Exam questions require candidates to write about things like adventure sports or to describe places. Exam mark schemes award marks when they notice the following in candidates’ work.
- Sentence demarcation is consistently secure and consistently accurate
- Wide range of punctuation is used with a high level of accuracy
- Uses a full range of appropriate sentence forms for effect
- Uses Standard English consistently and appropriately with secure control of complex grammatical structures
In other words, they are not interested in rock-climbing or what a cliff face looks like. They reward sentence demarcation (full stops), a wide range of punctuation (colons and semi-colons, for example) and so on. This is what our children need to plan for and practise. Their writing should feel different to the way they speak: written English is different to spoken English. But they can learn to write differently through speaking. Here’s a sample that hits all the above.
Yes, you may be lying in a foreign hospital bed; yes, you may be suffering a few broken bones; yes, you may have parents back in England worried sick. Yes, yes, yes: but, if you don’t learn to judge risks for yourself, you will never grow to be a strong person.
It’s got two sentences. It uses full stops, commas, colons and semi-colons and apostrophes. It’s got two complex sentences, one using parallel clauses, the other a conditional clause. But I don’t think candidates think like that. Best just to try talking like that. Weird, until you get used to it.
What to do
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Practise making up sentences like this. Let it be the only formula in which you communicate for a whole morning, until it becomes second nature. Until it becomes a joke. Until you’re sick to death of it.
Yes, you may want scrambled eggs for breakfast; yes, you may want brown toast; yes, you may want an avocado smoothie. Yes, yes, yes: but, if you’re not prepared to make it yourself, you’ll have what I give you.
Yes, you might want to hang-out with your mates; yes, you, might want to go shopping; yes, you might want to go and see Grandma. Yes, yes, yes: but, if you don’t wash the car, you’re not going anywhere.
Try doing it on everything; from tidying a bedroom, to cleaning the car, going out, ironing clothes, whatever you talk to your children about. And don’t do it sitting down at a desk: do it as part of the conversation of family life.
- Then – the hard bit – try writing some of your sentences down and putting in the punctuation. Or recite the sentences with the punctuation.
- Breaking it down helps.
Yes, you may want scrambled eggs for breakfast;
yes, you may want brown toast;
yes, you may want an avocado smoothie.
Yes, yes, yes:
but, if you’re not prepared to make it yourself, you’ll have what I give you.
Try using no instead of yes. Try using a different modal verb instead of may (might, can, could, shall, should, will, would, must, ought).
Then move onto another model
Try a series of questions
Must we cosset our children in cotton wool? Must we deny them the opportunity to experience the most beautiful forests and waterfalls in the world? Must we deny their spirits the warmth of the sun, the cold, clear waters of the most unspoilt rivers, the pure, unpolluted air . . . No, we must not.
OR
Must we clean our teeth after every meal? Must we traipse all the way up the stairs and along the landing to the bathroom? Must we brush our teeth for the full tedious two minutes on the built-in timer before sticking the brush back on the charger, the lid on the toothpaste and traipsing all the way back downstairs . . . No, we must not.
Or a triplet of parallel clauses
Think of all there is to enjoy: making new friends; discovering exotic countries and exciting landscapes; challenging your body and your mind.
Look out for sentences that seem complex, patterned or unusual in some way and copy them.