Developing the key skills year 8 English students need to able to read, write and engage with a wide variety of text types is the focus of our English tuition.
In our English classes, students have the chance to read a range of texts, both fiction and non-fiction, engage in discussion with their English tutor and fellow students, as well as write in a variety of different styles in response to what they read.
Our year 8 English tuition is designed to provide students with a range of practical skills that will mean that they can take on important tasks like critical reading and text production with greater surety. The key areas of focus are text analysis, text production and grammar & language.
Analysing Texts
Our year 8 English tutors provide students with opportunities to read, analyse, discuss and write about a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts. Students then write about these texts in a range of ways through a variety of different tasks that enhance their ability respond to what they read.
Examples of tasks
- Our year 8 English tutors teach students how to express their opinions about a text cogently, and to organise their written responses in such a way that their thoughts are clearly expressed and well organised.
- We teach our students the important skill of summarising and give them the opportunity to write summaries of both fiction and non-fiction texts. This involves an emphasis on structure and organisation in order for students’ ideas to be expressed clearly.
- A crucial skill that we develop in our students is the ability to analyse how a text is organised in terms of its structure, as well as the literary techniques used and the writer’s language choices. There is an emphasis on understanding the link between how a text is structured and its meaning.
- Being able to compare texts and write about their similarities and differences is an important skill for year 8 English students to develop. We provide students with the opportunity to compare and contrast a range of different texts, including fiction and non-fiction, with a focus on the organisation of written responses.
- Our English tutors work with year 8 students to help them develop their understanding of characters in a range of different fiction texts. This includes examining the techniques writers use to create characters, as well as teaching students how to respond to and write about characters effectively.
Text Production
In our year 8 English tuition classes, our tutors work with students to enhance their understanding of how writers create different types of texts so as to improve their own ability to create a variety of text styles. Students get the opportunity to write in a range of different ways so that they understand the types of techniques required to produce different styles of text.
Examples of tasks
- A key text production task is review writing, and our year 8 English tutors work with students to write a range of different types of review. These include reviews of books, stories, poems and films, with a focus on literary techniques and characters, as well as reviews of games, technology, shops, food, etc.
- Information writing is an important skill that year 8 English students need to develop, and our tutors help students to create clear and well-organised texts in this genre. For instance, students might create an instruction text on how to use a piece of technology, or a guide to a favourite place.
- An important skill that our year 8 English tutors help our students to develop is the ability to write in a range of different styles and genres e.g., mystery, adventure, fantasy, etc. This is based on helping students to understand how these different types of text are created in terms of structure and literary techniques, and then giving them the chance to apply what they have learnt in their own writing.
Grammar and Language
When texts are discussed in our year 8 English tuition classes, there is always a focus on grammar and language, particularly the ways in which structure and word choice are central to meaning. In order to be able to produce their own texts, students need to have a sound understanding of how language works and so all of our textual analysis includes how authors structure their writing.
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