Homophones

Homophones are words that are pronounced the same but have different meaning.

Try and think of an example of a spelling for the following homophones:

To

Too

Two

There

They’re

Their

Aisle

Isle

Be

Bee

Cell

Sell

Cent

Scent

Flour

Flower

Hear

Here

Meat

Meet

Pair

Pear

Pray

Prey

Sew

So

Sow

Tail

Tale

Toe

Tow

Wear

Where

Writing to Inform

Writing to Inform

You will find many examples of writing to inform all around you. These can be:

·         Recipes

·         Railway timetable

·         Book/ movie review

·         Travel brochure

·         Guide book

·         Letter to parents about a school trip

When writing to inform it is important that you think about the purpose and audience.

Purpose- What the writing is trying to do

Audience- Who the writing is aimed at

You will need to decide-

·         Is it formal or informal?

·         Does it use jargon (specialist terms)

·         Does it use slang?

·         How long is the piece?

·         Is it laid out in an appropriate manner for the audience?

·         Does it appeal to the target audience?

·         Is it complex or simple to follow?

·         How does the font (colour, size and style), pictures, backgrounds, etc create a particular impression?

Example-

The Mission Specialist opened the payload bay doors and used the RMS to deploy the satellite. This was only possible once the pilot had used the OMS to get the shuttle in to the correct position.

It is clear from this example that there is a lot of space and aviation terminology and many abbreviations and so this would be aimed at an audience who had prior knowledge in this area. The same information may be altered if the audience are not knowledgeable in this area:

The Mission Specialist, who is in charge of science experiments on board, opened the large doors of the shuttle and used the RMS (the long robotic arm) to launch the satellite in to orbit. Before this was possible the pilot had to move the shuttle in to the correct position by using the smaller engines that are near the nose of the shuttle.

Writing to Entertain

Writing to Entertain

The following English techniques are used to entertain the audience in different ways:

·         The unexpected

·         Cliffhangers

·         Knowing something the character doesn’t

·         Humour/ horror/ suspense

·         Realistic, three-dimensional characters

·         Life or death situations

·         Events or places that we would otherwise not know about (eg. Space, submarine, back in time)

·         Short sentences for tension or action

·         Precise adjectives to show the writer’s mood

·         Power of three to describe

·         Lots of detail

·         Repetition for effect

·         Choice of words (eg. Mellifluous voice)

·         Use of action verbs to make it fast paced

·         Longer sentences for detail and a slower pace/ tension

·         Dialogue

·         Showing how the character feels

·         Delaying the climax to build up tension

Read the following extract from Jane Eyre and look at what techniques are used to build suspense:

This was a demoniac laugh- low, suppressed and deep- uttered, as it seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laughter stood at my bedside- or rather, crouched on my pillow…