




GCSE English Paper 2 Question 4 presents a number of challenges to learners. First, it’s the only time that Assessment Objective 3 is taught explicitly (Compare writers’ ideas and perspectives, as well as how these are conveyed, across two or more texts). Then, there is the (sometimes bewildering) amount of instructions in the question, not to mention its positioning in the exam.
I put a great deal of thought into how to engage the students with this question and how to create a scaffold for the responses they would write. Ideal for lower sets but working for any level, they are a great starting point for this question. In fact, when I first developed this resource, I pressed the “reset” button on this question and started again from scratch. The results have been very encouraging and there has been an improvement in the marks my students are getting for this question in the exams.
I have created an additional “answer” document that goes through what the students should have chosen for the multiple choice questions on Scaffold 1 and example responses for all three of the scaffolds included in this set.
The scaffold enables:
- The writing of a thesis statement (also known as an introduction!), highlighting the different perspectives of the writers.
- A pair of paragraphs about the tone of the texts (Source A, Source B), with evidence, explanation and effect on the reader
- A pair of paragraphs (x2) that encourages students to find common features between the texts (e.g. one subject is boxing and a common feature of both texts is a description of a fight) where they can then find differences of perspective.
Altogether, the students should be able to produce a robust response to this exam question. I found that once my students had done two of these scaffolded exercises they found the “real thing” much more accessible.
These sets of scaffolded exercises are designed to be done in the classroom. They serve as an introduction to how to approach the question sensibly and in a way that will hopefully maximise the marks awarded. It is not intended as a straightjacket approach and the Word documents can easily be tweaked if you want to change them a little.
The source texts are a little shorter than those you will find in the “real” exams – about 250 words each. This is to encourage students to discover differences (one text has similarities of perspective) and to get them involved with the text.
Three subjects:
- Boxing (19th Century text, 20th Century text)
- Fashion (19th, 21st)
- Visiting the Natural History Museum (19th, 21st)
I don’t believe these have been covered in the exams before. I have put them together as a single booklet (this is how I use them) but have also included a file with each question on its own.
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Excellent way of scaffolding a difficult question. Look forward to using it with classes. Do you have anything like this for any of the other reading questions?
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