Context
I designed a 60-minute lesson for mixed-ability year 11 students on English Language paper 1 question 4, with a focus on including structural methods.
The Problem
Performance gap analysis of a recent English language paper 1 mock exam indicated that most students were losing the majority of marks in the paper on question 4. The question is out of 20 marks, and in my class the highest mark was 12/20. Most only attained level 2 (5-9 marks). This lesson was designed to address this issue and support the class to more confidently get more marks in this question, supporting the majority to get level 3(10-15 marks), and possibly pushing higher-attaining learners into level 4(16-20).
Design Decisions
The lesson began with a self-reflection exercise where students were prompted to grade their confidence with the questions in section A of the paper. This was to engage them meta-cognitively in considering their own experience of the recent mock exam, and to support my rationalisation for the lesson. This self-assessment data was gathered to show their perceived confidence gaps which aligned with performance data from the mock exam. This confirmed the accuracy of the identified learning need.
The question they would answer was then introduced to provide contextual framing of the extract. This ensured that learners could anchor their reading and analysis to the assessment objective. I had edited the question (and subsequently the WAGOLL) to align with the recent changes AQA announced for the exams, which will affect this cohort.
Students were required to self-annotate, then after formative assessment on this I focused their attention on specific parts (such as an embedded clause, or the juxtaposition of short and long sentences). I explicitly focused their attention on structural techniques as the class sometimes find these difficult to spot and write about, and I wanted to give them an opportunity to practice.
For the WAGOLL, I chose an example of a level 3 response (~13/20) because this was still a stretch for all of them. I considered showing them a WAGOLL that got 17/20 but felt that this would be discoraging for some of them. In the discussion of the WAGOLL, after discussing what it does well (clear point, used evidence from the text etc.), Higher-attaining learners were also able to identify areas where the WAGOLL could be improved. “This human-centred approach leveraged appropriately challenging exemplars to maintain engagement while ensuring cognitive accessibility for the diverse learner cohort.
Sentence starters were provided for support, and I also modelled a first sentence on the board for them. This supported students to get started, and some did utilise my modelled sentence.
Students received formative feedback as they wrote. Learners engaged in structured self-assessment using guided reflection prompts to evaluate their responses against the success criteria and examples.
The Artifact:
Below is the learning material developed to support this design.
Reflection:
What worked?: The learning design successfully supported the class to write at a higher level than in their mock exam. They were supported to do so through the use of an example and an awareness of success criteria.
What would I improve?: It was unneccessary to have the success criteria on a separate slide (I had printed it out) as it was extracted in discussion of the WAGOLL and learners could have been prompted to write it down during the discussion so that it was something they had engaged with more directly.
I would also reduce the green pen tasks to 1-2 tasks. The comparison to the level 1 and 3 WAGOLLs gave them the opportunity to reflect on their work, but the task for them to give themselves a WWW (what went well) and an EBI (even better if) was a challenge for most students to complete within the time remaining (about 5 minutes).
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