C/1116/003/A

KS4 English
Non-fiction – Travel Writing

LESSON PLANS

LESSON 1 – Reading Travel

Starter Activity:

1) Revision of the T.A.P. strategy. Students encouraged to think

about the TEXT TYPE, AUDIENCE, and PUPOSE of any text they
meet.

2) Where do we find travel writing? A number of contexts are put up

on the board and students are asked to highlight those where they
might find travel writing including broadsheet and tabloid
newspapers, web pages, email, brochures and leaflets, letter of
complaint or personal letters and emails, journals etc.

Looking at varied purposes within travel writing:

Whole class activity

Students are given a selection of cards with the purposes for various
text types printed on them. The class work as a whole, listening to
several short pieces of travel writing, and holding up the cards which
they think best describe the purposes of a piece and discussing their
reasons. This demonstrates that writing in the real world does not
always fit neatly into the categories with which students are familiar,
and a piece of writing often gains its richness and interest by having a
number of different purposes within a few paragraphs.

TEXT USED ON WHITEBOARD

Extract from "Tokyo Pastoral” by Angela Carter. repr. Virago (1992).
Nothing Sacred: Selected Writings. New Society (1970).

Group activity
The class is divided into small groups, and each group is given a travel
text from a different context including a journal, an email from a web
message board, a piece from a broadsheet newspaper etc. The groups
are then asked to annotate the text looking for different language
features, then describe it in terms of text type, audience and purpose.

TEXTS USED IN LESSON

1. Email from gapyear.com message boards by Katy Salter
http://www.gapyear.com/modules.php?
name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=17211
2. Newspaper Article – Nota Bene from The Independent on Sunday:
http://travel.independent.co.uk/news_and_advice/article338141.ece
3. Web journal - Don George from lonelyplanet.com
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/columns/traveller_archive/8may02/travell
er_index.htm

Plenary
The groups report back to the rest of the class, sharing and describing
texts that they have been working on.

Lesson 2 – Writing Travel

Starter Activity:
The class work together to produce a list of the language features they
might find in travel writing.

Modelling planning
The class look together at a possible exam question on the white board
looking for key words and using them to think about the purposes their
final piece will have.
A mind map is drawn on the board to plan the sorts of elements,
anecdotes and language that might be used in the piece, concentrating
on sensory language – sight, sound, touch, taste, smell and feelings.

Pair work
The class works in pairs to come up with their own mind maps of an
area with which they are both familiar, concentrating on the sensory
language, and thinking about where they might introduce anecdotes
onto their work.

Modelling writing
The teacher writes, on the spot, the beginning of a piece responding to
the exam question, and talks the class through the writing decisions
that have been made.

Work-shopping writing
The pairs are asked to use their mind map to respond to a different pair
of exam type questions, using their mind maps. This makes them aware
of how they can angle their material to respond to different audiences
and purposes. The teacher has the chance to work with individual
children at this point

Plenary
Some of the written work is shared with the class and discussed.