Coursework Assignment 1 informative analytical argumentative Inform the

Coursework Assignment 1: informative, analytical, argumentative • Inform the reader in detail about your phobia and its effects on you. Give detailed information / facts about the thing you fear. • Analyse the origins and cause of your phobia • Argue /Persuade that your irrational phobia should be taken seriously. Use language features of argue / persuade. • In addition, use Charlie Brooker’s style in his article to make your writing humorous too.

To get you thinking about fears and phobias, watch a couple of these wonderful animations. The Adventures of Figaro Pho is a warm-hearted, adorable, quirky and mischievous character … who just happens to be afflicted with a multitude of weird and wonderful phobias.

Introduction: show use of form - inform, analyse, argue. • Come closer, that’s right. Now listen carefully. I am going to tell you a secret! It’s a dark and shadowy thing; a cause of great emotional pain and embarrassment. This writing is a kind of therapy. I’m going to face my fear. Ok, here goes: I’m scared of…not the big stuff like war, disease and death, but mushrooms. Yes, mushrooms. I’m mychophobic and once I’ve finished with you, you will be too! • Let me tell you about last week.

Inform the reader of a recent phobia experience: Charlie Brooker The other night, for instance, I awoke at 4 am for a dozy late-night trip to the lavatory. As I sat there, blearily performing the necessaries, a spider the size of a small dog unexpectedly crawled out from behind the toilet and scampered across my bare right foot. I reacted like I'd been blasted in the coccyx with a taser gun. Blind panic took control of my body before the need to stop "going" had registered in my brain. You can imagine the aftermath. It's like a dirty protest in there. I may need to move house.

A* Student Example : Wasps Take for example, the other day. One minute I’m sat peacefully in my conservatory, drinking a nice refreshing glass of orange juice, the next all hell breaks loose when a wasp starts divebombing random targets around the room. The juice? Forget about it. I’m wildly screaming as I scamper frantically upstairs into the bathroom, locking the door, (as if the wasp is suddenly going to grow a human arm and hand try to open it) and sitting on the edge of the bath, trying to compose my frenzied self. I sit there, adrenalin laced thoughts bouncing around my skull. If it lands on the curtains, will I be able to squish it between a magazine and the wall? Do wasp guts stain? Maybe I should just take a swing at in mid-air, though maybe that’d just make it mad. If I make it mad will it sting me mercilessly then crawl into my ear? I wonder how that teacher dude in ‘Karate Kid’ picked off that fly with a pair of chopsticks. I so wish I was him right now. Meanwhile the wasp is in some unknown location downstairs, planning how it’s going to kill me. I decide that I have to do something; I can’t hide in here all day. I hesitantly unlock and open the bathroom door and slowly but surely make my way down the stairs and into the living room. There it is, crawling around on the coffee table. I frantically scan the room for a potential weapon – a fly swatter, a magazine, a shoe, a flamethrower…I notice my dad’s copy of The Daily Mail on the sofa. I grab it, crouch, and do my best “harmless furniture” imitation, trying my best to blend in to my environment so as not to arouse suspicion. For a moment, the wasp hovers near the blades of a ceiling fan. Next, it bobs and weaves toward the wall. For what seems an eternity, it darts around a window. Then, pretending not to see me, the wasp bounces nonchalantly against the ceiling. Suddenly it dives right at me, causing me to flail my arms and make panicky grunting noises. The wasp, chuckling with satisfaction, glides back up to the ceiling fan, lands on one of the lights, turns, and appears to give me an obscene gesture. I sigh, throwing the newspaper back onto the sofa. I cower away to my room and sulk, imagining the little creep inviting a load of his mates over for a celebration party. I was bloody enjoying that orange juice as well. Half an hour later, I’m busy conjuring a plan of escaping through my bedroom window when I hear my dad return home from work. I hurry downstairs to warn him. ‘’What’s wrong with you? ’’ He asks ‘’you’re looking a bit flustered’’ “Wasp” I reply with a grimace. “Oh right, I should’ve known, where is it then? ” “Umm…” I glance up at the ceiling fan, no sign of it. “It was up there” I say. Expand your He strides into the kitchen, “here it is” he announces. I scurry into the room to find the wasp perched on the draining board and my dad picking up a teaspoon and swiftly squashing the vocabulary! insect with one tap, as if breaking open a boiled egg. “There” he says defiantly, “I don’t understand why you make such a big fuss, it’s more scared of y-“ “YEAH, YEAH I KNOW!” I retort, before he can finish the dreaded sentence. 5 words you would ‘borrow’?

Sentence Variety! Use the full range in your writing 1. Will I be able to squish it between a magazine and the wall? Do wasp guts stain? If I make it mad will it sting me mercilessly then crawl into my ear? – Questions for confusion / anxiety 2. I scan the room…it’s in the corner. Ellipsis for dramatic pause. 3. Oh god, fungus! Exclamation shock 4. That’s my orange juice. Italics for emphasis 5. I frantically scan the room for a potential weapon – a fly swatter, a magazine, a shoe, a flamethrower. Dash to add information 6. I scamper frantically upstairs into the bathroom, locking the door, (as if the wasp is suddenly going to grow a human arm and hand try to open it) and sitting on the edge of the bath, trying to compose my frenzied self. Brackets add comment / sarcasm 7. It’s hideous. Emphatic sentence for impact. 8. I decide to take action: kill it. Colon statement: expansion / explanation. 9. The wasp, chuckling with satisfaction, glides back to the celling. Subordinate clause adds detail.

Analytical • What does it mean to be analytical? To analyse? • Analyse synonyms (other words for ‘analyse’): Examine, Review, Consider, Study, Evaluate, Investigate, Break down. • What can you analyse in this task? • The origins of your phobia • When it started • What causes it • Why it scares you so much

Some sentence starters to help : • Time for a little home-grown psychoanalysis now • To face my fear I’m going to break it down into little pieces • Let’s examine the causes of my phobia, shall we? • Where and when did all this start? Let’s consider. • What exactly is the? • When exactly did. . ? • Time for some detective-style investigation into… • Right, I’m going to slide my fear of blah under the microscope and have a good look at it. Maybe I’ll be able to… • So why does blah scare me so much? Examples: • So when and where did this all start? I think it was a bizarre combination of healthy outdoor exercise and the demon TV. See, when I was about eight I loved climbing the little apple tree in my garden. Had a bit of a thing about Robin Hood going on. But then one day a strange fungus started sprouting from the side of my beloved tree. It look like a grotesques pale, yellow ear. It grew and grew… • At the same time ‘The Day Of The Triffidis’ was scaring the bejesus out of kids who should have been in bed long before those funny lurching plants were creeping around the dark streets of apocalyptic Britain. • Bam! These two experiences – funny ear-like fungus and sci-fi TV- collided head on in my over active brain. Night after night I had horrific nightmares about an enormous fungoid triffid towering over the houses of my little street and mercilessly killing everyone in sight. (There was also the nightmare where everyone in Plymouth had their heads cut off…but enough of the weird disturbed child for now). • Then came’ Creepshow’. (Ok, ok Mary White, I am living proof that TV had indeed warped a generation). • You’d think I’d be able to get over such a silly childhood fear, but I can’t. • Why do mushrooms and fungus scare me so much?

Argue Persuade • Origin • Old French : arguer – to assert / put forward • Latin: arguere – to make clear • • • Meaning To debate or discuss To prove by presenting reasons To Express a viewpoint To be aware of other viewpoints • Origin • Latin: per – intensive suadere-urge • Meaning • To convince or cause to believe • To try to make someone do or think something • Use a variety of reasons to persuade • Be aware of reasons for not wanting to be persuaded.

Charlie Brooker Argues for a solution: This is because spiders have precisely the same modus operandi as terrorists: they target innocent civilians at random, strike unexpectedly, and cause widespread disproportionate fear. Oh, and they often die as a result of their actions, or at least they do if I've got a rolled-up newspaper to hand. Spiders don't videotape their own suicide notes before embarking on their death campaigns, but that's only because they're too thick to operate the controls. All of which prompts the question of why the military doesn't get involved. Think about it: if the army fought the War on Spiders instead of the War on Terror, it would be a) winnable, b) cheaper, c) popular, and d) justifiable in the eyes of God. I'd certainly slumber more soundly in my bed if I knew Our Lads were available on 24 -hour call-out; a dedicated anti-arachnid task force that would turn up at your home in the dead of night and splatter that absolute whopper that ran under the cupboard an hour ago and has left you unable to sleep ever since. Oh, and please note I'm suggesting the use of lethal force as a default. None of this fannying around with pint glasses and sheets of paper and "putting him outside". He'll just crawl in again, stupid. If a murderer climbed through your window you wouldn't just "put him in the garden". You wouldn't rest until you saw his brains sloshed up the wall. It's the same with spiders. If it's not been reduced to a gritty, twitching smear, it's not been dealt with at all. Actually, since this is a liberal paper, I suppose arrest and detention might be acceptable. The army could take care of that: scoop the bastards up and whisk them away to spider prison. The cells would need impossibly tiny bars, mind. Anyway, that's what this country needs: an armed response to the arachnid menace. That this hasn't happened is the greatest tragedy of our age.

Persuasive Devices • • • Counter argument Rhetorical questions Facts / Figures Expert quotes Emotive language Emphatic sentence Pattern of X 3 Alliteration Appeal to common sense Direct address How many of these did Brooker use in his article?

Sentence starters to help, but try to ‘make them your own’ as Simon Cowell is so fond of saying, i. e. use your own words. • Argue that your fear should be taken seriously. • Now, you might think I’m exaggerating, but there are plenty of reasons to be afraid of… • Let me tell you the facts, then you’ll see for yourself that blah is the biggest single threat to mankind. • Laugh if you want, but by the time you’ve finished reading this you’ll be signing up to my blahphobia facebook page, I assure you. • Ok, so Cameron is busy handing out pasties to the web-toed folk of Somerset, but he needs to get his priorities right! • Sure, there are other things to worry about these days: flooding, terrorists, Simon Cowell going soft now he’s a dad…but blah is at the top of my list, and should be yours too! • (use recent examples – these are 2013) • Persuade the reader action needs to be taken. • “Tell us what do do!” I hear you cry. • Right, so what’s to be done then? • The solution , my dears, is simple. • Now, here’s what I suggest we do.