AQA A-Level English Language Paper 1

AO1 (Questions 1 & 2 — 40%, Question 3 — 0%, Questions 4 & 5 — 50%)

Apply linguistic methods and terminology, identifying patterns and complexities. Apply different levels of language analysis in an integrated way, recognising how they are connected. Apply levels of language analysis with rare errors. Guide the reader.

AO2 (Questions 1 & 2 — 0%, Question 3 — 0%, Questions 4 & 5 - 50%)

Students will demonstrate a synthesised, conceptualised and individual overview of issues, evaluate and challenge views, approaches and interpretations of linguistic issues.

AO3 (Questions 1 & 2 — 60%, Question 3 — 0%, Questions 4 & 5 — 0%)

Evaluate use of language and representations according to context. Explore analysis within wider social and cultural contexts.

AO4 (Questions 1 & 2 — 0%, Question 3 — 100%, Questions 4 & 5 — 0%)

Evaluate the importance and effect of connections found across texts. Evaluate the effects of audiences and purposes. Evaluate the effects of mode and genre. Evaluate the effects of social and historical contexts. Place texts within wider discourses.

Simple Sentences

Sentences which consist of one independent clause.

Complex Sentences

Sentences which have an independent clause and a subordinate clause.

Compound Sentences

Sentences which join two independent clauses together using connectives.

Independent Clause

A clause that contains one subject and one verb, and can function as a sentence on its own.

Relative Clause

A clause that begins with a relative pronoun.

Subordinate Clause

A clause that contains one subject and one verb, and depends on an independent clause for complete meaning.

Subject

A noun that completes the verb.

Object

A noun that is the target of the verb.

Active Sentences

Sentences where the subject performs the action.

Passive Sentences

Sentences where the subject is the target of the action.

Noun Phrase

A noun and its associated adjectives.

Pre-modified Noun Phrase

A noun phrase where the adjectives come before the noun.

Post-modified Noun Phrase

A noun phrase where the adjectives come after the noun.

Verb Phrase

A verb and all of its associated auxiliary verbs.

Auxiliary Verbs

Minor verbs that assist the main verb in clarifying modality or time.

Tone

The attitude of a piece of writing.

Mode

The means of communication — spoken, written, or multimodal.

Spoken Mode

Typically informal, with shorter sentences, false starts, interruptions, and hesitations. This is often seen as more genuine and casual, and used to feel ‘closer’ to the audience.

Written Mode

Typically formal, with complex and grammatically correct sentences. It is used to seem more trustworthy and knowledgeable about a topic.

Multimodal

Typically exploit the potentials of both spoken and written modes, using graphology to visually expand and demonstrate their points.

Genre

The style of text and its associated conventions.

Target Audience

The people for which the text is written.

Wider Discourse

The subject to which the text is contributing to.

Heath : Literacy and Class

Early school literacy reflects middle-class values, with activities based around shared reading and creative writing. Working-class communities typically use more oral-based activities such as storytelling, singing, and rhyming - perhaps resulting from community gatherings. Schools should recognise children’s literacy experiences rather than imposing a middle-class variety.

Parent-Child Interaction with Books : Gaining Attention

Getting the child’s attention on a feature of a book.

Parent-Child Interaction with Books : Query

Asking the child for their insight on a feature of a book.

Parent-Child Interaction with Books : Label

Affirming or correcting the child’s insight.

Parent-Child Interaction with Books : Feedback

Responding to the child’s utterance.

Look and Say Approach

Children are exposed to books from an early age and learn to recognise complete words.

Phonics Approach

Children learn to decode words by sounds rather than recognising complete words.

Analytic Phonics

Children learn to break whole words down into phonemes and graphemes, recognising one letter sound at a time.

Synthetic Phonics

Children memorise up to 44 phonemes and their related graphemes, blending the sounds to pronounce the word phonetically.

Graphophonic Reading Cue

Linking the shape of words to familiar graphemes to understand them.

Semantic Reading Cue

Understanding the meaning of words, allowing them to make connections to decode new words.

Visual Reading Cue

Using pictures and visual narrative to interpret new words.

Syntactic Reading Cue

Applying knowledge of syntax and word classes to work out the context of the word.

Contextual Reading Cue

Using the narrative and comparing it to experience to interpret meaning.

Miscue Reading Cue

Making mistakes when reading.

Chall’s Stages of Reading Development : Pseudo-reading (0 - 6 years)

Children in this stage will pretend to read (mimicking turning pages), recognise some letters and words, predict single words, and create stories based off pictures.

Chall’s Stages of Reading Development : Initial Reading (6 - 7 years)

Children in this stage begin to decode words, read simple texts that contain high-frequency lexis, identify familiar words and letters, and can understand around 600 written words.

Chall’s Stages of Reading Development : Confirmation and Fluency (7 - 8 years)

Children in this stage begin to read texts more quickly, accurately and fluently, gain a greater understanding of texts, and understand around 3,000 written words.

Chall’s Stages of Reading Development : Reading for Learning (9 - 14 years)

Children in this stage begin to read for learning, knowledge, and information, and are able to scan for most relevant details.

Chall’s Stages of Reading Development : Multiplicity and Complexity (14 - 17 years)

Children in this stage begin to recognise how meaning can be conveyed in different ways, recognise bias and inference, and respond critically and analytically to what they read.

Chall’s Stages of Reading Development : Construction and Reconstruction (18+ years)

Children in this stage begin to read selectively to form opinions, and read a range of sources and synthesise to develop their own interpretations.

Corbett : Good Writers

“Good writers read as writers” — young writers often imitate the texts that they read, drawing on what they have read to enhance their own writing. This may be explicit (using the same character archetypes, or following similar plots) or implicit (imitating the effects created).

Ferreiro & Teberosky : Environmental Print

Children develop knowledge about written language before being taught it formally, due to day-to-day experience of printed language in their local community. Children can learn without being taught, and literacy can be taught without literature.

Emergent Writing

Describes children’s early scribbles or representations of the written word.

Gross Motor Skills

Movements that require control over large groups of muscles.

Fine Motor Skills

Movements that require control over small groups of muscles.

Directionality

Writing and reading from left to right.

Tripod Grip

The way a writing utensil is typically held, using the thumb, index, and middle finger.

Goodman’s Principles of Development : The Functional Principle

The notion that writing can serve a purpose and has a function for the writer.

Goodman’s Principles of Development : The Linguistic Principle

The notion that writing has a system that is organised into words and letters and has directionality.

Goodman’s Principles of Development : The Relational Principle

Children start to connect what they write with spoken words - understanding that the written alphabet carries meaning

Clay’s Principles of Development : Recurring Principle

When a child only knows a limited number of letters, he or she might use them repeatedly to create a message. (Link to the holophrastic phase of speech)

Clay’s Principles of Development : Directional Principle

Reading and writing from left to right then using a return sweep to start again. (Link to learning to read)

Clay’s Principles of Development : Generating Principle

When a child starts to realise there are only a limited number of letters to use but these can be mixed and matched. The child begins to realise that there are patterns that can be used to convey a message.

Clay’s Principles of Development : Inventory Principle

A child begins to package knowledge together into lists of letters and words that they know. (Link to Aitchson’s Label-Package-Network)

Kroll’s Stages of Writing Development : Preparation Stage (up to 6 years old)

The child displays basic motor skills and has some principles of spelling.

Kroll’s Stages of Writing Development : Consolidation Stage (7 to 8 years old)

The child’s writing is similar to spoken language, with a more casual, colloquial register. Their writing often has unfinished sentences or strings of clauses connected with the conjunctive ‘and’.

Kroll’s Stages of Writing Development : Differentiation Stage (9 to 10 years old)

The child has an awareness of writing being separate to speech, and a stronger understanding of writing for different audiences and purposes.

Kroll’s Stages of Writing Development : Integration Stage (Mid-teens)

The child is developing a ‘personal voice’, with more controlled writing that has appropriate linguistic choices.

Barclay’s Stages of Children’s Writing : Scribbling

Random marks on a page, that bear little to no resemblance to legitimate graphemes.

Barclay’s Stages of Children’s Writing : Mock Handwriting

Scribbles that often appear with drawings and might resemble cursive writing.

Barclay’s Stages of Children’s Writing : Mock Letters

Children make shapes that resemble conventional graphemes.

Barclay’s Stages of Children’s Writing : Conventional Letters

The first word to appear is usually the child’s first name. The child will often write a string of letters across the page that they ‘read’ as a sentence.

Barclay’s Stages of Children’s Writing : Invented Spelling

As the child writes conventional letters, they begin to cluster letters to make unconventional words, often asking ‘what did I write?’.

Barclay’s Stages of Children’s Writing : Phonetic Spelling

Children begin to associate sounds with letters.

Barclay’s Stages of Children’s Writing : Conventional Spelling

This occurs as the child’s phonetic spellings become increasingly conventional.

Rothery’s Categories for Children’s Writing : Observation / Comment

The writer makes an observation and either follows this with an evaluative comment or includes the comment within the observation.

Rothery’s Categories for Children’s Writing : Recount

Usually a chronological sequence of events, written subjectively. The structure often follows a orientation - event - reorientation sequence.

Rothery’s Categories for Children’s Writing : Report

A factual and objective description of events or things. It is usually non-chronological.

Rothery’s Categories for Children’s Writing : Narrative

A story genre where the scene is set for events to occur and be resolved. The structure follows a orientation - complication - resolution (- coda) sequence. Because of the structural complexity, few children will accomplish this structure, despite familiarity with it from books.

Britton’s Modes of Children’s Writing : Expressive

The first mode to develop because it resembles speech. Usually uses the first person perspective and the content usually reflects the preferences of the writer.

Britton’s Modes of Children’s Writing : Poetic

Develops gradually, requiring skills in crafting and shaping language - but is encouraged early on for its creativity. Phonological features such as rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration - as well as descriptive devices such as adjectives and similes - are common.

Britton’s Modes of Children’s Writing : Transactional

Develops last, once children have dissociated speech from writing. It is the style of academic essays, as it is more impersonal in style and tone - usually using the third person. Formal sentence structures and graphological features are used to signpost sections that are usually chronological.

Perera’s Alternative Framework : Chronological

Relies on verbs and linking ideas using connectives.

Perera’s Alternative Framework : Non-Chronological

Considered harder to write because they rely on logical connections between ideas. Britton suggests that children are encouraged to write these earlier on because of their creative aspect.

National Curriculum

By the end of KS1, children should be able to “proofread to check for errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation.” By the end of KS3, students should “write accurately, fluently, effectively, and at length” as well as “pay attention to accurate grammar, punctuation, and spelling”

Granger, Goouch, and Lambirth : Creativity and Writing

Argues that children’s participation in “creative literacy practices which encompass writing” leads to “oral and written voices that reflect affective and authentic engagement”, which in turn extends their communication capabilities.

Abbott : Chicken Metaphor

Compares children taught with a creative-based approach to ‘free-range hens’ - children will thrive with the ability to explore language. Conversely, children taught with a rules-based approach are compared to ‘battery hens’ - children will be confined by the anxiety of making mistakes and will not thrive, only survive.

Brugelman : Inventive Spelling

Later orthographical development is fostered, not hindered, by inventive and creative spelling.

Gentry’s Spelling Stages : Pre-Communicative

Children imitate writing, mainly scribbling and using pretend writing. Some letter shapes are decipherable. Random letters and symbols with no phoneme-grapheme correspondence. (Link to emergent writing)

Gentry’s Spelling Stages : Semi-Phonetic

Children link letter shapes to sounds, using this to write words. Some phoneme-grapheme correspondence. (Link to Kroll’s Preparation stage)

Gentry’s Spelling Stages : Phonetic

Children understand that all phonemes can be represented by graphemes; words become more complete. Spellings are based on the sounds of words.

Gentry’s Spelling Stages : Transactional

Children combine phonic knowledge with visual memory; an awareness of combination of letters and letter patterns. Silent letters begin to be acknowledged within words.

Gentry’s Spelling Stages : Conventional

Children can spell most words correctly, with difficult or alternative spellings learnt.

Spelling Errors : Insertion

Extra graphemes added to a word

Spelling Errors : Omission

Graphemes removed from words

Spelling Errors : Substitution

Switching one grapheme for another

Spelling Errors : Transposition

Reversing the order of correct graphemes

Spelling Errors : Phonetic Spelling

Using sound awareness to attempt the order of graphemes (usually linked with salient sounds)

Spelling Errors : Over / Under Generalisation

Applying or dismissing spelling rules

Spelling Errors : Salient Sounds

Writing only the key sounds

Chomsky : Nativism

Language is an innate fundamental part of the human genetic make-up and language acquisition occurs naturally. Children are born with an innate ability to organize language rules, which enables children to easily learn a native language.

Chomsky : Language Acquisition Device

Humans have an inborn biological capacity for language, which predisposes them to acquire language.