New
New
Year 10
Eduqas

'The Cellist of Sarajevo': expressing a personal and critical response to a text

I can express a personal and critical response to a text.

New
New
Year 10
Eduqas

'The Cellist of Sarajevo': expressing a personal and critical response to a text

I can express a personal and critical response to a text.

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. In order to evaluate, we should form a personal and critical response to the text.
  2. To form a personal response, we can reflect on how a text made us feel, what stood out and what we like/dislike.
  3. Each reader can form a different opinion on the same part of a text.
  4. We can use superlatives to help us express our judgements on a text.
  5. We can use tentative language to express that our opinions are ideas, not facts.

Keywords

  • Evaluative - to be evaluative is to judge something carefully

  • Critical - being critical means judging the quality of something

  • Superlative - a word to express the highest or lowest quality of something

  • Tentative - expressing possibility rather than certainty

Common misconception

Students may think that being critical means to talk about the negative aspects of something.

We can be critical by judging something positively or negatively.

You may want to show pupils a model paragraph using superlatives and tentative language in Learning Cycle 2. Alternatively, you could write one together as a class.
Teacher tip

Equipment

You will need access to Chapter 1 of 'The Cellist of Sarajevo' by Steven Galloway for this lesson.

Content guidance

  • Depiction or discussion of violence or suffering

Supervision

Adult supervision recommended

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2024), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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6 Questions

Q1.
Which of the below is an evaluative comment?
Correct answer: Galloway successfully conveys the cellist's grief.
The use of flashback suggests the cellist's grief.
The cellist feels grief.
Q2.
What is a personal response?
a response to a text influenced by your friend
Correct answer: your individual, authentic response to a text
a response to a text found online
Q3.
What does it mean to be critical?
to accept what you are told
to compliment something
Correct answer: to form a judgement on something
Q4.
Which of the below contains tentative language?
Correct answer: Galloway may have referred to WW2 to make his message universal.
Galloway successfully makes his message more universal by referring to WW2.
Galloway refers to WW2 to make his message more universal.
Q5.
Which of the below contains a superlative?
Correct answer: The most emotive part of the text is when Galloway describes the wedding.
Galloway shows how war leads to destruction and grief.
Galloway successfully conveys the cellist's defiance.
Q6.
What is one defintion for the word 'gravity'?
humour
Correct answer: seriousness
ease

6 Questions

Q1.
In order to successfully evaluate, what type of response do we need to form?
Correct answer: personal
Correct answer: critical
impartial
Q2.
Which of the below is a critical comment?
Correct answer: The writer helps their reader connect with characters well.
The writer uses a simile.
The text is about war.
Q3.
What type of word expresses a judgement on something?
noun
conjunction
Correct answer: superlative
Q4.
What type of language expresses a possibility rather than certainty?
Correct answer: tentative
definitive
emotive
Q5.
Which of these sentences does not use a superlative?
I feel the most sympathy for the cellist when he drops his cello.
The most emotive part of the text is the Opera Hall falling to ruin.
Correct answer: Galloway successfully manipulates time to evoke grief and hope.
Q6.
Why is it important to use tentative language in evaluative writing?
to show that our opinions are facts
to show that we have researched our analysis
Correct answer: to show that our opinions are subjective ideas