What will make your opinion strong A Strong

  • Slides: 29
Download presentation
What will make your opinion strong?

What will make your opinion strong?

A Strong Opinion will be…. • Engaging • Interesting • Reasoned and explained •

A Strong Opinion will be…. • Engaging • Interesting • Reasoned and explained • Evidenced with examples • Emotive • Aware of the audience

Think about the question • If your question asks you to write about education

Think about the question • If your question asks you to write about education for a leavers day assembly, you may want to write something critical that points out all the problems with education. However, your audience are not going to appreciate this. The ‘leavers day assembly’ would be one of celebration, of patting people on the back and making more gentle comments about the mistakes made. • Equally if you are writing a letter to a head teacher explaining a point of view about their school, it would not be a good idea to tell them everything they have done is wrong or use lots of funny stories about what you and your mates have been up to. • Generally speaking a good opinion writer will always have a positive message. They may be critical of the problem, but their direction will be towards a positive outcome. They will be sensitive towards their audience thinking about the best way to get around them rather than criticising them.

What is a weak opinion? • One that is simply stated • One that

What is a weak opinion? • One that is simply stated • One that you assume everyone believes • One that has no examples or evidence • One that ignores the audience • One that you force on people

What is going to make your writing engaging?

What is going to make your writing engaging?

Engaging features…. Rhetorical questions (when they are not overused) will involve the audience and

Engaging features…. Rhetorical questions (when they are not overused) will involve the audience and guide them where you want them to go. Is it fair that vulnerable children are made to go to school and sit in classrooms with crowds of young people all jostling for attention, all taking risks? Emotive language will make the reader feel strong emotions that will make them take sides. Innocent and vulnerable children are made to think that creativity and freedom are their enemies. They are made to think that selfexpression should be seen as a poison and that individuality is a disease. We are made to wear restrictive, impractical clothing that turns us into clones. Exaggerated descriptive examples that the reader can connect to will make it seem like you understand them and you are on their side. A night out at the cinema is a capitalist’s dream. Having paid out your food budget for the week on four tickets, you face the insistent call to eat while you watch. Standing over young children watching that they fill their sweet bags with flumps and not fudge, you count up what cash you have left because the scales are so sensitive they would weigh the breath of an angel and charge for it. . . Emphatic, developed points that make you sound passionate and encourage the reader to feel the same. It is about time we woke up to the fact that education is not just about facts and grades. It is about time we woke up and accepted the evidence that those who learn a musical instrument and take part in sport do better in exams. It is about time we woke up and shook up our education system.

How might the format impact on your style?

How might the format impact on your style?

Audience and format • The answer to the question is to look at how

Audience and format • The answer to the question is to look at how the audience and format are combined. • It is really important that you think about the subtle ways you would use language differently in different contexts. Mix up the lists below to create different examples and think about how it would change your: • Formality • Tone • Approach Article At a leavers day assembly Letter To a head teacher Newsletter National Speech A local council 2 examples An article for a national newspaper A speech for a leavers day assembly

Claim Structure This is an example of a basic structure for an opinion piece.

Claim Structure This is an example of a basic structure for an opinion piece. It should be adapted to suit the needs of your purpose and audience. Reasoning Evidence Counter claim Rebutal Conclusions Emphatic ending

Claim – description or rhetorical question to ‘expose’ the issue as you see it

Claim – description or rhetorical question to ‘expose’ the issue as you see it Structure Reasoning – demonstrating the problem in more logical or reasoned ways Evidence – give examples that the reader can relate to and explain (PEE) This is an example of a basic structure for an opinion piece. It should be adapted to suit the needs of your purpose and audience. Counter claim – Show that you are aware that other people think differently, but argue why they are wrong Rebutal – Develop your explanation of the deeper issues explaining why the counter argument is wrong Conclusions – Give the outcomes you would like to see. The chance to give a more positive message Emphatic ending – Memorable conclusion. Repetition and modal verbs

This is an example question like the one you may get in the exam.

This is an example question like the one you may get in the exam. Plan some ideas (there is further advice on this on the next slides). ‘Ghosts don’t exist. Anyone who believes is being foolish. ’ Write an article for your school magazine or website in which you argue for or against the statement.

Plan – Allow ideas to flow • Ideas • Examples • ‘Free’ thinking •

Plan – Allow ideas to flow • Ideas • Examples • ‘Free’ thinking • Associations • Opinions • Connected issues • Films • Programs • Experiences The big issue You are writing a piece about the issue. Define the issue (the problem beneath the surface)

Plan Ghostbusters Entertainment Ghost hunter programs Medium’s take advantage Comfort for people Religion is

Plan Ghostbusters Entertainment Ghost hunter programs Medium’s take advantage Comfort for people Religion is belief There is no evidence You cannot study ghosts as a science Medieval times, people used ghosts to explain what they could not • Justice for people who die young • Safe scare • • • The big issue Ghost cannot and should not be taken too seriously. When they are vulnerable people can be taken advantage of.

Structure and organise • Order your ideas • Consider how they fit into a

Structure and organise • Order your ideas • Consider how they fit into a general structure • Consider the tone • Exaggeration needs formal reasoning to be taken seriously • Formal reasoning needs engaging description to make it interesting • Make sure you have examples to support each idea

The claim • Engage your reader • Demonstrate your ability with language • Create

The claim • Engage your reader • Demonstrate your ability with language • Create an element of suspense • How will you achieve these three things? • What technique or style could you draw on? • Look at these examples from three of the sources you have been studying in class. • On the next slide make some notes about how the writer is creating interest. • Ghostly piano music in the middle of the night was terrifying the occupants of an old house, but ghost hunter Andrew Green soon solved the mystery. His clues were mouse droppings and rodent teeth marks inside the piano. He was convinced that mice gnawing felt pads attached to the piano wires were causing the ‘music’ and, of course, he was proved right when a few traps caught the culprits and their nightly performances ceased. • At 5, 360 metres, base camp is a cheerless place at the best of times, but once the sun has dipped beneath the surrounding ridges, it is like living in a freezer. Shivering with the cold, Salkeld left the mess tent and walked across the ice of the Khumbu glacier towards her tent to find some extra clothing. Glancing into the sky to the south, she became one of the first people, and probably the very first, to see what was sweeping up from the lower valleys of the Himalayas towards Everest. It was a sight which fixed her to the spot, all thoughts of seeking out a few more layers of clothing momentarily forgotten. • Since midnight, snow had silently fallen, to the depth of six to eight inches; by breakfast time it was all over except a slight flaky dropping, and the day was calm and very cold. Nothing could be more beautiful; no change more complete and charming. The trees around the fountain near Garden Court were loaded with snow: an exquisite tracery of white branches, relieved against the dark red house fronts. These are 3 examples from exam papers. Remember that the sources for the reading section are always about the same issue and they are often opinion pieces themselves!

What methods do the writers use to engage the reader? • Ghostly piano music

What methods do the writers use to engage the reader? • Ghostly piano music in the middle of the night was terrifying the occupants of an old house, but ghost hunter Andrew Green soon solved the mystery. His clues were mouse droppings and rodent teeth marks inside the piano. He was convinced that mice gnawing felt pads attached to the piano wires were causing the ‘music’ and, of course, he was proved right when a few traps caught the culprits and their nightly performances ceased. • At 5, 360 metres, base camp is a cheerless place at the best of times, but once the sun has dipped beneath the surrounding ridges, it is like living in a freezer. Shivering with the cold, Salkeld left the mess tent and walked across the ice of the Khumbu glacier towards her tent to find some extra clothing. Glancing into the sky to the south, she became one of the first people, and probably the very first, to see what was sweeping up from the lower valleys of the Himalayas towards Everest. It was a sight which fixed her to the spot, all thoughts of seeking out a few more layers of clothing momentarily forgotten. • Since midnight, snow had silently fallen, to the depth of six to eight inches; by breakfast time it was all over except a slight flaky dropping, and the day was calm and very cold. Nothing could be more beautiful; no change more complete and charming. The trees around the fountain near Garden Court were loaded with snow: an exquisite tracery of white branches, relieved against the dark red house fronts.

Ironic tone Some humour ‘culprits’, ‘performances’ Story Descriptive language Shocking fact Story Descriptive language

Ironic tone Some humour ‘culprits’, ‘performances’ Story Descriptive language Shocking fact Story Descriptive language Cliff hanger Descriptive Emphasis • Ghostly piano music in the middle of the night was terrifying the occupants of an old house, but ghost hunter Andrew Green soon solved the mystery. His clues were mouse droppings and rodent teeth marks inside the piano. He was convinced that mice gnawing felt pads attached to the piano wires were causing the ‘music’ and, of course, he was proved right when a few traps caught the culprits and their nightly performances ceased. • At 5, 360 metres, base camp is a cheerless place at the best of times, but once the sun has dipped beneath the surrounding ridges, it is like living in a freezer. Shivering with the cold, Salkeld left the mess tent and walked across the ice of the Khumbu glacier towards her tent to find some extra clothing. Glancing into the sky to the south, she became one of the first people, and probably the very first, to see what was sweeping up from the lower valleys of the Himalayas towards Everest. It was a sight which fixed her to the spot, all thoughts of seeking out a few more layers of clothing momentarily forgotten. • Since midnight, snow had silently fallen, to the depth of six to eight inches; by breakfast time it was all over except a slight flaky dropping, and the day was calm and very cold. Nothing could be more beautiful; no change more complete and charming. The trees around the fountain near Garden Court were loaded with snow: an exquisite tracery of white branches, relieved against the dark red house fronts.

Make a claim Do Don’t • Use description of an example • Get the

Make a claim Do Don’t • Use description of an example • Get the reader to imagine a situation that they are familiar with and exaggerate it • Approach it like a story • Delay the reveal • Use a rhetorical question • Use ideas that shock or surprise • Throw the reader into the centre • Use an appropriate tone • Make sure you define your opinion on the end through a statement or question • Tell the reader your opinion • Make general statements • State the question • Respond to the question • Over use rhetorical questions • Exaggerate your tone too much • Ignore the audience

Claim Channel five, ten thirty on a Tuesday: the dead zone. All the serious

Claim Channel five, ten thirty on a Tuesday: the dead zone. All the serious television finished a while ago; there are less lights on in your street; it is Autumn and Halloween is in the air. There seems to be an unnatural stillness on the street. That is when the ‘Ghost Hunter’ series airs. Science, this is not and hunting the ghosts isn’t enough; what we have to do to raise the entertainment value is take an E list celebrity desperate to keep their profile alive, and terrify them, so that everyone will be convinced by the spectacle. The show’s host creeps around in the green glow of an infra-red camera, eyes like some demonised spook from the big screen, whispering in the darkest shadows of the darkest corners of the most isolated ancient buildings they can find. There is a mesmerising, haunting quality to these programs. I am sure many of us would keep the lights on as we head to bed after watching programs like this. We all let our fears get the better of us; that is human. But that is all they are: fears. That’s entertainment folks: just real enough to believe; just unreal enough to see the cracks in the truth. Ghosts don’t exist. We would have serious evidence by now if they did. But ghosts have haunted us since the dawn of mankind. They are the word we use for what we don’t understand, they are the promise of after life and they are, lets be honest, entertaining. So, should we all continue ignoring the lack of evidence and enjoying the shiver down our spines?

Reason Do Don’t • Use a formal logical approach • Invent examples as proof

Reason Do Don’t • Use a formal logical approach • Invent examples as proof • Use facts and statistics to reveal ideas • Use false dichotomies to push the reader to take a side • Tell real life stories as evidence • Slip into just telling • Make the examples ridiculous e. g. always resulting in suicide • Use facts on their own without explanation • Make the examples too personal and lose sight of the fact they are ‘examples’

Reason Well yes and no. If belief in ghosts is purely innocent, then fine,

Reason Well yes and no. If belief in ghosts is purely innocent, then fine, but if it can be exploited, if the vulnerable and emotionally traumatised in this world are given false hope or treated as an opportunity to ‘cash in, then the fun drains away. This is what happened in the case of 16 people in the Greater London area only this year. A ‘medium’ claiming to be able to speak to the dead, abused the trust that they established with vulnerable elderly people. They charged for consultations, created opportunities to trick and blackmail these grieving individuals and extorted vast amounts of money from their hard-earned savings. The power of belief can be very positive and nurturing in the right hands, but in cases like this it is predatory and destructive. The reality here is that if we could step away from our emotions and think rationally about the question of the existence of ghosts, we would have to say that the ‘evidence’ is far from convincing. Normally, if we wanted proof we would follow the trails of evidence, look to learned professors and university studies, but in this case, the scientists, the researchers and the students are curiously silent. Is it not reasonable to expect that a civilization that can send submarines to the bottom of the ocean, send rockets to other planets and explain the chemical make-up of a star millions of miles away, could provide some evidence or explanation of the existence of ghosts? After all, it would explain one of the key questions that has been asked since the dawn of time: what happens after we die? The last ghost story I heard had rational explanations and served to emphasise the way that human emotions get in the way of us seeing the reality. The first was the story of a young man who lived alone (already this feels like a shaky source of evidence!) On some nights, he would find that he would experience the air temperature drop and become unusually cold in his student flat. This would be accompanied by a rattling sound and on windy nights, a ghostly light would appear on the wall. It took him six months to get up the courage to get out of bed and investigate. Beneath his bed he found a vent that lead to an outside pipe with a flap on the end. On windy nights the flap would open, cold air would come in rather than letting hot air out. The strength of the wind would blow the trees allowing the lights on the house opposite to shine through the branches reflecting through the small round window in the corner of his room that had no curtain, but included stained glass. “Ahhh, I see, ” I can almost hear you say.

Counter Claim Do Don’t • Show that people have other opinions • Show that

Counter Claim Do Don’t • Show that people have other opinions • Show that you are not blind to reality • Challenge the counter claim • Make the claim seem ridiculous • Use reason to prove the mistake • Take the claim to its extreme • Sit on the fence • Lose your sense of direction and your opinion • Take the rebuttal too far so that you seem unreasonable • Just state that it is wrong

Counter Claim and rebuttal So, in the absence of any real evidence beyond our

Counter Claim and rebuttal So, in the absence of any real evidence beyond our unreliable senses, why do we continue to believe in ghosts? Many people would argue that we have a need to believe in something after our physical life; we don’t know what happens, we can’t know what happens. As with some religions we have a need to believe that all of this living must be for something. We have a need to believe that there must be a purpose. And if it is not our lives that we are concerned over then it is those who are close to us. There is something difficult to accept about the passing of a loved one and it is easier to believe that they are still there. It takes away some of the pain; it gives comfort. Especially in a case where it feels there is an injustice. It pacifies our frustrated minds to think that justice can be sought even after death. But if we look at these examples in the cold light of rational evidence, in every case, ghosts are, then, a crutch. They are an empty hope, a belief on which we lean when our tiny human minds cannot accept our own limitations, our own hubris, our own insignificance.

Conclusion Do Don’t • Summarise the deeper issue • Use a range of vocabulary

Conclusion Do Don’t • Summarise the deeper issue • Use a range of vocabulary to make your ideas sound convincing. • Give the reader a clear sense of why they should agree • Use group pronouns to suggest to share belief • Use modal verbs to create urgency • Simply state your opinion again • Write a completely different example • Use the phrase ‘I believe’ • Simply tell the reader what to think

Conclusion In the end, we have to admit that ghosts serve a purpose which

Conclusion In the end, we have to admit that ghosts serve a purpose which is why they have not faded. We need an explanation for the inexplicable; we need a way to make sense of our unreliable feelings; we like the entertainment that our imagination can provide. Yes, ghosts are kept alive in books, films, festivals, poems, songs and in our imagination. Ghosts tell us something about ourselves and give us a ‘safe’ scare in this kind of context. They are harmless and creative and fun. We must, however, be alert to the way that ghosts can play into our over simplified and extreme interpretation of the world. Ghosts must not become a crutch we lean on to avoid painful emotion; they must not become our excuse for performing acts of terror or revenge as in the recent spate of attacks in Manchester where young men wore ghost masks and stood at windows in the dark, before smashing property; neither must we tolerate the fraudulent money making of those who claim to be able to speak to the dead so that they can squeeze the vulnerable for cash.

Emphatic ending • Groups of 3 • Alliteration • Rhythm • Repetition • Pun

Emphatic ending • Groups of 3 • Alliteration • Rhythm • Repetition • Pun

Emphatic ending • Ghosts are in our heads and that is where they should

Emphatic ending • Ghosts are in our heads and that is where they should stay.

Write your own version • Think about how you write your opinion • Consider

Write your own version • Think about how you write your opinion • Consider your use of sentences (variety creates impact and drama) • Include effective and sophisticated vocabulary • Make sure you make the tone suitable for the audience and context

Other questions to have a go at…. • “The future of the world is

Other questions to have a go at…. • “The future of the world is in our hands, but keep consuming, wasting and producing ignorantly. ” • Write an article for a national newspaper in which you argue for or against this idea • “Mobile phones, social media and exams: teenagers face too much pressure in the modern world. ” • Write the text for a speech that you will deliver to a school meeting discussing what to do to improve the mental health of teenagers. • “At a time when there are more sporting options than ever in our local community, the fitness of this generation of children is in crisis. ” • Write a letter to the local MP explaining your opinions on the fitness of local children and what should be done.