Making writers sexy and appealing - Part 1 (author's intent)

'We conclude that children appear to prioritise efficiency over completeness when reading, generating inferences spontaneously only when they are necessary for establishing a coherent representation of the text.’ Joseph , Wonnacott, Nation (2021) 

The above piece of research is probably the one piece that has stuck with me. The emphasis of efficiency over completeness. We see that so much in our subject. The student who finishes first and there’s not a simple full stop in it. The student who has answered every question on a paper and simply guessed everything. The student who views watching the film as reading the text for revision. This pattern is played out again and again. 

Efficiency is a problem that’s hidden in English. Students feel they are doing well in English because they know the plot and they know what the characters think or feel. Completeness comes when you understand the writer’s reasons and patterns behind the choices made. We see students thinking plot and character knowledge as being a sign of completeness. The same applies to techniques. The efficiency is spotting the technique. The completeness is explaining at length why the writer has used that technique in that specific context. Therefore, we are surrounded by this efficiency problem. And, if we are not careful, it becomes a poor proxy for learning in English. 

As humans, we are programmed to recall stories and explore inferences around feelings and thoughts. It starts from an early age. Why is Mr Bear sad? What do you think he wants? What do you think he could do to make himself happy? The way we interact with stories is quite second nature. We could watch a 30 second clip of Eastenders and work out the feelings, the story, the conflicts, the hidden tensions quite easily. We use our knowledge of life and experiences. So, when we study Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet the students can connect with this idea of wanting something so badly or disobeying your parents' rules. There’s always something to connect or identify with. Even if you haven’t personally experienced it, then there’s your story knowledge where you have seen it somewhere before. Normally, people would do ‘this’ in stories. 

The unnatural aspect is thinking of the writer. When I say unnatural, I don’t mean witchery business, but that it isn’t an automated and natural process. When I watch a TV show, I am not thinking about the writer’s intent and purpose behind things. It isn’t at the forefront of my mind as I am stuffing myself with popcorn. I am thinking and hoping that the dog survives to the end. The writer is far from my thoughts. In fact, I am not thinking of them at all. 

Completeness comes when we connect the writer to the plot and characters. To do this, we need to make the writer a bigger presence in reading and lessons. We need to make them celebrities and not the characters in the books. We need to make the invisible visible. In fact, they need to be the bigger things in the lessons. Bigger than the texts. Bigger than the quotations. Bigger than the facts. When we read ‘A Christmas Carol’, we are learning about Dickens and Victorian society and not Scrooge and Tiny Tim. They are only vehicles for us to understand the writer. 

Look at any study guide or revision guide and the emphasis is on plot and character with an occasional sniff of themes. Any reference to the writer is vanilla or hidden. They focus on efficiency - know the characters and know the plot. 

My daughters are big Taylor Swift fans and they can wax lyrical on her songs and the intent behind the songs. In fact, their understanding is led by the intent and not by the content of the songs. Of course, they can recall the songs, but the understanding is focused around intent. Therefore, the discussion of the song is more complete because it starts with the intent. 

I’ve struggled over the years with teaching writer’s intent because it relies too much on speculation and making large inferences that students lack the body of knowledge. Therefore, when we are asking students to use a verb like ‘challenges’ it doesn’t create the desired impact. It is a very different type of inference we are expecting that moves beyond obvious markers like a trembling voice or tears in their eyes. They are making inferences based on often subtle aspects or things that are not openly visible. This is quite a leap. 

I tend to give students one sentence which encapsulates what the writers overall purpose is: 

• Priestley thought it was time to rebuild society.

• Stevenson highlights the complexity of what others think is simple.

• Shakespeare wants us to understand the problems in Elizabethan society.

• Dickens wants to change society – Victorian society.

The reason for this is that it gives a starting point to make inferences as we go along in the text. Plus, it gives them something to frame ideas around. Take the Dickens one. When you read the opening of Stave 1, it is quite clear that the world needs changing. As much as we might like looking at the description of Scrooge, the overall message is that the world is bad. That sort of reading of a text is then built from the start. The writer’s intent is always an afterthought. Look at the dreaded PEE or equivalent. The writer’s intent was always at the end. Systematically, we are disadvantaging students because the intent comes second. Look at how we teach novels or plays. Plot first and intent second.  

The second thing I do is give students a selection of key ideas around authorial intent. See below:  

  

They are not a definitive list, but they highlight the plurality of ideas. A writer isn’t just talking about one thing. Students need to see that plurality in lessons. This sheet I get students to stick in their books and we constantly refer to it as we go along. 

The beauty of this is that the writer’s intent can be viewed as something more concrete and not so abstract. But, it also allows students to see that moments in the text can reflect differing views of the author or playwright. Take Mrs Birling’s refusal to help Eva Smith. That reflects the idea of ‘with power comes responsibility’ or ‘women are disadvantaged in society’. Instead of lessons being the searching of the one student who understands the intent, the lessons are about exploring and developing the intent. They can build, construct, amend, blend or rewrite what is provided, but they are starting with something rather than nothing. 

We have to actively teach students about authorial perspective and intent. It is ok to give students space to speculate and form their own opinions, but unless you have the background knowledge and experience of the writer's intent, students are simply guessing. 

We need to make the writer alive. We need to get better and support students to explore and discuss intent. We need to actively shift students from efficiency to completeness. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

A question of tone and not techniques

In the time I have been teaching, I have seen the teaching of English compartmentalised in so many different ways. And, dear reader, you cannot put it solely at the hands of the GCSE exams. We’ve had the National Curriculum and APP grids along the way. They all attempt to make the subject an easily digestible tick list. When you do that, you see the general focus is one making the abstract concrete. You see limiting writing structures for analysis. You see an emphasis on concrete knowledge like facts around historical context and identification of techniques. We see students able to repeat facts and spot techniques, but they cannot explain why they are used. This then leads to the teacher having to explicitly teach why a technique is used. And, this repeats on and on. 

Tone is the single biggest thing that improves writing and reading across all levels. It is everywhere in our subject yet it is nowhere at the same time. Tone is something that glues words, sentences, techniques and paragraphs together. It is something that connects the reader to the writer. It is something that links the context to the writer’s purpose. It is hidden below the subject of a text and it is the seam of gold that helps students unlock meaning and understanding. Yet, it is something so hard to compartmentalise. Yes, you can name it for sure, but you can’t really define it fully because it sits across so many domains and processes.  

Look at how tone is everywhere in the AQA English exams: 

English Language

Reading 

Paper 1 - the narrator’s tone, the individual tone of characters, the writer’s own tone 

Paper 2 - the tone of the writer is both extracts 

Writing 

Paper 1 - the tone of their characters, the tone of their writing 

Paper 2 - the tone of their writing 

English Literature 

Shakespeare 

The tone of the extract, the tone of the character, the tone of the writer. 

Pre1914 Novel 

The tone of the extract, the tone of the character, the tone of the writer. 

Modern Text 

The tone of the extract, the tone of the character, the tone of the writer. 

Poetry Anthology 

The tone of the extract, the tone of the voice,  the tone of the writer. 

Repeat for the other poem 

Unseen poetry 

The tone of the extract, the tone of the voice,  the tone of the writer. 

Tone is everywhere in English, because it is literally everywhere in life. If students are receptive to the concept of tone, we have a seam of gold to mine in the English classroom. 

The problem in English lessons is that the questions become focused on the microdetails. Specific words. Specific techniques. Why did Dickens describe Scrooge as an ‘oyster’? When exploring that question, we are exploring quite precise knowledge. What is an oyster? What is the symbolism of oysters? If you know nothing about oysters, then you are stuck. Not many students know what an oyster is, so you are on a losing foot from the start.  

When we move the questioning away from microdetail, we focus more on the interconnectivity within a text. Take the following question: How does Dickens create a sympathetic tone in Stave 1? To respond to that question, you have to join parts of the text together, whether they be plot detail or writer’s methods. But, there’s also a personal aspect. The evidence to support the point can vary from student to student. The questioning can then be layered up. Why is Dickens so sympathetic here? What isn’t he sympathetic about? Interestingly, what is empathic about? 

Teaching tone in literature texts is paramount, but it isn’t a concrete thing. There’s more than one technique to show pity. More than one technique to show anger. And so. I’d argue that instead of using pretty empty verbs around the writer when exploring intent, there’s more legs in talking about tone. Instead of talking of what Dickens is challenging in the story, talk about what makes him angry. Anger, of course,  leads to ‘challenging’.  

From a language analysis perspective, starting with tone means you are already joining up parts of the text. How is this extract comical? The use of exaggeration. The word ‘blubber’. The repetition of ‘again’. Then, analysis starts with what makes the exaggeration comical, rather than the tumbleweed moment of ‘What is the reader supposed to feel with this exaggeration?.  

From a writing perspective, teaching students about the subtle types of tone they can use is highly beneficial. The default tone for transactional writing is usually Facebook rant or end of the world apocalypse. The better writers have a breezy and light tone that knows when to pack a punch and when to understate things. 

The starting point is to talk about tone. Talk about awe, frustration, sarcasm, irony, bitterness and so on. Talk about when tone changes. Talk about why tone changes. Talk about why that tone then. Don’t just give a wordbank of tone words. Actually, talk about tone and teach about tone. 

You’d think we’d give tone the same level of respect as full stops and capital letters given that they are in every piece of writing, but we don’t. There’s so much time given to techniques with the hope that students can spot it in the rare occurrence of it appearing in an exam. I can guarantee the text will have a tone. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

It’s all ‘bout that quote, ‘bout that quote, no ideas!

Quotation learning is a poor proxy for literature revision. There, I’ve said it. The problem I have with it is that a quotation can only get you so far with exploration of a text. In fact, it stops the flow of thought and ideas. Students mould the thinking to the quotation rather than the quotation to the thinking. 

Over the years, I have seen quotations, plot (I take no prisoners on this one) and context become the juggernauts of revision. Students feel confident if they know some quotations, they know the plot and they can throw in some contextual facts into an essay. In fact, they have become the markers for revision. But, this is where the rub comes, they generate a level of false confidence. They give the appearance of knowing the text well, when that isn’t the case. 

Revision in English has become very knowledge led. But, the knowledge is limited to quite a narrow field. The knowledge of quotations. The knowledge of plot. The knowledge of context. If we are honest, these are the easiest bits of knowledge related to our subject. They are the things we can easily teach, text, and repeat in lessons. This ‘easy’ knowledge spills into how students revise. They revise these ‘easy’ knowledge elements and because they are more concrete than other types of knowledge there’s a sense of accomplishment. Students feel a sense of achievement in a largely abstract subject because they have learnt something concrete. Teachers feel a sense of accomplishment because they have taught something tangible and concrete - and easily measurable. 

There is some value in learning quotations, plot and context, but in the English classroom these should not be the drivers. Sadly, they are, which in turn converts to the idea that in English, all you need to revise is quotations, plot details and contextual facts. They are foundational things rather than exploratory and cumulative things. If you don’t believe me, then check out the examiner’s reports. I have yet to see one that says that students need to learn quotations. 

The knowledge of ideas. The knowledge of concepts. The knowledge of the writers’ feelings and thoughts. These are generally left behind with this concrete knowledge revision focus. We don’t see revision built around these. The complexity of the subject is the main reason. The plurality of ideas means that you cannot easily mark these sorts of things. You cannot easily tick or cross them. You cannot boil them down to a quick true or false task. You cannot summarise them easily. We don’t factor this complexity into revision and so revision doesn’t focus on the complex. Yet, what we expect students to do is get these complex ideas naturally armed with quotations, plot details and contextual knowledge. 

For this reason, I’ve been playing around with revision with our Year 11s. They are preparing for their first mock in November and I thought I’d explore different ways to build and develop a level of complexity in the revision. So, each Friday, we set the first ten minutes on answering these questions about a character studied. Not a quotation really in sight. 

I wanted them to think big and exploratory but also think like they would under exam conditions. They aren’t writing in full sentences, but bullet points. Then, I reveal what I would reward on an online version of the document.  The idea is to score as many points as you can.

Interestingly, students throw out ideas. I’ve used fatherly, is that ‘parent-like’? If they have an idea that I haven’t included, then I add it and add a score to it. This week I gave one idea 5 marks, because it was so good. The idea that the Friar links to the theme of rebellion. Cue more students trying to outdo that 5 marks. 

What I noticed was a real engagement with ideas and characters. Exploration and ideas were at the heart of the revision. It wasn’t just knowledge recalling, but idea forming… and exploring. It is quite easy to do but the key thing is showing a hierarchy of ideas. That’s where we can help make something abstract seem concrete. The categorising of some words or ideas being better is often something we say but don’t actively work on in lessons. Yes, some words are better to describe a character than others. Some words are precise and some words are general when describing things. 

The texts are massive banks of quotations. Seeing texts as disjointed entities is the problem here. Our obsession on quotations is warping how students interpret texts. They are thinking around the quotations and not thinking around the text. We need to reassert that distinction in lessons. A student that can think around a text writes the best essays.   

Ideas are the interesting things in English and we have a duty to make sure that our subject isn’t all quotations and extracts. If we are not careful, students are interpreting the subject as being all about the quotes and not the ideas. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

Crying over words. They are more than tiers.

In English teaching, we tend to neglect the fact that students arrive in our classroom with a suitcase of words in their brain already. We can easily neglect it by obsessing over fancy words. A student can spell ‘hamartia’ correctly but cannot articulate a character’s journey to that point. They know what the character’s flaw is. They know what ‘hamartia’ means. They know ‘hamartia’ is important so ‘that’ becomes the impetus for their writing. Just like I have written ‘hamartia’ four times, because supposedly it makes me sound clever. 

Words can be fooling and deceptive. Words don’t necessarily equate to meaning. I have taught students who have thrown words at me with the hope that one or two stick and make them sound clever. I still to this day get students throwing in ‘discombobulated’ into their writing, thinking I’d be suitably impressed. Secretly, I think, when reading it, how no writer uses that word in a normal conversation or their writing. Ok, maybe, Jane Austen. Even then, she’d use it in an ironic way. 

‘Word soup’ is often the phrase I use to describe these pieces of writing. The writing usually goes something like this: 

The juxtaposition of hamartia and catharsis connotes the Elizabethan Chain of Being. 

Like a massive juggernaut, these tier three (fancy words that ‘supposedly only academics and rich people use’) drive the writing. The student has said goodbye to the text they are studying and joined the jargon bus. Now, there might be a glimmer of meaning there, but the reader has to do a lot of the work. The reader has to unpick the meaning. The student isn’t doing the work. The reader is. That ‘word soup’ sentence doesn’t show precise meaning. In fact it shows very general meaning and every ‘show boat’ meaning. The words, therefore, give the illusion of understanding. They are the English teacher’s equivalent of the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’. The writer thinks they are dressing their writing as something fancy, when in reality the writing doesn’t cover the ‘crack’ or ‘cracks’. 

The problem I have around vocabulary is that when you put words into tiers you forget the connectability and contextuality of words. To talk about ‘juxtaposition’, you need tier 2 words (the fallen down the crack of the sofa words) and some tier 1 words (the words you use every day). That one word doesn’t work on its own, which is what some weaker students think. You cannot write the word ‘catharsis’ in a sentence, roll your sleeves and say, ‘job done!’. Nor can you proceed with an explanation of what the word ‘catharsis’ means. Sometimes, you get to a point in the subject of English where it isn’t so easy to itemise and compartmentalise things. 

Precision around word use is what we see in the best responses in English. They don’t throw words at the reader, but they carefully select the right word for the context. Their meaning is measured, clear and precise. It is hard to get students to mirror that. The root of the problem is nouns. Lots of us spend ages getting hung up about adjectives, verbs and adverbs when getting students to write analysis. They are usually window dressing. I have seen the verbs around a writer’s intent, which can give the sense of meaning, but without the understanding they fall flat. 

Lots of the time, when we are working on analysing texts, we focus on the addition of words. Adding words to a sentence. Adding words to a paragraph. We’ve often forgotten about nouns. Look at any weak student and you see the variety of their nouns is limited. Romeo this. Romeo that. Students might have some adjectives, but without some decent nouns to attach the adjectives to they generally falter. For that reason, that’s why we have been working on nouns and building a student’s knowledge of nouns. Unless they know alternatives or are directed to them, they rarely use them. That’s why I have started producing text sheets like this one for ‘Romeo and Juliet’. 

Nouns for characters	Nouns for events	Nouns for character aspects
husband	truth	arrogance
father	threat	bravado
villain	discovery	care
generation	kiss	carelessness
hero	plan	caution
admirer	actions	determination
priest	consequences	duty
wife	wedding	fairness
beloved	secret	haste
women	grudge	honesty
rebel	grief	humour
family	conversation	idealism
parent	suicide	ignorance
mother	understanding	kindness
gang	insult	knowledge
support	cause	loyalty
lover	deception	optimism
son	action	passion
servant	death	pessimism
child	fight	playfulness
leader	fallout	power
men	disagreement	pride
bystander	reconciliation	rashness
dreamer	feud	responsibility
guardian	infatuation	romanticism
authority	devotion	sensitivity
friend	miscommunication	strength
daughter	vow	warmth

If we think about child language acquisition, we learn nouns first when learning to speak. Students are often limited by their use of nouns. Yes, teach them some fancy words, but if they are not using precise nouns and synonyms then the foundations of their ideas are limited. If we look at the best writers, they tend to cycle through nouns but also make inferences through nouns. The ‘cause’ in one sentence connects to the ‘fight’ in another one. By providing students with nouns we can start formulating some sentences. 

The priest's caution over the wedding causes the child to want to do it even more. 

The child’s loyalty to her father is questioned. 

Once students have got these nouns they can add Shakespeare or any writer. They could add Shakespeare to that sentence or even write an additional sentence. 

Shakespeare uses the priest’s caution to reflect the gulf between the old and young generations. 

Shakespeare uses a child’s loyalty to highlight the problem that women faced in Elizabethan society: a duty to a husband outweighs a duty to a father. 

Of course, we now have another set of nouns for students. Nouns to describe the thing Shakespeare is tackling. Or any other writer for that reason. 

 

gulf	problem	fear	insecurity	divide	issue
divide	challenge	apprehension	uncertainty	separation	concern
gap	obstacle	anxiety	self-doubt	partition	matter
rift	dilemma	dread	vulnerability	schism	topic
chasm	difficulty	phobia	instability	discord	subject

  

danger	contrast	dilemma	consequence	conflict	distance
risk	difference	predicament	result	disagreement	separation
hazard	distinction	quandary	outcome	clash	remoteness
peril	divergence	enigma	repercussion	strife	gap
threat	disparity	conundrum	aftermath	confrontation	distance

You could go on and on with looking at nouns, because the next stage would be the themes. What nouns could we use to describe the themes in the text? This could carry on with the writer’s feelings and so on. 

Nouns are the bricks that form ideas. Without a good collection of nouns, your ideas tend to get nowhere. I do think there is some merit with teaching students to work on their verbs, adjectives and adverbs, but without the nouns to construct the framework of meaning we are generally chucking tinsel on the writing. 

Another way to look at it is how we use nouns to refer to characterisation. We can start constructing meaning by using these nouns. 

Motive	Fear	Confidence
intent	insecurity	security
mission	paranoia	bravery
purpose	cowardice	determination
desire	hesitation	audacity
hope	anxiety	heroism
wish	pessimism	fearlessness
aim	phobia	guts
objective	panic	boldness
target	dread	arrogance
agenda	unease	blindness
scheme	agitation	commitment
goal	repulsion	endurance
plan	disgust	strength
design	avoidance
intention	aversion
focus
dream
drive
rationale
impetus

Mercutio’s rationale is about looking for fun in all situations which might indicate his fear of growing up and taking responsibility. 

The Nurse's aim is to make Juliet happy, a substitute for her own daughter, which gives her confidence to challenge Capulet when he attacks her verbally. 

Of course, when you have nouns then you can  build around them. 

Shakespeare highlights the gulf … 

• ‘subtle gulf’ - add an adjective 

• ‘the subtle gulf that drives a wedge across society’ - add a verb 

• Controversially, Shakespeare - add an adverb

As you can see, there’s so much you can do with nouns. Recently, with a Year 9 class we spent a whole lesson looking at nouns we could use to describe characters and events in the play ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. It was much ado about nouns. Sorry - couldn’t resist! Then, we explored the adjectives we could attach to nouns. However, one student decided to offer ‘big’ and ‘small’ for every option. We explored how Leonato could be described as a ‘fickle father’ with his ‘conditional love’ for Hero. We discussed how Don John could be described as an ‘ineffective villain’ because of his ‘weak plots’. This led us to explore how we could use the adjective ‘effective’ and ‘ineffective’, exploring what context the words work best with. We were building links, but refining and correcting understanding at the same time.  To be honest, this is quite a simple activity or thing to do. Provide students with a grid and get them fill the grid with nouns and then look at adding adjectives to those nouns.

There’s so much potential for exploiting noun usage when studying a text. If we are serious about schemas and developing word knowledge, then we need to take a closer look at the language around texts. Especially the nouns. We are happy to throw in a high-brow concept  in a lesson, but what if a student hasn’t got the words or nouns related to explaining that concept in their own writing? I feel that maybe in our search for improving students we have been misguided like the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’. We need something. Nouns.  

Thank you for reading. Because you have made it through quite a long blog, I have included a link to one of my booklets around teaching aspects language precision in Year 9 here. 

Xris

P.S. I apologise if any nouns have been injured in this blog. Of course, some nouns can be adjectives. Word class often depends on context.