1. Week 1 – 9 th September

2. Writing Task 1 Student Showcase In the last reading Skills session, you read a piece of narrative writing written by a student at this school. What can you remember about the story? What made the story so successful?

3. Writing Task 1 Student Showcase You are now going to answer some questions about the story that you read. You can use your copy of the story to help you answer the questions.

4. Writing Task 1 After reading the story and answering a set of questions based upon it, you are now going to write a list of ‘things’ that make the story successful. For example… An interesting opening A good plot

5. Week 2 – 16 th September

6. Writing Task 2 So far, you have read two short narratives written by students at this school. You have also studied one of the stories closely and answered questions on it. Now, you are going to use your understanding of narrative writing to craft an opening to a story.

7. Writing Task 2 Use a book or an iPad to take a look at the first paragraph of a story. Whilst you look at the opening paragraph, think about the language and techniques used to interest the reader. What do you notice? How long are the sentences? Is direct speech used? Are characters introduced straight away? Is it written in first person? Are there any questions asked? Do you like the opening paragraph? You need to make notes, with the people in your group, whilst completing this activity.

8. Writing Task 2 So, what are the crucial elements to a successful story opening?

9. Writing Task 2 Over to you! Working alone or with the people in your group you need to write an opening paragraph to one of the story titles below; The secret The gift Monday blues At sea Success Criteria! 8 Lines Contain direct speech Begin with a 3 word sentence Use a question Use one sentence that is 15 words long

10. Week 3 – 23rd September

11. Writing Task 3: Draft and Perfect! The most important part of narrative writing is spending the time to draft and ‘polish’ your writing. Can anyone remember what the term ‘polish’ means? What do you need to do when polishing your written work?

12. Writing Task 3 You are going to spend this Skills session drafting and perfecting your opening paragraph. 1.Make sure that you have your opening paragraph written in your Skills book 2.Leaving 2 lines, re-write the paragraph again, taking your time to check for spelling errors and that you have used grammar correctly 3.Ask someone from another group to read your paragraph and ask them to offer some advice on how you could improve it (remember, you wrote a list of all the ‘things’ an opening paragraph needs) 4.Have another go! Re-write the paragraph, adding in extra detail to make it more interesting

13. Week 4 – 30 th September

14. Writing Task 4: Peer Read and Feed…back! In this session you are going to read different opening paragraphs written by the people in your Skills group. You are going to read the opening paragraphs and offer feedback about what you liked and any ideas you have on how to improve.