Grouping texts: text two

And here, without further ado, is text two.

It's an extract from "The Crafty Food Processor Cook Book" by Michael Barry.

Cut the meat into even-sized cubes, leaving on any fat but removing all gristle.

Process for 10 seconds, scrape down the sides; flash the motor on and off again to make sure it's all thoroughly evenly cut, then turn into a separate bowl.

Add the onion and egg yolk to the bowl and process until pureed, add to the meat with the salt and pepper.

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly together, divide into 4 and shape into 1 inch thick patties with smooth, round sides.

Let these stand, if you can, in the fridge for a few minutes, and then barbecue them or fry them in a minimum of oil in a thick bottomed frying pan.

If you like them rare, a minute on each side on high and then 5 minutes over a low flame will do it; if you like them a little bit better done , a minute on each side on high and 7 to 8 minutes on low is about right.

You can eat them in buns, with the traditional gherkins, tomato sauce, mustard and relishes.

There will be more texts next week and then a final analysis of them for you to do after half term, before Marcello Giovanelli gives you an examiner's view of what you could say about them.

Grouping texts: text one

So, here's your first text. It's an extract from a transcript of TV chef Lorraine Pascale, from BBC's Baking Made Easy, telling you how to make Macaroni Cheese.

Baked pasta has a reputation of being (.) a bit of a family dish but my macaroni and cheese is really really glamorous it’s even good enough if friends come round as a dinner party dish (.) so I’ve got some pancetta here (1) and (.) I’m gonna fry it (.) in the pan (.) need a bit of oil (2) I love pancetta (.) such a lovely flavour (.) you know you can use bacon as well just snip some bacon up (.)some spring onions (2) OK so while they are cooking up I’m gonna get on with the white sauce it’s a basic white sauce (.) and it’s equal amounts of flour and butter (1) sooo (.) put 40 grammes of butter (1) and I’m going to add some flour (.) 40 grammes (2) then just mix it in and make a little paste (1) get right into the corners (1) so it goes quite lumpy and looks a bit scary (.) and then (.) take it off the heat and add some milk I’ve got 200 mill of milk (.) I’m not gonna add all of it just a little bit

Grouping texts: day one

Studying English Language at A level can mean that you look at some of the language's most ancient and glorious texts - Beowulf, William Tyndale's English translation of the New Testament, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - but equally you might be given some strange and seemingly ephemeral texts to analyse: text messages, shopping lists, the opening paragraph of a Charlie and Lola book, some conversational exchanges about the weather, a status update on Facebook or a man talking to his chiropodist. Why?

Well, it's all language; that's why. And if you're studying A level English Language you're going to be looking at a huge range of material and trying to see patterns and connections in it. Most importantly, from an examiner's point of view, you'll be looking at extracts of language and grouping them using the linguistic methods (frameworks) that you've been learning on the course.

Marcello Giovanelli's session at the conference will be all about this - how you apply linguistic methods to texts in the exam - and he's well placed to advise on this, being an examiner for one of the biggest awarding bodies and a co-writer of one of the Nelson Thornes textbooks for the course.

Each day this week, and into next, we'll be giving you a new text extract to think about. As each day passes you'll be able to see potential links between the texts. They might share a similar target audience, use humour in their language, follow similar discourse structures, be from the same mode or feature words from particular semantic fields.

On day six we'll give you your last extract and ask you to suggest ways in which you could group these texts and linguistic reasons for those groupings.

It's all good practice for ENGB1 - if you do the AQA B spec - and will give you a taste of what's to come at the conference.

Rock and rolls

In the immortal words of Oasis "I want a roll with it". But what do you call one of these? Following on from a request by students at King Edward VI Sixth Form College in Nuneaton, we're adding an extra survey question here on the blog to see what regional differences there are in the naming of this bread-based food.