'A Christmas Carol': planning an extended argument
I can plan a convincing, holistic argument about the text.
'A Christmas Carol': planning an extended argument
I can plan a convincing, holistic argument about the text.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- When writing an essay, you have to think carefully about the order in which you present your ideas.
- When writing, lay the foundational knowledge, then include primary/secondary evidence, then give a personal response.
- It can be difficult to bring any new interpretations to commonly-used quotations, so try to pick some lesser-used ones.
- Giving a personal response to the text shows your reader your enthusiasm for the text and the subject.
- Using paragraph outlines to plan your response can be useful when considering the structure of your argument.
Keywords
Holistic - when something is holistic, all the separate parts are connected and work together as a whole.
Explorative - to be explorative about a topic means to approach it in a spirit of investigation and curiosity.
Primary evidence - primary evidence refers to the commonly-used quotations from a text.
Secondary evidence - secondary evidence refers to less well known quotations that can build your argument.
Reductionist - being reductionist means analysing something complicated into its simplest form.
Common misconception
Students think that it doesn't matter which quotations they select for use.
It can be difficult to bring any new interpretations to commonly-used quotations, so try to pick some lesser-used ones.
To help you plan your year 10 english lesson on: 'A Christmas Carol': planning an extended argument, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 10 english lesson on: 'A Christmas Carol': planning an extended argument, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 english lessons from the A Christmas Carol: Scrooge's redemption unit, dive into the full secondary english curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Content guidance
- Depiction or discussion of discriminatory behaviour
Supervision
Adult supervision recommended
Licence
Lesson video
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Starter quiz
6 Questions
includes a thesis statement - introduces holistic argument
introduces idea for the paragraph
includes evidence for your opinion and relevant context
summarises ideas from the paragraph
revisits thesis statement - summarises overarching argument