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EnglishGCSE Language Paper 2: viewpoints and perspectives35 min★★★ difficulty

Language Paper 2 Question 5: writing a viewpoint

Forty marks for a letter, article, speech or essay. Form and register are half the battle; a persuasive argument that ignores its audience cannot reach the top band.

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Write a letter, article, speech or essay presenting a point of view, organised for effect and technically accurate.

Key learning points

  • • Read the form and audience carefully
  • • Argument architecture
  • • Rhetoric used sparingly
  • • Evidence you may invent

This lesson at a glance

  • 35 minutes
  • 17 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • Marked quiz at the end
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

letterarticlespeechpresentingorganised

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 17 · Discover6%
1

Watch & discover

Part 1 of 17

Watch first

Language Paper 2 Question 5: writing a viewpoint

An English teaching video on this topic from First Rate Tutors. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Write a letter, article, speech or essay presenting a point of view, organised for effect and technically accurate.

2

Learning cycle

Part 2 of 17

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 · Read the form and audience carefully

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

3

Explore the idea

Part 3 of 17

Learn

Read the form and audience carefully

A letter to a headteacher, a speech to students and an article for a broadsheet are three different registers. Match the opening: a letter has a salutation, a speech addresses listeners, an article carries a headline and a hook.

4

Explore the idea

Part 4 of 17

Learn

Argument architecture

Plan four paragraphs: a concession you answer, your strongest point with evidence, a second point with an example or anecdote, and a call to action. Answering the other side early makes the rest sound reasonable rather than shrill.

5

Quick check

Part 5 of 17

Quick check

Why open with a concession you then answer?

6

Quick check

Part 6 of 17

Quick check

How much rhetoric should a top-band answer use?

7

Learning cycle

Part 7 of 17

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 · Rhetoric used sparingly

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

8

Reset break

Part 8 of 17

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
9

Explore the idea

Part 9 of 17

Learn

Rhetoric used sparingly

One rhetorical question, one triadic list and one deliberate short sentence will do more than a page of devices. Overloaded rhetoric reads as a checklist and depresses the content mark.

10

Explore the idea

Part 10 of 17

Learn

Evidence you may invent

You may create plausible statistics, expert names and anecdotes; examiners do not fact-check. Keep them plausible and specific — a named local example lands better than an implausible global figure.

11

Quick check

Part 11 of 17

Quick check

May you invent statistics and examples?

12

Quick check

Part 12 of 17

Quick check

Which opening best matches an article for a national newspaper?

13

Explore the idea

Part 13 of 17

Worked example

Model opening

Dear Councillor Hart, I am writing about the plan to close the Marley Street library on Saturdays. I understand the pressure on the budget; nobody expects a service to run on goodwill alone. But the saving of roughly four thousand pounds a year comes at the cost of the only warm, free room in this ward where a teenager can revise. Last term, twenty-two of us used it every weekend. Close the door on Saturday and you do not save money — you move the cost somewhere it will be harder to see.

14

Challenge round

Part 14 of 17

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

15

Challenge round

Part 15 of 17

Game · Fill the gaps

Finish the sentences

Choose the word that belongs in each gap.

A ____ to a headteacher, a speech to students and an article for a broadsheet are three different registers.

Match the opening: a letter has a salutation, a speech addresses listeners, an ____ carries a headline and a hook.

16

Mastery quiz

Part 16 of 17

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: Language Paper 2 Question 5: writing a viewpoint

4 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

  1. 1. Why open with a concession you then answer?

  2. 2. How much rhetoric should a top-band answer use?

  3. 3. May you invent statistics and examples?

  4. 4. Which opening best matches an article for a national newspaper?

17

Lesson round-up

Part 17 of 17

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Extract

The last bus

The bus shelter smelled of wet coats. Mira pressed her timetable flat against the glass, as though staring at the numbers might make the 9:42 appear. Rain tapped the roof in small, impatient fingers. Somewhere behind her, a shop shutter came down with a sound like a full stop.

She had been brave all day. She had been brave in the corridor, brave at lunch, brave when the register reached her name and nobody looked up. Being brave, she decided, was mostly a matter of keeping your face still.

Headlights swung around the corner and lit the puddles gold. Mira picked up her bag. Tomorrow she would say something. Tonight she would simply go home.

Original extract written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. Find two words or phrases that show how Mira is feeling, and explain what each one suggests.
  2. How does the writer use the weather and the sounds to build the mood? Use a short quotation.
  3. Write the next paragraph in the same style, keeping the writer's short sentences at the moments that matter.

  • Reading response

    Reading

    Read the extract again, then write about how the writer makes you feel that way. Use a short quotation and explain your choice of words.

    2 paragraphs (PEE)

  • Extended writing

    Writing

    Write your piece in full, then redraft the opening so it hooks the reader.

    250–350 words

  • Reading log

    Reading

    Note the book, the pages you read and one thing you noticed about the writing.

    20 minutes' reading

Saved as you type.

Part 1 of 17 · Watch & discover

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