Imagine the situation: you and your friend are experienced mountain climbers. You’ve undertaken an ambitious aim to conquer the as yet unreached summit of a mountain. There’s only the two of you but that should be fine – you both know what you’re doing. 
It’s not as if anything is likely to go wrong.
Is it?
What if it did? What would you do?

In this one- time class, we’ll be looking at a real- life mountain expedition that went horribly wrong- and some of the choices that had to be made along the way. 
At the start of class, we’ll look at features of persuasive writing and learners will use the techniques at various points in the class.

Join us as we trace the steps of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates as they set out to be the first to reach the summit of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. We’ll stop at key points of their story and talk about decisions that were made at those times. Students will discuss the different options and reasons for the decisions that could be made and ask themselves ‘What would I do?’
Learners will produce a paragraph or two to say why they would have made that choice, before we continue with the next part of the account of Simpson and Yates’ adventure and find out what decisions they actually made.
Some of the decisions mean that the journey is made easier or more difficult, but some carry far more serious consequences; including a horrifying moment when death is moments away and Yates must make an unthinkable choice. Will he carry out an action to save himself, but which means sending Simpson to his doom? 
What would you do?
How will you convince us that your choice is the right one? IS there a ‘right’ choice to be made?
Can you use the persuasive writing strategies that we explored to put forward your argument?
When we reach the story’s end, students will discuss the consequences of what happened on the mountain and write their final piece to sum up how they would feel and behave- and tell us why they’d be justified.

Students may have previously read the account of the expedition in ‘Touching The Void’- the first hand account of the climb - but no previous knowledge of the events or of the book or film of the same title is needed for this class. See Parental Guidance for notes on the book.