English GCSE, GCE, postcard learning tip: How to focus your thinking!

A student studying at Winstanley College, Wigan,  shared this tip yesterday and right in the middle of a mock English  A level paper, I couldn’t help smiling out loud! For this tip is simple and as I tried it today, it works very well. I think it is inspired!

All you need in true Blue Peter style is a postcard!

So find the text your are studying or need to write about…

1) Read the text you are studying attentively.  try and find out how ‘it’ works at being what it is.

2)  Take a minute to simply think about what you have just read. Let the text ‘settle’ in your mind.

3) Now imagine the text as a picture, an image, even a cartoon.  Make the image strongly felt in your head.

4) Now, in a sentence, as if you are the cartoonist perhaps, summarise what you have just ‘seen’ or ‘drawn’ in your head.

5) Now write it out on your postcard. ONE SENTENCE please,  on  a postcard. BE CLEAR!

This sentence is your summary or governing idea. You can thus use this sentence as the main anchoring idea for your essay. For how can you write an effective and cogent essay if you are not clear about your argument/opinion?

For example:

”Carol Ann Duffy’s dramatic monologue,  ‘Boy’ playfully explores the complexity of identity through the use of a sexually ambiguous speaker who ironically wants  more fun through being ‘small’ again.”

Dr Janet Lewison

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