How to teach: English - Chris Curtis 2019

One sentence
How to teach novels

Less able students tend to struggle when analysing whole texts; they mention several parts at once and so in superficial detail. In truth, the quantity of information swamps their thinking.

The new GCSE English exams have a connected strand. They rely on students being able to comment on language choices, comment on the effect and discuss the writer’s intent. There is no getting away from this. We need students to become experts. I’ve developed a starter to use with less able students. Students come in, write down a sentence or two from the last lesson’s reading and start analysing it. They do this most lessons and, as a result, their confidence has grown and so too have their skills of analysis. The process goes: words, purpose, feelings, techniques.

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.⁴

1 First, students spot and circle the key words. What words are the most important here?

Gravely, silently, Phantom, gloom and mystery.

This starts students off with something simple. There’s no right or wrong. During this stage, I reinforce each selected word using the correct grammatical term.

Student: I spotted gravely and silently.

Me: Yes, you have spotted two adverbs.

The hope is that they will make the leap and offer word classes themselves. I am modelling confidence with the terminology. Of course, they will make mistakes and it is important to talk about why and how. A fear of getting it wrong makes students either brazen or hesitant. My advice is to embody the idea that grammar can be tricky and requires thought before we give an answer. Most teachers, and I include myself, need to think before they give an answer about grammar because it is often dependent on context and minor detail. As in mathematics, it needs some working out. I avoid getting students to answer straightaway. Time to think is necessary.

I also help students with the mistake when they give an incorrect answer. The instinct is to automatically correct the student but this propels the idea that there is a quick answer. When my daughters were learning to speak, we often repeated the correct word when they made a mistake.

Daughter: I runned to the end.

Me: … ran …

Daughter: I ran to the end.

Over time, she made the mistake less often. However, there was no negativity in the process; it allowed her to self-correct. Ideally, we want students to self-correct and we can help them do that.

Student: I think it’s an adjective.

Teacher: What’s our rule for spotting an adjective?

Student: An adjective describes a noun.

Teacher: So is it describing a noun?

Student: No.

Teacher: What other rules have we got for spotting the word class?

Note that I use ’our’ when describing the rules. We have a shared understanding and collective approach. What’s our rule for identifying verbs? It is incredibly helpful to have these rules clear in our heads. Grammar outlines the rules behind the language and we need to be clear about them. Getting it wrong just gives us another opportunity to revisit the rules. We often cast sneers towards ’the grammar police’ without thinking about what directs them: the law. And we should have clear rules for identifying aspects of grammar. What’s your rule for identifying a verb? Noun? Pronoun? Adjective? Adverb? Always start with the rule. This avoids the ’erm … erm … it’s … a verb’ guessing game.

2 Then, we look at the purpose of the sentence. To frame this for students, I generally put up the following phrases:

To show us

To teach us

In the past, I’ve focused on feelings or techniques when getting students to analyse texts, but recently I have felt that purpose should be at the forefront. Get the purpose and the understanding follows. All too often, I have left the discussion about purpose until the end. We have spotted word classes, techniques and feelings and then, last of all, talked about why the writer chose specific versions of these things. This way, I am starting with the purpose. Starting with feelings can be problematic as sometimes we can’t always articulate what it is we are feeling. Emotions are messy and can be hard to explain.

What is the writer trying to do here?

To show us the power and influence of the ghost. To show us how Scrooge is affected by the ghost. To teach us that the future is scary.

3 The next step is to start on the feelings. What are the different feelings we experience in this sentence?

Feel sorry for Scrooge. Feel scared of the ghost. Feel impressed with the ghost’s power.

At each of these stages, we are referring back to the language in the quotation. What words make you feel sorry? What words show us that the future is scary? We develop meaning without using the shortcut methods of technique spotting and regurgitating clichés. We explore meaning and build it up in layers.

4 The final step explores techniques.

To get to this point, we have talked about words, purpose and effect, which inverts the analytical approach students usually use: I spot a technique; I explain the effect of the technique; I explain why the writer chose that technique.

A list. A pair. A short sentence.

At this point, students have a wealth of understanding to connect these elements together.

Dickens uses a list of adverbs to reflect the slow pace at which the ghost moves and the triplet also hints at its movement being rhythmic, as if the ghost moves like the ticking of a clock, moving towards the end.

Dickens’ use of a short sentence here is uncommon. Usually, he describes the ghosts in great detail, yet here the ghost is described briefly, reflecting the fear and shock caused by this figure. It is somehow too scary to describe in any detail.

Dickens uses a pair of abstract nouns, ’gloom’ and ’mystery’, to create the atmosphere that follows the ghost. It suggests that there is a greater ’mystery’ causing the ’gloom’.

I am incredibly interested in looking at structure and at internal structures that help aid meaning. This has been quite successful, and students have embraced it. But, most importantly, the consistency of the approach has worked well with lower attaining students. Eventually, it changes their internal thought processes so they think about the purpose and effect sooner, rather than as an afterthought to half a page of mindless rambling.

In the exams, students will be able to analyse a sentence in detail, linking it to other parts of the text and, therefore, show knowledge of the whole text. Without this approach, they will try to write about all the techniques and ideas at the same time. We need to channel their thinking. It’s quite a simple approach, and it leads to a crap acronym — WPFT (words/purpose/feelings/techniques) — but it does help students to develop their thinking and is how I want them to think in the exam.