Source passage
Cold gnawed on him like a rat. Around him, the grey blankets of the other beds rose and fell like the swell of a bleak, dirty sea. Nathan had no idea what had woken him—he was still exhausted—and yet some upheaval had washed him up above the waterline of sleep. He was afraid, without knowing why.
A teacher's black gown hung from a peg on the wall. It had hung there, unclaimed, for as long as Nathan could remember, threadbare, almost transparent with age, like the ghost of a hanging man, swaying in the draughts. As many nightmares as moths had fluttered towards Nathan out of that black gown swinging, swinging from its hook.
He thought about his sister. This was the only time of day when it was acceptable to think about a sister. Once the day had got under way, there would be no excuse to mention her. For Nathan to mention Maud to one of the other boys would be like referring to his nursery wooden horse or teething ring. Secretly, Nathan thought it rather a betrayal of sisters, to pretend they did not exist. So he made a point of thinking about Maud, in the privacy of first light: mousy little Maud, keeping house, cooking and supervising meals, polishing spoons, and reading to her father.
With their mother dead, all such housewifely duties had settled on Maud like an inch of dust, obscuring the pictures Nathan carried in his mind. When he tried to remember how she looked, he had difficulties distinguishing her dress from the drab parlour curtains, her face from the white plates on the dresser. Mousy Maud. She never played with him now, in the vacations; her duties left her no time. She did not smile much, either.
Then came the clanging of the morning bell. The other boys began groaning and wriggling under their brown blankets, like moles who burrow away from noise. The beadle, who came to ensure that everyone obeyed the bell, was in fact startled to see Nathan already on his feet and dressing. Boys are not commonly so easy to wake.
The boys' boots were all out in the courtyard, lining the cloisters, as if they had set out early for breakfast without waiting for their owners. Bare feet paddled across the cobbles and squeezed into them; the leather was rigid with frost. Gibbering boys pulled their jackets over their convict-shaven heads, so that they looked as if they had no heads at all, clumping along to the refectory with boot-laces lashing loose, unwilling to spend time in the cold, tying them. Besides, most of the boys' fingers were numb.
TASK:
Write paragraph seven of the story, in which Nathan and the other boys enter a classroom for the first lesson of the morning. You should use your imagination to describe what happens; you may develop ideas from the passage, but do not repeat phrases used by the writer. (15 marks)
Practise this exact question with personalised feedback on your writing.
Understand the task
Move Nathan from the freezing dormitory into his first lesson. Sustain the original setting’s hardship through classroom detail and a brief glimpse of his inner life.
- concise characterisation
- atmosphere
- source inference
- control
Requirements to keep in mind
Write paragraph seven only; do not copy the writer’s phrases; 15 marks.
Plan your response
- Write one paragraph: the seventh paragraph of the story.
- Keep the atmosphere cold and strict.
- Use details from Nathan’s earlier morning without copying phrases.
- Show his thoughts about home briefly and naturally.
- End as the first lesson begins.
Check your response against the task requirements. Leave time to review sentence clarity, punctuation and spelling.
Original atoply example response
Written by atoply, not an official school answer or mark scheme. Other successful responses are possible.
Reveal example and teaching notes
Nathan followed the other boys into the classroom, where a bitter draught crept beneath the door and the windows shone with pale frost. Narrow desks stood in crooked rows, their surfaces scarred by generations of restless fingers. At the front, a master in a stiff collar was arranging exercise books into a perfectly straight pile. Nobody spoke. The only sounds were the scrape of boots against the floor and a faint cough from the smallest boy. Nathan took his place near the back, wishing he could warm his hands before holding a pen. On the wall, a map of England curled at its corners, reminding him suddenly of home and of Maud, who might already be lighting the kitchen fire. 'Books open,' said the master. His voice cracked through the room like a stick striking stone. Nathan bent over the page, but for a moment the printed letters swam before his tired eyes.
Learn from the example
- The response reconnects with the source characters and situation instead of retelling the extract. This helps the new writing feel like part of the same scene.
- Compare the narrator, tense and first action with the passage's final moment. Keep any compulsory opening and paragraph limit when writing your own continuation.