Learning task 1: Pre-writing
Being Aware of Your Audience
Although your awareness of the audience won't reveal itself until you start writing, it is a crucial part of the writing process. Your awareness of the audience actually shapes every aspect of your writing. From the very early stages, it will help you focus on different ideas and different things to emphasise. It can even make different topics seem appropriate to write about. So, the specified audience is the first detail you should check when you are beginning to think about writing. For this unit, you'll write a piece for a page of young people's views.
To increase your awareness of this audience, it's a good idea to read some articles. As you do, consider how the writers have shown their awareness of the audience they are addressing. What sort of language have the successful writers used?
Being Aware Of The Purpose Of The Piece
When writing, as when speaking, it's usual to want to affect the audience in a particular way. This is the purpose of the piece. Some different purposes are to entertain, to enrage and to inform. The purpose of this piece is to persuade. This is also likely to be the purpose of the piece you will write in the exam at the end of the year. Knowing the purpose of a piece will shape how you write. Readers usually find writing persuasive when it explores at least two perspectives, or points of view. This creates a balanced argument and can convince readers that the writer has thought through the issue carefully. Being balanced is important if we want others to take us seriously. So your readers take you seriously, this unit will encourage you to consider your chosen topic from at least two perspectives.
Choosing a Topic
For this unit and for the exam, you'll be asked to select a topic from a list of items. It's a good idea to read all the items carefully and briefly think about how much you might have to say about each one. Here are some tips to help select the best topic for you:
- The topic that seems easiest might not necessarily be the best one for you.
- The best topic for you will allow you to make three or four clear, developed points.
- Some points may be your genuine ideas and feelings about the topic, which you can support
- Some points might relate to some experiences you've had.
Here's a
topics (RTF 18KB)
. Read them all and use the box next to each one to quickly jot down any ideas, feelings, or experiences you have about the topic. These can agree or disagree with the topic, or be some of each.
Your teacher might time you to help you 'crash' down your first thoughts onto the page. 30 seconds for each topic would be an appropriate time limit. 'Crashing ideas out' is a strategy that could be a good one to use in the exam. Pressure can be helpful and our very first thoughts are sometimes our best ones. Crash out your ideas!
Once you have 'crashed' out your ideas, work in pairs, and then in a small group to share ideas and add to the ideas you already have. If there are some different perspectives, or points of view, include these too. These will help you to produce rounded and balanced writing.
Mind Mapping Ideas
Look over what you've jotted down in the table. Circle the topic that allowed you to write down the most ideas, feelings, or experiences. Take that topic and write it into the central area of this
mindmap (RTF 88KB)
. Then expand your ideas, feelings, and experiences by writing any new ideas or specific points you might have around the relevant areas.
(Your teacher might provide you with some other frameworks to help you develop your thinking. Prewriting Essays has some perspectives about how to plan an essay. Spider Map has a spider map template. Brainstorming Web has details about brainstorming. Clustering is about clustering ideas around a word.)
Extending Your Perspectives
For this prepared piece of writing that is a practice for the exam, you can collect information and opinions on your topic. After the practice continuums your teacher might create opportunity for you to hear the range of opinion in your class about the topics. Once you have heard some other opinions about your topic, select at least two different perspectives, or points of view, and transfer them onto your original mind map. Use colours to highlight the ideas and perspectives that seem to belong together.
To extend your perspectives even further, you could also interview people, use the Internet, or look in the Library in the Information File.
A polished piece of work will show an awareness of different perspectives. To allow you to do this in your writing, highlight each different point of view in a different colour on your spidergram.
If you are finding it difficult to discover different points of view, your teacher may create an opinion continuum in the classroom.
Selecting Material
Look at your original mind map Circle 3 or 4 of the points, and their associated perspectives, that you think are the 'meatiest'. Remember you are aiming to have some points that agree with the topic and some that disagree with it. This is all part of creating a balanced perspective. The 3-4 points you've circled will become paragraphs. The exam requires you to write about 250 words. This means you'll write:
- an introduction
- 2-3 paragraphs
- a conclusion
Developing Ideas
To develop your paragraphing skills, complete this grid. The "Main Points" you write in will be the three or four points you've circled. Although you probably won't have time to complete a
grid (RTF 19KB)
like this in the exam, completing it now will build your awareness of how to write a well-balanced paragraph. This will make it easier to write well in the exam!
As an example, a main point, example, and response about the topic, "Appearance and packaging count for everything" have been included.
