This unit is designed to prepare students for CIE IGCSE English Language (0500) Paper 2, Section B – Descriptive Writing. It covers a range of skills for building vivid imagery, while also addressing essential grammar concepts such a sentence construction, paragraphing, prepositions, verb tenses, and expanded noun phrases. This unit builds upon and extends the knowledge and skills that students develop in our KS3 Worlds Unveiled – Descriptive Writing scheme of learning (coming soon).
Lesson 11 – Spliced November 2025 (21/22)
Understand the purpose of a description
Explain the methods writers use to create a description
Evaluate what makes an effective description
Complete a 5 for 5 minutes retrieval task to help students recall the purpose of description and some techniques that can be used to achieve this.
Organise students into pairs and provide them with a MWB. Choose three Starter Descriptions and read them to the class one at a time. Ask pairs to illustrate the scene that they imagine after each one (don’t erase in between). At the end of the task, guide students to reflect on their three illustrations. Discuss – Which scene could we imagine most vividly? Why? Use students’ ideas to elicit the purpose of description.
Share LQ and provide an overview of Section B of the exam. Use the discussion to elicit the difference between description and narration.
Next, draw upon students’ existing knowledge by creating a mindmap of the different methods writers use to create description. With each example, record the technique and use questioning to elicit the effect. E.g. simile – imagery, pathetic fallacy – mood and imagery, sensory language – immersive, visceral response, etc. (it would be useful to save the mindmap to be referred to in future lessons).
Share three description extracts (which are all responding to the same prompt) with each pair. Using two different coloured highlighters, ask students to identify effective and less effective examples of description in each one. Students should annotate the highlighted areas to explain which methods from the earlier mindmap have been used, what effect this has, and why it is/is not effective.
Then ask pairs to use comparative judgement to decide which response they feel is most successful. Use this discussion to create a table of ‘Dos and Don’ts’ for effective description. Ensure that students understand the pitfalls of excessive description, overly verbose passages, incongruous ideas (e.g. mixing of senses) and unnecessary storytelling, in particular.
Choose three prompts and discuss: Which of these prompts would we feel most confident responding to? Why? Give students time to consider ideas and images for each one before taking feedback.
Ask pairs to select the prompt with which they would be most confident and draw a quick illustration of the scene they would like to create on MWBs. Then, using the ‘Dos and Don’ts’ table as a guide, give them time to devise a 100-word description. This could be done in books or on the large whiteboards around the room.
Ask pairs to swap their descriptions with another group. Guide students to give each other feedback using Kind, Specific, Helpful and focusing on ideas in the ‘Dos and Don’ts’ table.
HW – Guide students to complete the following quizzes for homework, in order to revise verbs tenses:
(Convert quizzes to Google Forms and assign on Google Classroom)
Review our knowledge of the different parts of a sentence
Understand how to construct and demarcate simple, compound and complex sentences
The purpose of this lesson is to recap students’ knowledge of sentence construction and the terminology used to discuss it. This terminology can then be used when giving students feedback throughout the SoL. The activities are best completed using mini whiteboards.
Complete a 5 for 5 minutes retrieval quiz to help students recap some of the different word classes.
Display the LQ ‘What is a sentence?’ on the board and give students time to discuss how they would articulate their answers. Then display an image (The Guardian’s Twenty Photographs of the Week offer topical examples) and guide them to write a simple sentence describing the scene on mini whiteboards (MWB). Record three responses from the class on the board and evaluate why these are/are not simple sentences. Use this exercise to gauge students’ existing knowledge and any misconceptions.
Display the rules for writing a simple sentence on the board. Ask students to review how far they have adhered to these rules by labelling the different parts of their own sentence. Guide them to correct their simple sentences if they have not adhered to all the rules.
Then, pose the following questions: What is a compound sentence? What is a complex sentence? Display another image on the board and ask students to write a compound and complex sentence about it on MWB. Share/elicit the rules for constructing each type of sentence and, again, create an opportunity for students to review their sentences against these rules, label the different parts, and correct any errors if necessary.
Review students’ understanding of the difference between main and subordinate clauses by displaying a range of examples on the board, one at a time. Ask them to use MWB to identify if these are main clauses or subordinate clauses, and ensure they can explain their choices.
Next, ask students to recall a list of coordinating and subordinating conjunctions on the board and list these on the board. Prompt them to write another compound and complex sentence about the same image, without using ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘because’, ‘since’ or ‘as’.
Move students onto thinking about embedded clauses. Display a main clause and subordinate clause on the board. Ask students to construct a complex sentence using these elements but stipulate that the subordinate clause cannot go before or after the main clause.
Assess how effectively students have used an embedded clause by noting three contributions from the class on the board and reviewing how clear and accurate they are, as a whole group. Use this activity to elicit the rules for using embedded clauses.
Display a final image on the board of a place (choose one inspired by one of the exam prompts). Guide students to describe it using the range of sentences that have been discussed during this lesson. Live model an example first so that students can see how sentences can be used deliberately, rather than in a tick-box manner.
Further Study:
If time allows, teachers could introduce embedded clauses using relative pronouns.
