Language Skills - Non-Fiction - Reading

In this lesson, we will be looking at how to approach unseen non-fiction texts by reading Christopher Ondaatje's 'Journey to the Source of the Nile'. We will be using a strategy to work through the text systematically, tracing what we are told (events) and how the writer feels about them (attitude / thoughts). We will also be moving from a 'literal' understanding of the text to thinking about the 'big picture' meanings that a text has to offer - what does it tell us about mankind or human nature?

In this lesson, we will be looking more closely at a passage from Christopher Ondaatje's 'Journey to the Source of the Nile' and examining the writer's methods. We will look at how to respond to an analysis question; we will identify the focus of the question, select relevant 'rich' evidence and think about the importance of linking our selections. We will then look at a writing frame to support us in writing up our ideas before checking our responses and assessing our progress against a model answer.

In this lesson, we will look at how understanding Ondaatje's viewpoint helps us to make further observations about the attitudes and feelings communicated within the account. In order to help us do this we will work with a writing frame, building our response systematically. Once you have written your response there will be a model answer for you to self-assess against and track your progress.

In this lesson, we will be looking at how to approach pre-1900 unseen non-fiction texts by reading Isabella Bird's 'The Bazaars of Baghdad - Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan' . We will be using a strategy to work through the text systematically, tracing what we are told (events) and how the writer feels about them (attitude / thoughts). We will also be moving from a 'literal' understanding of the text to thinking about the 'big picture' meanings that a text has to offer - what does it tell us about mankind or human nature?

In this lesson, we will look at how understanding more about the contexts of Isabella Bird's writing helps us to make further observations about the ideas and attitudes communicated in her account 'The Bazaars of Baghdad'. In order to help us do this, we will look at information about Bird as a person, travel writing as a genre and about attitudes to female travellers. We will then use a writing frame to help us build a systematic response that reflects our new learning.

In this lesson, we will be considering what the skill of summary requires by working with our two non-fiction texts, 'Journey to the Source of the Nile' and 'The Bazaars of Baghdad'. We will look at how we need to understand the focus of the question and select relevant supporting evidence to answer our question. Crucial to the process of summary is the skill of synthesising information across the two texts and showing what we have understood and inferred from the texts. During the course of the lesson, we will break down the process and experiment with sentence stems to support our written responses.

In this lesson, we will be comparing both our unseen fiction texts ('Journey to the Source of the Nile' and 'The Bazaars if Baghdad') and looking at how the two writers' perspectives influence the way they write about their travels. We will break down the task and first establish key similarities and differences in their attitudes. We will then use a planning frame to read extracts from the two texts and select our evidence. At the end of the lesson, we will have a clear plan that we will apply in our next session.

In this lesson, we will complete our learning on comparing writers' perspectives and methods by using our plan to write up a final response. We will continue to use 'Journey to the Source of the Nile' and 'The Bazaars of Baghdad'. We will use a writing frame to help organise our ideas and support our writing. You will then be able to assess your response by comparing it to a model answer.