‘Suite Française’: evaluating ideas about a writer’s craft
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can evaluate how well a writer achieves certain effects.
Key learning points
- Evaluation requires you to critically examine something, thus it is more complex than understanding and analysis.
- Using evaluative adverbs and adjectives is good way to signpost your evaluation.
- Evaluative adverbs show you are able to comment on how well a writer does something.
- You should use evidence from the text to support your evaluative comments.
Keywords
Evaluate - to judge the value or quality of something
Critical - to think seriously about something; considering what is good or bad about it
Signpost - showing how something is going to develop
Evaluative adverb - adverbs that express a judgement about something
Common misconception
Students may think that they only way to evaluate is to write whether they 'agree' or 'disagree' with something.
In Learning Cycle 2, students learn that they can phrase and signpost their evaluations in a more sophisticated way, directly commenting on the writer's craft with evaluative adverbs.
Teacher tip
In Learning Cycle 2, you might want to model how Aisha may have come to her opinion by reading the text as a class and annotating it under a visualiser.
Equipment
You will need access to chapter 1 of 'Suite Française' by Irene Nemirovsky for this lesson. This lesson uses paragraphs 1, 2, 3 and 4 of chapter 1.
Content guidance
Depiction or discussion of violence or suffering
Depiction or discussion of violence or suffering
Supervision
Adult supervision recommended
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Match the skill up to its definition.
make sense of something
unpick a text, identify patterns
critically examine and make judgements
Q2.How can you show that you are critically examining something?
Q3.Which of these is an evaluative statement?
Q4.Order the skills from least to most complex.
Q5.Which word shows that we have formed a positive evaluation of something?
Q6.Why is it important to be able to evaluate?
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Match the sentence to the skill it demonstrates.
The verb "wailing" conveys the discomforting sound of the air raid.
The extract events take place on 4th June.
Nemirovsky effectively conveys the innocence of the Parisian citizens.
Q2.Which type of words signpost which skill?
words that express certainty
action words, tentative language
evaluative adverbs/adjectives
Q3.Which word conveys that you are evaluating the writer's craft?
Q4.Which of these is not an evaluative adverb?
Q5.How can you examine the quality of someone's argument?
Q6.What is important to include in an evaluative paragraph?
To help you plan your 10 English lesson on: ‘Suite Française’: evaluating ideas about a writer’s craft, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 10 English lesson on: ‘Suite Française’: evaluating ideas about a writer’s craft, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 English lessons from the Fiction: read around the world unit, dive into the full secondary English curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.