IGCSE Language Coursework

Assignment 1: Response to a Text

 Criteria:

• Assignment 1 will consist of a piece of directed writing in response

to a text chosen by the teacher (or the student with the teacher’s
approval). This assignment is assessed for both writing and
reading skills. The text must contain facts, opinions and/ or
arguments which can be analysed and evaluated by the candidate.
• For assignment 1 the candidate should explain the views presented
in the text, develop any ideas of interest and argue with or against
them, examining them for inconsistencies and substituting
complementary or opposing views. The assignment may be written
in any appropriate form (e.g. an article/ a letter/ the words of a
speech).
 
 Planning Stage:
• Decide the format you will use to respond: letter, article, speech, blog.
Your choice will affect the structure and register of your writing. I
recommend a letter as the most straightforward and effective.
• Decide who your audience is: are you planning to publish the article in
a newspaper (if so which?), are you writing to the person who wrote
the piece you are responding to, are you writing to the editor of the
newspaper the original piece was published in, are you giving a speech
in school based on responding to the views presented in the original?
• Find 3 or 4 key ideas in the original article and write some notes
which: explain them in your own words, develop any ideas of interest,
argue with or against them, note any inconsistencies in the points.
Structure your writing with these 3 or 4 ideas (a paragraph on each),
ensuring you have an introductory and concluding section too.
 4 Steps – Repeat 3 or 4 times
1. Explain the point in your own words
2. Develop
3. Argue with or against the point
4. Examining for inconsistencies and substituting
complementary or opposing views
 Structure: 5 or 6 paragraphs
1. Intro
2. Body – 3 or 4 paragraphs following the 4 step
approach
3. Conclusion
 Intro:
Briefly summarise the key ideas/ thesis of the
article in your introduction and also state if you
agree or disagree and why

Dear …..
I write in response to your opinion piece recently
published in ……………… where you argued
that………………… Although I found many of your
points compelling,……………………
 Other points to note:

• Use discourse markers to link your ideas together –

moreover, furthermore, additionally, firstly, however, on
the other hand, conversely, it could be argued…
• Use a variety of sentence openers and sentence
structures
• Choose your vocabulary with care
• It is important that you assess the style of the writing as
you cannot divorce what is said from how it is said. Be
on the look out for overly rhetorical writing etc
Assignment 1 Level desciptors for Reading
Assignment 1 Level Descriptors for Writing
 Today's class
1. Quizlet
2. Identify overall thesis and write in own words
3. Identify 2 key arguments and go through the 4
step process.
4. Write up the 2 paragraphs and paste them in
the thread on Teams.
Work in pairs or individually to annotate 1 of
the following slides
Focus on
• Explaining
• Defining
• Analysing
• Interpreting
• Evaluating 
• Contextualising
 Explain, Analyse, Interpret, Evaluate,
Contextualise Focus on
Hyperbole: very small or
diminutive : minute. Effect
appearance. Pigtails
of diminishing her are usually worn by
importance and significance Informal; pejorative; connotes small very young girls.
child. Effect – she can be easily Effect – she is both a
dismissed.  Sets up for the last line child and childish.
where Morgan says that she should
leave it to the adults

For a tiny 16-year-old kid, pigtailed Greta

Thunberg has made a lot of enemies. 
Opens with focus on Thunberg's
age and appearance. 4
adjectives used to define her.
They diminish her and suggest Sets up the war extended metaphor
she is too young, immature and that continues throughout. Picks up
female! to do what she is doing.  on the gravitas of the Churchill quote
As many people lambasted her as praised her
yesterday after her blistering, tearful speech to
the United Nations, in which she berated
delegates for what she perceives as their
shameful dereliction of duty over 
climate change. 
There’s something truly remarkable about the
way this very determined young lady has
stormed the world stage on a single issue
mission, like a human exocet missile. 
‘How DARE you? Greta exclaimed, evoking the
righteous indignant rage of many Emmy-winning
actresses and US Soccer star Megan Rapinoe on
various stages this week. ‘You have stolen my
dreams and my childhood!’ 
Greta has Asperger syndrome, a form of autism
that she calls her ‘superpower’. 
It’s a developmental disorder characterized by
profound difficulties in social interaction and
nonverbal communication. 
It can cause those who have it to develop an
‘intense preoccupation with a narrow subject’
and ‘one-sided verbosity.’ 
On the science, I agree with her: climate change
is a very real and present threat and our world
leaders must all do more to combat it. 
But her end-of-the-world-is-nigh ranting rhetoric
is terrifying millions of young people to an
extent that eco-anxiety is massively increasing
as a stress disorder. 
She became a strident eco-warrior, pressurizing
Click to add text
her family to become vegans, drive electric cars
and stop flying. 
So Greta’s now been propelled into the
stratosphere of global superstardom, but at
what cost to her mental health and
wellbeing? 
Certainly, if she was my daughter, I’d want to
protect her now, not keep throwing her to the
wolves of divisive global scrutiny and criticism. 
They both craved the kind of fame their
daughter now enjoys – mother Malena is a well-
known Swedish singer who entered the
Eurovision song contest in 2009 (she came 21st),
and father Svante is an actor. 
When I interviewed Trump in London in June, I
pressed him about whether he believes in
climate change, and he replied: ‘I believe there
is a change in weather and I think it changes
both ways. Don’t forget, it used to be called
global warming, that wasn’t working, then it was
climate change, now it’s extreme weather.’ 
But I will applaud Greta even more now if she
goes back to school, escapes the oppressive
limelight that’s left her so fragile, and leaves it to
the adults she’s rightly shamed to finish her
excellent work.