Memoir/biography/autobiography

• Engels
• Further Education (Key Stage 5)

Goals for today 

Stucture in paper 2 responses 

Teams materials 

Paper 1 text type example and exploration questions 

Vocabulary acquisition 

Examiners' feedback on this text 

Plan a paper 1 

1. What text type is this? Give evidence which confirms your decision. 

2. Comment on the prison metaphor. 

3. Comment on the handwritten text and the interplay between that and the rest of the text. 

4. Why could you describe this text as didactic? What evidence do you have to support that idea? 

5. Note a mood word that you think applies to this text. Is there a change in mood? If so, explain. 

6. Note any lexical fields that you can find in the text. 

7. Note any metaphors that you can find. What is the effect? 

8. What is the effect of the first-person narration? 

Guiding question

Comment on the writer's values and assumptions. How does the writer's handwritten note complement the rest of the extract? 

Goals for today 

Structuring and writing a response to a memoir extract 

Exploring the guiding questions 

Getting feedback on your thesis statement 

Getting feedback on your topic sentence 

Literary non-fiction: memoir 

Read the memoir.

Pick out a word from each paragraph that reflect the childhood feelings or choose your own descriptor. 

Two parts to the guiding question: 

1. Formulate the childhood feelings.

2. Identify techniques that convey these feelings. 

Childhood feelings 

Nervous

fear 

anxiety 

otherworldly 

incomprehension 

overwhelming 

 

Two parts to the guiding question: 

1. Formulate the childhood feelings.

2. Identify techniques that convey these feelings. 

Similes and metaphors 

• "hurts him as keenly as a cut on the arm"
  
• "like a man in an old Dutch painting" 
  
• "like a ship's hulls under pressure from the swell" 
  
• "the plain door a portal or time machine"
  
• "like moondust on an astronaut" 
  
• "like square-rigged sails"
  
• "oak chests were dark blocks the size of tombs" 
  

Two parts to the guiding question: 

1. Formulate the childhood feelings.

2. Identify techniques that convey these feelings. 

sensual imagery

• "spiky lighting rigs" 
  
• " rich bass clonk of the bolts" 
  
• "sudden breath of cold wind" 
  
• "door by the piano clicks open" 
  
• "cold in his clothes a trace of that other region" 
  
• "grandfather clock ticks implacably" 

Two parts to the guiding question: 

1. Formulate the childhood feelings.

2. Identify techniques that convey these feelings. 

euphemism/ vague language 

• ""elsewhere" 
• "other region" 
• "disappears into the other end" 
• "ceremonial rhythm" 
• "shutting the house up" 

Two parts to the guiding question: 

1. Formulate the childhood feelings.

2. Identify techniques that convey these feelings. 

Thesis statement 

Write a thesis statement that answers both parts of the guiding question. You must also include what your claim is regarding the childhood feelings about his home. 

Two parts to the guiding question: 

1. Formulate the childhood feelings.

2. Identify techniques that convey these feelings. 

Chat GPT prompt 

You are a DP1 English literature HL student you have the following extract and guiding question. You have formulated this thesis statement... Give feedback on how to improve this thesis statement. Do not rewrite the thesis statement. 

Two parts to the guiding question: 

1. Formulate the childhood feelings.

2. Identify techniques that convey these feelings.