Arrival · retrieve

A review is not a report of an evening

Last week you wrote three moments and one verdict.

Those are notes, and nobody reads notes.

A critical review is written for a reader who has not seen the event.

That reader wants your judgement first, not the evening in order.

So the paragraph opens with the claim, and the moment arrives underneath it as proof.

This is the opposite of how most people speak, which is why it has to be practised.

You need three things on the desk. Your Week 6 record sheet, the event pack and the review frame.

Starter · create the need

Two openings, one event

Opening A begins: I arrived at six and found my seat.

It is true, and it tells the reader nothing they came for.

Opening B begins: the ending works because it takes the light away.

The reader knows what is being argued before the first full stop.

Both writers saw the same event. Only one of them opened with a claim.

• 1 · write the claim.
• 2 · write one moment that proves it.
• 3 · say what that moment did to people.
• 4 · name the reader you are writing for.

A claim can be argued with, and that is why it is worth marking. A recount cannot be argued with, and that is the problem.

I Do · model

One claim, one moment, one reader

I take my strongest moment from last week, the single lamp at the close.

I do not open with the lamp. I open with what the lamp lets me argue.

My claim: the ending works because it makes the stage smaller, not louder.

Now the evidence, and the evidence is the moment, placed and timed.

In the last two minutes the lighting fell to one lamp, and the pack's audience notes record that the shifting stopped.

Then one line on the effect. The quiet was made by a choice, not by luck.

Last comes the reader, named in one line.

I write it for a first-time visitor, taken from the pack's audience list.

That line changes my words. A first-time visitor needs the craft term explained; someone who already knows the work does not.

Notice the length. Four sentences, and I stopped.

We Do · everyone commits

Sort the openings, then match the missing part

Eight opening lines from the card pack are face up on your table.

Sort them into two groups: claims and recounts.

A claim argues something. A recount only says what happened next.

Every person puts a hand on one card before anybody speaks.

Now take the claim pile and match each one to the part it is still missing.

It is the moment, the effect or the reader.

Two cards argue and then prove nothing. They stay in the claim pile and still lose a part.

Hold up the card your table argued about longest.

I Do 2 · connect

The reader decides the words

The same claim can be written twice and land only once.

The pack's audience list names four readers: the school group, the family audience, first-time visitors and people who already know the work.

Write it for someone who already knows the work and you can say the word palette and stop.

Write it for a first-time visitor and palette needs three words after it.

Neither version is better. One of them is wrong for the reader you named.

So the reader line is not decoration. It is the instruction you gave yourself.

It also tells the assessor why you chose the words you chose.

• 1 · the claim, in one sentence.
• 2 · one moment, placed and timed.
• 3 · the effect on people.
• 4 · the reader, named from the pack.

If the reader changes, go back and change one craft term. Do not rewrite the claim.

We Do 2 · lab

Two questions on your partner's claim

Write your claim sentence now, on one line, and stop there.

Underneath it, name the reader you are writing for.

Then work in twos and swap sheets.

Read your partner's claim line and ask the first question. What is being argued here?

If you cannot answer from that one line, write claim buried beside it.

Then read their reader line and ask the second question. Which reader is this for?

If no reader is named there, write reader missing instead.

Hand it back and say which of the two you wrote.

Then swap back and fix only the line that was named.

Independent · evidence

Your opening paragraph, four sentences

Work on your own, using last week's sheet and the frame.

Start with the claim line you fixed with your partner, copied to the top of the frame.

Then write the moment underneath it, with its place or its time.

Then write what it did to people, as something they did or felt.

Then name your reader in one line, from the pack's audience list.

Stop at four sentences. The rest of the review is Week 8.

• Supported · a claim and one moment underneath it, carrying a place or a time.
• Standard · claim, moment, effect and a named reader, in four sentences.
• Stretch · as Standard, and name the craft term you would change for a different reader.

If you finish early, write the sentence you would delete first if you had to lose one.

Exit · Audience and Influence

Read the first sentence to an adult

Read only your first sentence to the adult at your table.

They say back what they heard you argue.

If they heard an evening instead of an argument, move the claim to the front now.

Then choose what happens next. File it, add the second moment, or change the reader.

Write that choice and today's date on the sheet before you leave.

The paragraph goes in the arts log folder with last week's record sheet.