What writing does differently
Look at your three predictions written out. Cross out every word that was only there because you were speaking.
Then notice what you have to add. Writing has no voice, so the certainty has to be in the words.
Six things from your three minutes. Match each to what happens to it on the page.
A finished piece
Three Predictions · 181 words
Three things about my street, in order of how sure I am.
The first is easy. The station car park has been fenced off since March and there are surveyors there every week. It will become flats. I would put money on it, and so would everybody who walks past.
The second is less certain. I think the market will probably survive, but not as a market for people who live here — half the stalls are empty on a Tuesday and the ones that are left sell to tourists. On the other hand, the council has just paid for a new roof, and nobody spends money on a building they are about to close.
The third is where I could easily be wrong. I do not think the bypass will ever be built. They have promised it since before I was born. But if the station really does become flats, the traffic argument gets much stronger, and then it might happen after all.
So: flats, definitely. The market, probably, in some form. The bypass, probably not — unless everything else changes first.
Four questions about the construction of the piece.
1. The first line says the predictions are in order of how sure I am. What does that buy?
2. Each paragraph gives evidence before the claim. Why not the other way round?
3. Paragraph three argues against its own claim. Is that a weakness?
4. The last paragraph is twenty words and repeats all three. What is it for?
Five paragraphs, five jobs
The shape, and roughly how long each part runs
| Paragraph | Job | Words |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | One sentence. What the piece is, and that it is ranked | 10–15 |
| 2 | The strongest prediction. Evidence, then claim, then will + adverb | 35–45 |
| 3 | The middle one, marked as less certain, with a counter-argument | 55–65 |
| 4 | The weakest. Where you could be wrong, plus the condition that would change it | 45–55 |
| 5 | All three in one clause each, one adverb apiece | 15–25 |
Five sentences from a different student’s piece, shuffled. Put them back into the five-paragraph shape.
Two rules the model obeys.
Every prediction carries an adverb, and every adverb is on the correct side of its modal. On the page there is no voice to do that work, so the word has to.
Every time clause takes the present. There is exactly one in the model — if the station really does become flats — and it is the sentence most likely to go wrong in yours.
Before you write it
The middle paragraph of a piece, with its modals, adverbs and time clauses missing. One to four words per gap.
The second is . I think the bus station close, because two of the four routes have already gone and nobody has replaced them. , the town has no other stop with a shelter, and if they it, several hundred people have anywhere to wait in the rain. So I would say it close this year, but it survive another five.
Six sentences of the kind that appear in first drafts of this piece. Fix each now.
1. When the survey will be finished, we will know more.
2. It won’t definitely be built before 2030.
3. I think it will kind of maybe survive, sort of.
4. My second prediction is more less certain.
5. Will be no shops left on that street.
6. They might to build housing there instead.
Write it
Task card · Writing · Individual · 16 minutes
Your three predictions, on paper, ranked. This is the piece that goes into your portfolio and closes A2.
Five paragraphs, about 180 words, called Three Predictions.
- Paragraph 1: one sentence naming the subject and saying the three are ranked.
- Paragraph 2: the strongest. Evidence first, then the claim, with
willand an adverb. - Paragraph 3: the middle one, marked as less certain, with a counter-argument.
- Paragraph 4: the weakest, with the condition that would change your mind.
- Paragraph 5: all three in one clause each, one adverb apiece.
- At least two words from the Lesson 4 vocabulary list. At least one time clause, in the present. Write the word count at the bottom.
Write straight through, then cut. Aim for about 220 words in the first twelve minutes and spend the last four cutting to 180. Cut hedges first — three vague ones are always worth less than one adverb.
Task card · Audit · Pairs · 7 minutes
Swap. You are a reader who has never heard any of this out loud.
Hand back a marked page and one spoken sentence: which of the three predictions you found least convincing, and why.
- Put each of the three predictions on the certainty scale from the words alone. Write your placement in the margin.
- Circle every time word and check the tense that follows it.
- Box every adverb and check which side of the modal it is on.
- Underline any prediction with no evidence in front of it. Those are opinions.
What the drafts did
Five sentences from drafts of this piece. Fix each, then check your own page.
1. If the council will approve it, work starts in June.
2. The market won’t probably last another winter.
3. I am worried that will be no green space.
4. What concerns me is the automations and the remote works.
5. They have promised the bypass since I am a child.
What goes home
Two questions about your own draft.
1. Your reader put prediction one under "possible" when you meant "certain". What went wrong?
2. Your piece came to 235 words. What should you cut first?
Before next lesson. Rewrite it once from the marked page and bring the clean version on paper.
Next lesson is the A2 assessment. It covers this whole term — Units 9 to 12 — and it is the last lesson of the level. Bring everything.