ABSTRACT
This chapter starts by looking at three different sentence types, labelling them functionally as sentences that either inform, instruct, or ask. Like previous chapters, no opportunity is passed on: this stage is also a chance for students to learn and apply comprehension strategies using much smaller chunks of texts, these being essay topics. Functional grammar is taught as it is required for each topic type. This includes more abstract nouns (character, reason, element, situation, for example), anaphor/pronouns, verbs and negation. Four broad types of essay topics are identified, with strategies for recognising them by their grammatical elements. The schema from Chapter 2 is reused for planning a body paragraph, with one tweak so that students can create their own simple paragraph plan, which they can apply multiple times to create endless body paragraphs. This supports writing the whole body of an essay and gives students the skills they need to do it independently, formulating their own steering questions. Once students learn and practise the strategies, the scaffold can be applied to any topic to plan and write an essay.
