Good Learning Co.
SavannahYear 8
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EnglishWriting at length, then making it better30 min★★★ difficulty

The five-minute accuracy sweep

Accuracy marks are the easiest ones to get back, and the ones most people lose. This lesson trains a fixed order for checking a piece of writing in five minutes, so you are not vaguely rereading and hoping.

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Amend the vocabulary, grammar and structure of their writing to improve its coherence and overall effectiveness

Key learning points

  • • Why order matters
  • • Pass one: sentence boundaries
  • • Passes two and three: apostrophes, homophones, tense
  • • Pass four, and what to leave alone

This lesson at a glance

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

Words to know

vocabularygrammarstructurewritingimprove

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 18 · Discover6%
1

Watch & discover

Part 1 of 18

Watch first

The five-minute accuracy sweep

An English teaching video on this topic from Business English Benjamin · engVid. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Amend the vocabulary, grammar and structure of their writing to improve its coherence and overall effectiveness

2

What you already know

Part 2 of 18

Before we start

What you already know

You can redraft to improve coherence and effectiveness.

Recap: Redrafting: the four passes
3

Key words

Part 3 of 18

Key words

Words you'll need today

Comma splice
Two complete sentences joined only by a comma.
Tense consistency
Staying in the same tense unless there is a reason to change.
Homophone
Words that sound alike but are spelled differently: their, there, they're.
Apostrophe of possession
Marks ownership: the girl's coat, the girls' coats.
Paragraph break
A new paragraph for a change of time, place, topic or speaker.
4

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 18

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Four passes, in a fixed order

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

5

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 18

Learn

Why order matters

Reading through 'to check it' finds almost nothing, because your brain reads what it meant to write. Four separate passes, each looking for one thing only, finds far more in less time: sentence boundaries, then apostrophes and homophones, then tense, then paragraphs. Roughly a minute each, and you never look for two things at once.

6

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 18

Learn

Pass one: sentence boundaries

Put your finger on every full stop and check that what sits between two of them could stand alone. This catches the comma splice - 'It was raining, we went anyway' - which is the single commonest error at KS3. Fix it three ways: full stop, semicolon, or a connective ('It was raining, but we went anyway'). Also catch the run-on sentence stitched with 'and' four times.

7

Quick check

Part 7 of 18

Quick check

'It was raining, we went anyway' is an example of...

8

Reset break

Part 8 of 18

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

Quick check

Part 9 of 18

Quick check

Which is correct?

10

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 18

Learning cycle 2 of 2

The errors that cost the most

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

11

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 18

Learn

Passes two and three: apostrophes, homophones, tense

Apostrophes: only for missing letters (don't) or ownership (the dog's lead). Never for plurals - 'two dog's' is wrong. Homophones: their/there/they're, your/you're, its/it's - check each one individually, because a spellchecker will not. Tense: pick one and stay in it; the classic slip is a story that begins in the past and drifts into the present halfway down page two.

12

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 18

Learn

Pass four, and what to leave alone

Paragraphs: a new one for a change of time, place, topic or speaker. If you have a page with no break, you are losing organisation marks. Then stop. Do not rewrite whole sentences for style in the last five minutes - late rewriting is where new errors come from. Style improvements belong in redrafting; this sweep is for accuracy only.

13

Quick check

Part 13 of 18

Quick check

You need a new paragraph when there is a change of...

14

Quick check

Part 14 of 18

Quick check

Why check for one error type per pass?

15

Common mix-ups

Part 15 of 18

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

  • A comma cannot join two complete sentences on its own.
  • Apostrophes never make plurals.
  • It's means 'it is'; its shows possession.
  • One long unbroken page costs organisation marks even if the writing is good.
16

Challenge round

Part 16 of 18

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

17

Mastery quiz

Part 17 of 18

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: The five-minute accuracy sweep

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

  1. 1. 'It's' means...

  2. 2. Which fixes a comma splice?

  3. 3. Tense consistency means...

  4. 4. 'The girls' coats' shows...

  5. 5. In the final five minutes you should NOT...

  6. 6. The commonest punctuation error at KS3 is...

18

Lesson round-up

Part 18 of 18

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 18 · Watch & discover

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