June 13, 2011
Creative Writing Controlled Assessment
Posted by csimon under Controlled Assessment, Uncategorized, Writing, Year 10No Comments
Hello year 10! I hope your exams last week went well and that you’re enjoying the relief of having them out of the way! I also hope you enjoyed the cathartic ‘ranting’ lessons last week which followed!
These lessons were designed to introduce you to the next pieces of controlled assessment which will take place this half term. The first will be a speaking and listening assessment which will take place in the week beginning 27th of June and will be worth approximately 7% of the English GCSE. The second will be a piece of written controlled assessment which will take place in the week before work experience (week beginning 4th of July), and will be worth 7.5% of the English GCSE. A letter has been sent to parents via your English Teacher, a copy of which can be found here.
One of the pieces of homework will be to investigte this type of writing, and the examples below might help you you to do this (although there are plenty of others you can find independently as well). Try to read a few of the examples then find some of your own as well. Remember to concentrate on the structure and organisation of the articles and the rhetorical features used in them. Which do you find the most convincing?
- Richard Littlejohn has won “National Irritant of the Year” several times so is a good starting point. His page on the Daily Mail website can be found here. In fact the Daily Mail presents many strong opinions, so browsing the articles you find there might be helpful. Have a look at their “Debate” section here to start you off.
- Charlie Brooker is another good ranter! He writes for the Guardian and you can find links to his articles here, and you can browse the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” section and read work by their other writers by clicking here (although not all of these would be classed as ‘rants’).
- Some local newspapers will present strong opinions as well, try the Hornsey Journal or the Tottenham and Wood Green Journal to start you off.
If you find any interesting or helpful ‘rants’ please add them as comments below so that they can help other people.

