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Assignment 3: Narrative Writing ( CIE IGCSE English Language )

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Assignment 3: Narrative Writing

Assignment 3 of your coursework portfolio is a piece of narrative writing. To reach the highest levels of the mark scheme you are required to create a developed, well-defined plot and include features of fiction writing, such as characterisation and setting.

The following guide is broken into the following sections:

Assignment examples

How to write to narrate, narrative writing techniques.

In this assignment you are only examined on your writing skills, and your piece of writing should be between 500 and 800 words in length. There are 10 marks available for content and structure, and 15 marks available for style and accuracy, as follows:

Narratives may be written in any relevant form, such as the opening or closing chapter of a longer story, or a short story in itself, but features of fiction writing should be evident. Your ideas should be explored and developed imaginatively. Remember, a story that entertains is normally a successful one!

You may be asked to write a story that creates suspense and atmosphere, or something that explores relationships and emotions. Alternatively, you may be asked to write about adventure, achievement or something that contains unexpected events. Any possibility that addresses specific readers and maintains the reader’s interest and engagement are valid. The best short stories are based on a single plot idea, have a maximum of two main characters and tend to be set in a place familiar to you.

Narrative story writing develops an idea to a conclusion. The way to achieve this in an exam is by planning an ending with a resolution (you should plan whether your story will end happily or not).

In order to adhere to the conventions of story writing, it is best to: 

• Plan your writing in an order which takes your character (and reader) on a clear journey:
• The best way to do this is to plan one main event
• Ensure your plot is simple enough to be coherent and cohesive
• Consider employing structural techniques, such as a flashback:
• This can give background information to the reader and provide context
• Ensure you use past-tense verbs for this
• Develop your characters:
• Consider essential narrative character archetypes, such as “villain”, “victim”, “hero”, etc.
• Decide on how your characters fit these descriptions 
• When describing people, focus on relevant details only:
• You could focus on their body language or movements
• If using dialogue, the verbs you use to describe how your characters speak can reveal more about them than what they say, e.g. “shrieked”, “mumbled”, “whispered”
• It is effective to repeat ideas related to colour
• You can repeat ideas for emphasis:
• For example, black and grey or green and blue

Narrative writing responses should be structured into five or six paragraphs. You should plan your response carefully as you have limited time to create a cohesive plot. Writing a response which has not been planned is likely to have an abrupt ending, or no ending at all, which will not get you high m arks.

There are lots of different narrative structures or arcs that you could use to plan your story. Bearing in mind you only have 15 minutes to plan, your story needs to be controlled and concise. One of the easiest ways to achieve this is to consider a five-part narrative structure, such as Freytag’s Pyramid:

Remember, each paragraph does not have to be the same length. In fact, better answers vary the lengths of their paragraphs for effect. What is important is to develop separate ideas or points in each paragraph, and to avoid repeating the same descriptions throughout your response. 

Once you have planned out the structure of your narrative, it’s a good idea to consider how to incorporate methods and techniques into your response. Below we have included some guides to help you when thinking about setting, characterisation and other linguistic techniques to make your narrative as engrossing as possible.

As this task assesses the ability to communicate clearly, effectively and imaginatively, it is important to consider how to use language constructively in a short story to convey an atmosphere or mood. Building an effective setting is key as it contributes to atmosphere and mood.

• Your setting should reflect your main character’s mood:
• You may know this as pathetic fallacy , which reflects the character’s mood in the environment, e.g., “the lonely road”
• As your setting reflects your character’s mood, your setting may change as the story progresses:
• Contrasting scenes is an effective way to convey ideas and to engage your reader:
• For example, your story may have started on a sunny afternoon, but may end as the sun sets or as a storm approaches 
• Whatever way you decide to contrast the scenes, ensure it reflects your character’s mood
• The best answers build a clear setting before introducing other information, such as introducing character:
• Describing setting is best done with sensory language as we experience places with all of our five senses
• This means you could describe the dark, light, colours, sounds, smells and weather
• The best way to clearly create setting is to allow an entire paragraph to describe the scene without confusing readers with other information like who is there
• Ensure all of your descriptive language builds the same mood and avoid mixing ideas. For example: “The graveyard was dark, cold and smelled like fragrant flowers” is confusing for your reader
• However, do not give too much away all at once!
• Keep your reader guessing and asking questions, such as “What is going on?”, “Why is this like this?” and “Who is this?”
• Think of establishing a setting a bit like the game “Taboo”, in which you have to describe something without stating explicitly what it is

Characterisation

This question asks you to create a short story and therefore you will need to build some elements of detailed characterisation. This means you need to consider what your character(s) represent. They may represent an idea, such as hope or strength or abandonment, or you could include a villain to represent injustice or evil. It is best to limit yourself to two characters in the time you have.

Well-rounded characters are taken on a journey: a character should undergo some form of development or change. The mark scheme rewards answers which clearly and effectively convey ideas, meaning that you need to consider the most effective ways of building a character in a short piece of writing. Ideally, you should focus more on indirect characterisation than direct characterisation:

Here, we will consider how to plan your character(s) effectively to engage your reader. This is what the examiner is looking for in your answer:

Linguistic devices

When considering your choice of language and the techniques you wish to employ, you must always remember that you are making deliberate choices for effect. It is important to consider the connotations of words and phrases, and how these may add depth to your writing. For example, do your word choices evoke certain emotions or feelings in the reader, or do they reveal aspects of a character’s personality, background or emotions? You should employ the principle of “show, not tell” in order to bring your writing to life in the reader’s mind.

Below you will find a brief explanation of some of the key techniques you could employ in your narrative (or descriptive) writing:

• Ensure that your response is a well organised and thoughtful interpretation of your title
• Demonstrate your ability to shape a narrative, including incorporating moments of tension and drama
• Use characterisation to create believable protagonists and characters
• Avoid cliches or over-used narratives, such as abandoned cabins in the woods
• Do not just “tell” a series of events:
• Consider imaginative ways to tell your story, apart from just a chronological account
• Include your characters’ thoughts and feelings, not just what happens
• Do not over-complicate your language unnecessarily:
• Do not underestimate the power of simple words and sentences to create significant impact
• Start at your story’s main setting, not in the journey or build up
• Ensure that all of the words you choose contribute to the overall atmosphere and effect you want to create
• Vary your sentence and paragraph lengths to keep the style and tone dynamic
• Do not over-use dialogue:
• Only use dialogue if it drives forward the plot and you are able to punctuate it correctly
• Consider the “message” of your story and how your characters represent this
• Consider the narrative perspective which will work most effectively for your story

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Author: Deb Orrock

Deb is a graduate of Lancaster University and The University of Wolverhampton. After some time travelling and a successful career in the travel industry, she re-trained in education, specialising in literacy. She has over 16 years’ experience of working in education, teaching English Literature, English Language, Functional Skills English, ESOL and on Access to HE courses. She has also held curriculum and quality manager roles, and worked with organisations on embedding literacy and numeracy into vocational curriculums. She now manages a post-16 English curriculum as well as writing educational content and resources.

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STEP Support - Assignment 3

Introduction

This is the third of the 25 Foundation modules. We suggest working through the first assignment and second assignment before starting this.

STEP is a challenging examination, and is different in style from A-level, although the mathematical content is the same. STEP questions are longer: they are designed to take around 30 minutes, rather than the typical 10 minutes required for an A-level question.

Do not worry if the STEP problems appear difficult: they are meant to be! However, you should not be daunted. These assignments are designed to help you to develop the skills you need, over time, so that by the time you sit the STEP exam in the summer of Y13 you will feel well-prepared.

About this assignment

The assignment is published as a pdf file below. Each STEP Support assignment module starts with a warm-up exercise, followed by preparatory work leading to a STEP question. Finally, there is a warm-down exercise.

The warm up for this assignment involves the sigma notation, and a proof of the formula for the sum of the terms of a geometric progression. For the last part, use the formula rather than summing the individual terms, and try to do this without using a calculator.

The main STEP question (2004 STEP 1 Question 2) introduces the “floor” notation. More information on this and related functions can be found here .

The final question involves a linear Diophantine equation, i.e. one of the form ax+by = c where a, b and c are are given integers and we are looking for a solution where x and y are also integers.

Further reading

More information on Diophantine equations can be found in this article on Plus, the free online mathematics magazine, and in this Wikipedia entry . You may also enjoy watching this talk by Dr Vicky Neale - 'How to Solve Equations' This Plus article shows how we can integrate from first principles. This Numberphile video discusses the "Monkeys and Coconuts" problem. Do not watch it until you have tried the assignment!

Hints, support and self evaluation

The “Hints and partial solutions for Assignment 3” file gives suggestions on how you can tackle the questions, and some common pitfalls to avoid, as well as some partial solutions and answers.

Here is a Worked Video Solution to the STEP question from this assignment.

Useful Links

Underground Mathematics: Selected worked STEP questions

STEP Question database

University of Cambridge Mathematics Faculty: What do we look for?

University of Cambridge Mathematics Faculty: Information about STEP

University of Cambridge Admissions Office: Undergraduate course information for Mathematics

Stephen Siklos' "Advanced Problems in Mathematics" book (external link)

MEI: Worked solutions to STEP questions (external link)

OCR: Exam board information about STEP (external link)

AMSP (Advanced Maths Support programme): Support for University Admission Tests (external link)

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