Many English teachers know and use the mnemonic P.E.E. in their teaching (or even its extended version P.E.E.A.L – Point, Evidence, Explain, Analyse, Link). Yet there are many others.
One that I have used to good effect recently is C.L.I.P. This is a mnemonic to assist students in their preparation for the Shakespeare reading paper in their SATs. The idea is that the questions tend to focus on one of four things: Character; Language; Issues; or Performance. CLIP, geddit?
How does this help? Well, firstly I teach students the mnemonic and then we examine one of the key scenes form this year’s set text, say, Much Ado About Nothing. I should point out here that students have already been learning about the play and know the scene well.
I then take students through the idea of selecting evidence (quotation if you must) for each of the letters of CLIP. The first line of the play for example, where Leonato sets the scene, could be used as a piece of evidence for performance. After all, he is establishing with the audience that someone called Don Pedro will arrive soon and that this will be significant.
Having scanned the scene for evidence of all four letters and marked them accordingly with C, L, I or P, I ask students to look for their own evidence in the second scene. Of course brighter students soon work out that a single piece of evidence may be used for more that one element of CLIP.
We would then create PEE paragraphs in groups of three students where each student writes one sentence in the sequence, on large cards. These cards are shown and explained to the rest of the class by the students in a sort of ‘human PEE chain’. With a larger group, a whole response to a question can be written and sequenced in this way.
Students respond well to this method and I like it as a way of encouraging them to select evidence appropriate to the question focus. One interesting side-effect of this teaching sequence is that students no longer fear ‘language’ questions and I don’t see that forest of hands in the examination room when one appears.
Below is a link to the starter that I use in this sequence.
Filed under: Education, Resources, Teaching English
