This resource offers a reading question, an essay plan and key word definitions. This essay was used as the reading assessment for a high ability Year 9 group studying Shakespeare's Macbeth. Essay Question: Starting with this speech, explain how far you think Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a tragic hero. Assessment Objectives A01 – Maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response, and use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations. A02 – Analyse language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate A03 – Show understanding of the contexts in which texts were written A04 – Use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation.

This is a comprehensive literacy starter activity covering several homophones. This resource contains an informative PPT followed by three engaging and challenging activities. This activity should last about 20-25 minutes.

When I first met my new classes I went through a 'classroom code' so they were familiar with my expectations. This is the PowerPoint I used. You may edit it as you wish to suit your own purposes.

How to use resources: Ask students: What do you already know about the structure of newspaper stories? You may need to establish the term ‘structure’ – I find asking them how a Big Mac burger is structured helps (two bread buns, burger, relish etc.) Display PowerPoint. Discuss with students. Issue Article students. Read through and discuss the structure. Go to slide 2 on PowerPoint. Students are to answer the questions in their books. Issue the Card Sort to pairs of students. Display slide 3 on PowerPoint to assist students. Ask students to write a short paragraph in their books explaining how they approached the task. What did they find easy or difficult? What language clues helped them to unscramble the text? Remind students that they were presented with a pyramid diagram at the start of the lesson to illustrate a news story structure. Ask students to draw a new diagram in their books which will help them remember the structure of a news story. Compare with a partner. This resource is taken from my KS3 English Newspaper/Journalism SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Students complete two starter activities in the PPT that ask them to improve sentences to make them more dramatic and impactful. Students then look at Chapter 25 in which Michael's sister is described. Issue the Worksheet and two different coloured highlighters. Students are to highlight the important features of language and structure in the extract. Allow 10-15 minutes. Discuss students' findings. Ask students what impact the features have. Display slide 6 which explains how to write an effective PEE paragraph. Students are to write 3 PEE paragraphs about what they've found in Chapter 25 in their books. After 10-15 minutes, ask students to share their best PEE paragraphs.

Students learn what a kenning is and how it originated. They then look at some examples, guessing what the title of the kenning is. They then have a go at writing their own. This is a fun activity which engages students with Anglo-Saxon and Norse poetry.

This exam question PEE plan is applicable to all questions on AQA's English Literature Paper 1. It allows a space for the question, and then separates it off into the two bullet points, then allowing students space to plan their PEE paragaphs. Students find this plan very clear and simple to use. It allows them to organise their thoughts and plan a coherent exam response.

The idea of this exercise is to show students how a writing-to-describe question can be answered in a clever and interesting way. The question being 'Describe an average day at school', and the answer being given from the perspective of a pair of scissors.

These are two little sheets to stick in the front of students' books. The 'marking key' is a simple guideline for students to understand your own little codes and markers that you use when marking their books. You would fill this in together at the start if the year by writing your own symbols on the board. The 'personal targets' sheet is for students to self-assess themselves at the start of the year. This allows you as a teacher to gauge an understanding of how the students self-assess. It is useful to look back on this at different points during the year to see whether students think they've made progress in certain areas.

This activity teachers students that good writers show us their characters rather than just telling us about them. Firstly, students look at an example of 'showing'. The example is a questionable supply teacher entering a classroom. Students are then asked to put their new-found knowledge to the test by transforming a 'telling' piece of description into a piece that 'shows' the character. This activity will last between 10-15 minutes.

This resource offers a fun way of researching WW1 context. Before the lesson print of the questions and put them into colour-coded piles. You'll need as many questions as you have groups of students. For example, if you have 6 groups, you must have 6 print-outs of the questions. You'll need 6 x yellow questions, 6 x green questions, 6 x blue questions etc. Put students in teams of 3-4 students. Students must have immediate access to a laptop or computer to be able to find the answers to the questions. You need to put the piles of questions on your desk. Issue Q1 to all groups and 1 piece of paper to all groups for them to write their answers on. Groups must find the answer to Q1, write it down on their answer sheet and then bring their answer sheet to you. If the answer is correct, you issue them with Q2, and so on until groups have found all the answers to all the questions. It is basically a race to the finish, but the answers must be of quality because you have to 'okay' them before they're issued with the next question. Students enjoy the competitive element of this task. You may wish to give the winning group a small prize as an added incentive. Discuss the contextual research once the task is over and discuss its links with the poems being studied.

Poetic devices glossary to assist with students' study of poetry.

This resource takes students through the process of reading and understanding an exam question. It encourages students to look closely at the wording and dissect the question before they even consider answering it. All too often students glance at the question and make a start on the answer. This resource helps students see why it's so important to really engage with the question. You can swap the questions on the PPT and activity with exam questions that are relevant to what your class is studying.

Do ‘Starter Activity for Descriptive Writing’; this should put students in the right mind-set for descriptive writing. This activity should encourage students to tune into their senses, which is an essential skill for writing descriptively. Ideally, students should use mini whiteboards, but if these are not available, then exercise books are satisfactory. Hand-out ‘An Example of Writing to Describe’ sheet. Ask students, in pairs, to read it through and highlight – in different colours – the words and sentences that relate to the five senses. Recap the five senses – sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. Feedback. Ask students why description is important. Hand-out ‘Planning Sheet for Descriptive Writing’. Explain that, as it is a planning sheet, it does not matter if they alter or change their ideas throughout. They are to write about a place or event, perhaps building on the ideas they established in the starter activity. Students could write up their piece of descriptive writing as a writing assessment.

Issue Belfast Confetti ‘Wordle’ to students. Explain that the Wordle contains the entire poem, with the prepositions removed. All that’s there is the core vocabulary; these lexical words provide the meaning of the poem. Tell students that you want them to sort the words into lexical sets (groups of words that are associated by meaning), categories essentially. Ask students to invent their own groupings and categories and find their own associations: for example, punctuation or place names. Students may then decide to create thematic categories. Through this activity students can ‘discover’ patterns of meaning, for instance underlying metaphors, before reading the poem and seeing them revealed in the true context of the whole text.

Issue the worksheet to students and ask them to identify whether the line comes from Shakespeare or a contemporary singer. After 5-10 minutes, go through the answers using the soundtrack to show which lines are from contemporary singers. The exercise proves to students that contemporary singers use similes, metaphors and other poetic techniques in the same way Shakespeare did.

A fun, accessible resource for students to revise the key tips for questions 1-4 in Section A of the AQA Non-fiction Higher paper.

Ask students to create a social network for the characters using this user-friendly sheet. On the characters' connecting lines write how the characters are connected. Around each character's face write key quotes and characteristics. An example is shown.

A printable classroom aid for students to use to remember the necessary language skills for writing to describe - SIMPLES, with each letter standing for a different language skill. I used this with my GCSE classes and it proved really helpful for the writing section of the AQA non-fiction exam - the meerkat helped!