Question 5 in AQA English Language Paper 1 is your chance to be creative.
There are two questions to choose from - one based on a picture and one not based on a
picture. You choose one of the questions to answer, and you should spend around 45 minutes
on it. The questions could be narrative (writing
a story or part of a story) or descriptive, but it’s important to note that you won’t
always have a choice between the two types of writing, as there might be two narrative
or two descriptive questions, so you need to be comfortable with both types of writing.
Let’s look at a typical question, taken from the sample paper which you can download
for free at mrbruff.com: A travel website is running a creative writing
competition. Either
Describe a journey, as suggested by this picture: or
Write a story with the title ‘The Holiday’
(24 marks for content and organisation 16 marks for technical accuracy)
[40 marks] As you can see, there are 40 marks available
for this question - that’s half the marks of the entire paper being awarded for just
one question, with up to 24 available for A05 and up to 16 marks awarded for A06.
Now the key thing about this question is that it’s your chance to be creative and original.
The exam board don’t want to see tons of answers which follow a formulaic approach,
so I don’t want to give too many of those formulaic ideas in this video.
What I would like to do is go over a couple of things people often don’t think about:
1) Use the techniques writers use in Section A
Many students don’t realise it, but in Section A of this exam, you’re asked to analyse
a high quality piece of fiction writing, analysing its use of language in question 2, structure
in question 3 and a variety of methods in question 4. Then in Section B , here in question
5, you’re asked to write your own high quality piece of fiction writing, so you should look
to use yourself the kinds of techniques you’ve analysed in Section A, not necessarily in
the paper you’re at that moment completing (I'm not saying you should copy anything from the source material) but in all of the papers you’ve looked at
in school throughout the year. For example, aim to use some structural features
in your writing: why not have a flashback, or a circular structure. Why not zoom in and
out, or shift in focus in a cinematic way to make your writing compelling. Those are
the shorts of things you’ve looked at in question 3 of course.
And similarly with language: use some of those language features you’ve been studying all
year for question 2: pathetic fallacy, metaphor and simile, that kind of thing.
The second thing is, to remember that 16 marks are available for technical accuracy. Now
this is something a lot of students don’t think about, but a little preparation and
planning here can really boost your mark for A06.
There are really two sides to technical accuracy: one is making sure you don’t have any mistakes,
so give yourself five minutes at the end to check your spelling, punctuation and grammar.
And of course check your work as you’re completing it: there’s enough time to make
sure you’ve got it right. The other side comes down to being ambitious
in your use of technical skills. So vary sentence length and paragraph lengths, use a range
of sentence openings, employ a wide variety of punctuation. And here’s something else
most people don’t realise: these things don’t happen automatically: you have to
remind yourself to do them as you’re writing. You have to consciously craft your answer
- and you’ve got time to do it, because this is a 45 minute question.
So if this was me. I would probably, in my plan, draw out the eight different types of
punctuation I want to use. I might write ‘cyclical structure’ or other things that I want to
make sure that I remember: sentence length, paragraph length. And then as I’m writing
my piece, whether it’s descriptive or narrative, I might be half way through paragraph one,
and Iook back at my plan where I’ve not just planned my content, but the skills I’m
going to demonstrate and think hang on I haven’t used much punctuation in this paragraph, I’m
going to use a semi colon and then tick it off my list. Hang on, all my sentences are
pretty similar in length, I’m going to have a short sentence for effect. Actually stopping
and pausing and looking back at your plan or thinking about the skills you want to demonstrate
in your work, as you’re writing, is so important. And you’ve got time to do it.
Finally, let’s look at a sample paragraph. Ancient and wise, the bull swishes his tail
in the ice cold refreshing water, creating zen like ripples upon its calm surface. The
tail’s pendulum like motion, as steady and synchronised as the most sophisticated of
watch mechanisms, mesmerises the other creatures who, seeking a moment’s respite from the
harsh, unforgiving sun, have made the long, slow pilgrimage to the watering hole. This
is heaven.