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English lesson plan · 10th grade (Year 11 in England) · 30 minutes

Analysing language for effect

Reading Comprehension

CCSS RL.9-10.4CCSS RL.11-12.4England: GCSE English Language Paper 1 Q2England: GCSE English Language Paper 2 Q3

Objective and success criteria

Students will: Analysing language for effect.

  • I can answer questions on today's skill on my own, without help.
  • I can explain each step and say why it works.
  • I can check my answer and spot a mistake.

Before and after

Needs first: Tone and mood

Leads to: the next skill in this area.

Materials: A short text or extract (one copy each), Highlighters, Question cards, Mini whiteboards, A short model text on the board, Printed student sheet (below).

Warm-up · 4 min

  • Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Tone and mood). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
  • Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.
  1. We must act now. Every day we wait, another species disappears forever. This is not a problem for tomorrow. What is the writer's tone? (uncertain / humorous / urgent / relaxed) → urgentPrompt: What feeling do the word choices create?
  2. The corridor stretched into darkness. Somewhere, water dripped. A door, which had been closed a moment ago, now stood half open. What is the mood? (funny and silly / tense and eerie / calm and sleepy / cheerful and bright) → tense and eeriePrompt: What feeling do the word choices create?
  3. Sunlight spilled across the meadow, bees hummed lazily among the clover, and somewhere a child was laughing. What is the mood? (angry / threatening / peaceful and happy / gloomy) → peaceful and happyPrompt: What feeling do the word choices create?

Hook · 3 min

  • Read the first lines of a short text aloud and ask what students predict will happen and why.
  • Share the objective: Analysing language for effect. Read the success criteria together.

I do: model it · 7 min

  • Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
  • Example: The waves gnawed at the cliffs, year after year, until whole fields slipped into the sea. What does "gnawed" suggest about the sea?
  • Step 1: Writers choose words for their connotations and effects.
  • Step 2: So the answer is: It is like a hungry animal, slowly and relentlessly destroying the land.
  • Answer: It is like a hungry animal, slowly and relentlessly destroying the land.
  • Pause after each step and ask a student to say what comes next.

We do: guided practice · 6 min

  • Do these together. Students try each step on whiteboards before you reveal it.
  • Use the hints as prompts rather than giving the answer.
  1. A thin, apologetic sun crept over the hills. What is the effect of describing the sun as "apologetic"? (It shows it is midnight. / It suggests a fierce heatwave. / It means the sun is setting quickly. / It suggests weak, pale sunlight on a cold or gloomy day.) → It suggests weak, pale sunlight on a cold or gloomy day.Prompt: What does the word or phrase suggest beyond its literal meaning?
  2. The old house slumped at the end of the lane, its windows dull as tired eyes. What impression does the writer create of the house? (bright and freshly painted / grand and welcoming / neglected and weary, almost like an exhausted person / modern and busy) → neglected and weary, almost like an exhausted personPrompt: What does the word or phrase suggest beyond its literal meaning?

You do: independent practice · 7 min

  • Students work on the student sheet. Circulate and check the first two answers of every student early.
  • Students who finish: write a question of their own for a partner, with the answer.

The 6 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

Exit ticket · 3 min

  • Two questions on their own. Sort answers into got it / nearly / not yet to plan the next lesson.
  1. The waves gnawed at the cliffs, year after year, until whole fields slipped into the sea. What does "gnawed" suggest about the sea? (It is frozen. / It is shallow and warm. / It is like a hungry animal, slowly and relentlessly destroying the land. / It is calm and gentle.) → It is like a hungry animal, slowly and relentlessly destroying the land.Prompt: What does the word or phrase suggest beyond its literal meaning?

Watch out for

  • Answering from memory or opinion instead of evidence in the text.
  • Copying a long quote without explaining what it shows.

Support and stretch

Support

  • Review first: Tone and mood.
  • Use concrete materials: a short text or extract (one copy each).
  • Give the first step of each question, or a partly worked example to finish.
  • Pair with a confident partner for the guided practice.

Stretch

  • Explain a common mistake in writing and how to fix it.
  • Write a word problem that uses today's skill, then solve a partner's.

Homework and more practice

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/english/grade-10.

Free lesson plan from eurekami.com/lesson-plan-builder

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Analysing language for effect

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Date

Score/ 6

  1. Question 1

    The waves gnawed at the cliffs, year after year, until whole fields slipped into the sea. What does "gnawed" suggest about the sea?

    • A. It is calm and gentle.
    • B. It is shallow and warm.
    • C. It is frozen.
    • D. It is like a hungry animal, slowly and relentlessly destroying the land.

Harbour at Dawn (GCSE-style extract)

The harbour did not so much wake as surrender to the morning. Fog lay over the water like a damp grey blanket that someone had forgotten to fold, and the fishing boats nodded at their moorings, half-asleep, their ropes creaking in complaint. Old Tomas was already there. He was always there. He sat on an upturned crate at the end of the quay, mending a net with fingers that had long ago stopped feeling the cold. His knife flashed, paused, flashed again. Every so often he lifted his head and sniffed the air, as if the sea had written him a letter only he could read. Behind him, the town stirred reluctantly. A shutter rattled up. A dog barked twice and thought better of it. Somewhere a kettle began its thin, rising whistle. The smell of bread drifted from the bakery on Water Lane and mixed with the older, deeper smells of salt, diesel and fish. Then the sun arrived. It did not rise so much as break through – one bright blade splitting the fog, then another, until the whole harbour was suddenly ablaze. The water turned from slate to copper. Gulls exploded upward from the harbour wall, screaming. The boats seemed to sit up straighter. Tomas did not look up. He tied off the last knot, tested it with a sharp tug, and laid the net across his knees like a sleeping cat. Only then did he raise his eyes to the brightening sea, and for a moment, just a moment, his face softened into something very close to a smile.

  1. Question 2

    Read "Harbour at Dawn (GCSE-style extract)". In paragraph 3, the dog "barked twice and thought better of it". What is the effect?

    • A. It adds gentle humour and reinforces the sleepy, reluctant mood.
    • B. It suggests the town is noisy and lively.
    • C. It creates fear and panic.
    • D. It shows the dog is dangerous.

  2. Question 3

    Read "Harbour at Dawn (GCSE-style extract)". "The harbour did not so much wake as surrender to the morning." What does the word "surrender" suggest?

    • A. The harbour is closing for good.
    • B. The harbour is excited for the day.
    • C. The harbour is attacked by enemies.
    • D. The harbour gives in to the day slowly and unwillingly.

The Gardener's Ledger

My father kept two books. The first was the ledger in which he recorded every coin that passed through the shop: the price of flour, the cost of the new awning, the debts that customers swore they would settle by Friday. He wrote in it every evening, in a small, upright hand, and he never let anyone else touch it. The second book I did not discover until after he died. It was a cheap school exercise book, its cover soft with handling, hidden at the back of the shed behind the seed trays. Inside, in the same upright hand, he had recorded something quite different: the date the first snowdrop appeared each year; the night a fox had dug up the tulips; the morning, in 1987, when "M. laughed at the robin on the spade and said it was the bravest bird in England." M. was my mother. I had never heard my father mention her laugh. For forty years, it seemed, he had been keeping accounts of another kind – of small, unprofitable things that added up to a life. The shop ledger balanced to the penny. The garden book did not balance at all. There were gaps of months, sometimes years. In 1993, the year my mother died, there is only one entry: "Rain." I used to think my father was a man who cared only for what could be counted. I sat in that cold shed until the light went, reading his small, careful sentences, and understood that I had been reading the wrong book.

  1. Question 4

    Read "The Gardener's Ledger". "The shop ledger balanced to the penny. The garden book did not balance at all." What is the effect of this contrast?

    • A. It proves the shop was failing.
    • B. It shows the father was bad at maths.
    • C. It suggests life and love cannot be neatly measured like money.
    • D. It shows the garden was untidy.

  2. Question 5

    Read "The Gardener's Ledger". What does the narrator mean by "keeping accounts of another kind"?

    • A. recording things that mattered emotionally rather than financially
    • B. running a second shop
    • C. hiding money from the family
    • D. counting the plants for sale

Harbour at Dawn (GCSE-style extract)

The harbour did not so much wake as surrender to the morning. Fog lay over the water like a damp grey blanket that someone had forgotten to fold, and the fishing boats nodded at their moorings, half-asleep, their ropes creaking in complaint. Old Tomas was already there. He was always there. He sat on an upturned crate at the end of the quay, mending a net with fingers that had long ago stopped feeling the cold. His knife flashed, paused, flashed again. Every so often he lifted his head and sniffed the air, as if the sea had written him a letter only he could read. Behind him, the town stirred reluctantly. A shutter rattled up. A dog barked twice and thought better of it. Somewhere a kettle began its thin, rising whistle. The smell of bread drifted from the bakery on Water Lane and mixed with the older, deeper smells of salt, diesel and fish. Then the sun arrived. It did not rise so much as break through – one bright blade splitting the fog, then another, until the whole harbour was suddenly ablaze. The water turned from slate to copper. Gulls exploded upward from the harbour wall, screaming. The boats seemed to sit up straighter. Tomas did not look up. He tied off the last knot, tested it with a sharp tug, and laid the net across his knees like a sleeping cat. Only then did he raise his eyes to the brightening sea, and for a moment, just a moment, his face softened into something very close to a smile.

  1. Question 6

    Read "Harbour at Dawn (GCSE-style extract)". Which phrase best shows the dramatic change brought by the sun?

    • A. "Old Tomas was already there."
    • B. "The water turned from slate to copper."
    • C. "A shutter rattled up."
    • D. "his knife flashed, paused, flashed again."

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Answer key: Analysing language for effect

  1. 1. D. It is like a hungry animal, slowly and relentlessly destroying the land.

  2. 2. A. It adds gentle humour and reinforces the sleepy, reluctant mood.

  3. 3. D. The harbour gives in to the day slowly and unwillingly.

  4. 4. C. It suggests life and love cannot be neatly measured like money.

  5. 5. A. recording things that mattered emotionally rather than financially

  6. 6. B. "The water turned from slate to copper."