader, the middle should build the story, and the end should provide a satisfying conclusion.
2 Grade 9 Creative Writing Examples. I recently asked my year 11s to pen a piece of description and/or narrative writing for their mini assessment. I gave them the following prompts: Your school wants you to contribute to a collection of creative writing. EITHER: Write a short story as suggested by this picture:
Writing skills - creative and narrative writing. Part of English Writing skills. Imaginative or creative writing absorbs readers in an entertaining way. To succeed with this kind of writing you ...
Slow your writing down. Both of these writing prompts are great for s-l-o-w writing. Slow writing is the opposite of a quick write. The idea is to write slowly, precisely, carefully, selecting each word intentionally. Slow writing can take 5 minutes with one sentence and 30 minutes with a paragraph. Write these moments of action (or inaction ...
Below you will find a detailed creative writing model in response to an example of Paper 1 Question 5, under the following sub-headings (click to go straight to that sub-heading): Writing a GCSE English Language story; Structuring your story; AO5: Content and organisation; AO6: Technical accuracy; Question 5 Level 4 model story
GCSE Creative Writing Tip 3: Ambitious Adjectives. Now, add some ambitious adjectives to add. further detail and information. e.g. Deafeningly, the large, boisterous crowd screamed Beyoncé's name. Why? This builds upon the image, adding extra information to help the reader imagine what is happening.
50 GCSE English Creative Writing and Story Writing Prompts. Subject: Creative writing. Age range: 14-16. Resource type: Worksheet/Activity. File previews. docx, 220.6 KB. 50 varied and fun ideas for writing shot stories. Ideal to use individually for the whole class to write the same story or to use as a whole and let the students choose a prompt.
Writing: Crafting Creative Writing revision for GCSE English Language. All the revision you need in one place for your exam. ... Here you can pull out themes or repeated ideas you find interesting or can develop into a creative piece. ... Next GCSE English Language Topic Writing: Creative Language Use. Contact Details. 020 3633 5145 / [email ...
1. HAVE A BANK OF STORY PLOT LINES READY. One of our top tips for any creative writing exam, is to have a bank of easily adapted plot ideas up your sleeve. Time is precious in an exam and you need to spend minimal time thinking, leaving you with the maximum amount of time to crack on with your writing! 2.
Learn and revise the best techniques for writing a piece of fiction with this BBC Bitesize GCSE English Language (Edexcel) study guide.
To enhance your children's GCSE creative writing skills, allocate time for practice. Plan a structure for creative writing to guide children in organising their thoughts and managing time during the GCSE exam. Apply this structure to various exam questions, such as short stories or describing events.
Sophia Thakur and Solomon O.B. sit a mock English GSCE language exam. Suitable for teaching English language at GCSE and National 4 and 5.
How to revise for Creative Writing in GCSE English Language. With the GCSE language paper coming up, the creative writing element is one that can easily be overlooked. Perhaps you wonder whether you can really learn how to do well in this part of the section or if it is simply down to talent. However, the key to excellent creative writing exam answers is imagination - using your creativity ...
1. Give students the steps in the story. Sending students into an assessment or exam in which they have no idea what they're going to be faced with is counterproductive. As teachers, we know the structures required for success. In creative writing, the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful short story is a sense of a "complete ...
5.0 (9 reviews) Use Beyond's GCSE creative writing prompts in English lessons to help your students to move through any creative blocks that might be preventing them from writing. Including a range of GCSE creative writing prompt lessons, with a focus on titles, openings, endings and more, everything you need to break down creative writing ...
Creative Writing Hacks to Impress GCSE Examiners. A whopping 25% of GCSE English Language marks are assigned to creative writing - such as a story or description in 45 minutes. Always a tall order as it needs to have all the right ingredients to WOW the examiner. For starters, the question usually reads like this:
Writing fiction. This wonderful collection of fun and engaging classroom activities and resources will help KS3 and GCSE students to develop their own imaginative, narrative and creative writing skills. From planning their ideas and thinking about plot, character and setting, to exploring other forms and genres including poetry and drama ...
Published: 27/01/2022. One of the great pleasures - and challenges - of teaching English is helping students to develop their own 'voice' and style as writers of short stories. Assessing their creative, imaginative, descriptive and narrative writing skills at GCSE is a different matter, and can prove to be less rewarding for students, as ...
Writing fiction - AQA. Writing fiction is an opportunity to come up with creative and original ways of using language. You might find inspiration from your own experiences or from your imagination.
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