Can I?

Write compound sentences
Use punctuation correctly in my writing
Plan a short story
Deduce information from a text and picture
Start sentences in a variety of ways
Use key events in a narrative to write a play script
Deduce information from a variety of sources
Use some compound and complex sentences to describe life in the workhouse
Extend my sentences using connectives
Use persuasive language to give my side of the argument
Use the language from a narrative text to create a poem
Understand a character’s point of view
Edit and improve my writing
Write a paragraph using connectives and a variety of sentence lengths
Use speech punctuation correctly in direct speech
Answer questions from a character’s point of view
Punctuate speech correctly
Use drama techniques to explore a character’s feelings
Use a range of more connectives to extend my sentences
Predict the next section of a story
Use the apostrophe correctly
Write a persuasive letter
Record speech
Plan a newspaper report
Write an informed letter
Write a diary entry
Create a non-chronological report
Answer questions from a report
Write a character description
Record speech correctly
Contract sentences
Write in the style of an author
Research an endangered animal
Recognise persuasive language
Write complex sentences
Create a slogan for my campaign
Collect research for a biography
Answer questions about someone’s life
Use punctuation
Write a letter to a pen-pal
Edit and improve my writing
Write compound and complex sentences
Write my thoughts and feelings about an event that has happened
Write a short diary entry
Use all the features of a dairy
Write an effective letter opener
Write a sports’ commentary
Collect facts for a report
Generate questions for my report
Create a headline
Plan a newspaper report
Use punctuation correctly
Identify the features of an advert
Use persuasive language
Write a script
Research for a biography
Plan a biography
Understand the difference between direct and reported speech
Use direct speech in my writing
Use dashes in my writing
Use effective language to have an effect on the reader
Use complex sentences in my writing
Change the tense in various sentences
Group ideas into paragraphs

Can I?

From a 10-year-old’s literacy exercise book, listing the learning objectives for one academic year.

Broken bones

Baby chicks hatch out of eggs
Smoke goes up a chimney
Chess is a kind of game

Spilt ink makes a splotch
Broken bones can be set in a splint
Rain splashes into puddles

The lamb has a woolly coat
The carving knife is long and sharp
A wren is a small brown bird

Sentences out of my homework book from when I was six. We had to put words into sentences three at a time; the resulting stanzas were haiku like and a little sinister. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

The Tip of the Bud of the Lotus

In a certain lake swarming with geese and cranes,
The tip of a bud of lotus was seen one span above the water.
Forced by the wind, it gradually moved, and was submerged at a distance of two cubits.
O mathematician, tell quickly the depth of the water.
Lilavati

There is something divine in the science
of numbers. Like God, it holds the sea
in the hollow of its hand. It measures
the earth; it weighs the stars; it illumines
the universe; it is law, it is order,
it is beauty. And yet we imagine
that its highest end and culminating point
is book-keeping by double entry.

(From Longfellow’s novel Kavanagh, preceded by a translation from Bhaskaracharya’s 12th-century Sanskrit text Lilavati, via The Lumber Room)

Case History 5.1

The paramedics will be arriving
In four minutes
With a 34 year old patient who has
A blood pressure
Of 80 millimetre of mercury
(Systolic)
And a stab wound to the back,
between the shoulder blades.

What form of shock might this patient be
suffering from:

Haemorrhagic shock?
Pump failure due to pericardial tamponade?
Pump failure due to tension pneumothorax?
Neurogenic shock due to spinal cord transection?

All are possible.

What action may be necessary?

Case history taken from CCrISP (Care of the Critically Ill Surgical Patient), 2003, submitted by Jim.

A silent fall of immense snow

He moved

forward a few

fine chattering gems.

He knew exactly who would

now sneeze calmly through an open
door. Had there been another year

of peace the battalion would have made
a floating system of perpetual drainage.

A silent fall of immense snow came near oily
remains of the purple-blue supper on the table.

We drove on in our old sunless walnut. Presently
classical eggs ticked in the new afternoon shadows.

We were instructed by my cousin Jasper not to exercise by country
house visiting unless accompanied by thirteen geese or gangsters.

The modern American did not prevail over the pair of redundant bronze puppies.
The worn-out principle is a bad omen which I am never glad to ransom on purpose.

By Jim. This is a Snellen chart (used to test eyesight) taken from the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Specialties, 2007.