This lesson enables students to build their knowledge of the content, language, and structure of James Fenton’s modern relationships poem ‘In Paris With You.’ In particular, students learn how word play, colloquial language, rhyme, and poetic structure can influence the mood and tone of a poem. Students learn through a logical and step-by-step learning journey, including: -Understanding the location described in the poem (Paris) and how it is commonly viewed; -Understanding key information about James Fentons' life; -Reading and interpreting the poem; -Understanding the poem, with a particular emphasis upon the content, language, and structural features; -Writing an extended analysis piece based upon how Sheers gets across the narrator's feelings in the poem, through the use of language and structure; -Peer assessing each other's learning attempts. Included is: - Whole lesson PowerPoint - colourful and substantial; (including hyperlink to a reading of the poem) - Copy of poem; - Structural devices worksheet - Analysis template with in-built success criteria for creating well-structured responses; - Comprehensive lesson plan. There are also opportunities for group learning, peer assessment, and whole class discussion. This was originally taught to middle-ability year 9/10 groups, but can easily be differentiated for groups of different ages and abilities. All images are licensed for commercial use, and image rights are listed on the last page of the presentation.

Now with PDF version included! This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use in guided reading sessions. They are perfect for aiding the progress of children towards meeting the Year 5 expectations within the new National Curriculum framework. Children love learning from these resources, whilst they are also of great use to teachers, as there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They are also generic enough to ensure that they are appropriate for use with all texts. Activities and games within the booklet include: - Word Tennis - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Discuss their understanding of new words, and explore the meaning of words in context' - Understanding Literary Heritage Fiction - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Read myths, legends, traditional stories, modern fiction, fiction from our literary heritage, and books from other cultures and traditions." - Conventions Bingo - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Identify and discuss themes and conventions in writing.' - Figurative Language - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Discuss and evaluate how authors use language, including figurative language, to create an impact on the reader.' Plus many more activities (the booklet is around 20 pages in length!) All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on a separate document (included.)

These interesting and stimulating resources enable students to read and understand a number of texts from different cultures. Students learn about different countries and their social and historical traditions. Students also learn to recreate texts, honing their knowledge of text content, language, and structure choices, whilst simultaneously building their imaginative writing skills. There are easily enough resources here for 2 lessons, at the very least. The visually engaging, comprehensive PowerPoint presentation guides students through the following learning journey: - Learning about the cultures of different countries where the short stories originated; - Reading and understanding the short stories; - Collaborating in teams in order to analyse the stories in terms of content, language, and structure; - Understanding the key term 'recreations' and evaluating two recreations of a famous fable; - Planning and writing their own recreation of one of the texts from different cultures; - Peer-assessing the recreation attempts of their partner. Provided in this resource pack is everything that you need to simply print and teach, including: - Comprehensive PowerPoint presentation; - Countries fact-sheets - 4x short stories (The Island of the Sun - China, Narcissus and Echo - Greece, The Little Beggar - Iraq, and The Princess of Riddles - Portugal.) - Mind-map activity template; - Recreations planning template; - Learning objectives to stick in. All images are licensed for commercial use and are cited on the final slide.

Now with PDF version included! This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use in guided reading sessions. They are perfect for aiding the progress of children towards meeting the Year 3 expectations within the new National Curriculum framework. Children love learning from these resources, whilst they are also of great use to teachers, as there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They are also generic enough to ensure that they are appropriate for use with all texts. Activities and games within the booklet include: - Mind Reader - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Work out how a character is feeling in a story from their actions, and explain how you know with evidence from the text.' - Text Inspector - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Use non-fiction texts to find out information on a subject.' - Rap Battle - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Read aloud poems, and perform playscripts.' - Organised Ernie - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Say how a text is organised in order to help you understand it, for example using paragraphs, headings, sub-headings, and inverted commas to show speech.' Plus many, many more activities (the booklet is around 20 pages in length!) All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on a separate document (included.)

These resources enable students to understand and analyse the characteristics of Napoleon’s dictatorship in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. In addition, students learn to make clear and accurate interpretations regarding the events of the chapters 5 and 6, (as Napoleon’s dictatorship begins to emerge) and make appropriate links to individual characters and their allegorical relationship to context. As these chapters signal the end of the animal democracy on the farm, and the start of Napoleon's totalitarian dictatorship, a heavy emphasis throughout these resources is placed upon the character of Napoleon - particularly with regards to his similarities with Joseph Stalin. There are easily enough resources for two lessons within this pack. Students learn through the following tasks: - Gauging and collaborating prior knowledge through a discussion-based starter task; - Gauging their knowledge of key terms such as 'totalitarian' and 'oppression' through a collaborative card-sorting activity; - Reading chapters 5 and 6 and demonstrating their understanding through an apt and informative worksheet; - Developing their understanding of the main character of Snowball, and his allegorical equivalent, Joseph Stalin, through a comparison task; - Analysing the links between Napoleon and Stalin in chapters 5 and 6, using a templated writing frame; - Peer assessing their partners' learning attempts. The following resources are provided: - Engaging and colourful step-by-step PowerPoint; - Cards for card-sorting activity; - Teacher lesson guidance/plan; - Analytical paragraphs worksheet; - Pictures for comparison task; - Copies of Chapters 5 and 6. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the PowerPoint.

These resources enable students to understand and analyse the rise of the pigs towards power in chapters 3 and 4 of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. More precisely, students learn to make clear and accurate interpretations about the emergence of the various characters as leaders on the farm, with appropriate links to individual characters and their allegorical relationship to context. Students learn through the following tasks: - Gauging and collaborating prior knowledge through a discussion-based starter task; - Reading chapters 3 and 4 and demonstrating their understanding through a related group quiz activity; - Developing their understanding of the changing nature of characters, and their allegorical ties, through a quotation retrieval mind mapping task; - Analysing the allegorical nature of the pigs, by further exploring their characteristics in relation to those of the communist Russian leaders of the early 20th century; - Peer assessing their partners' learning attempts. The following resources are provided: - Engaging and colourful step-by-step PowerPoint - Teacher lesson guidance/plan; - Analytical paragraphs worksheet; - Mind-mapping activity template; - Copies of Chapters 3 and 4. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the PowerPoint.

Now with PDF version included! This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use in guided reading sessions. They are perfect for aiding the progress of children towards meeting the Year 2 expectations within the new National Curriculum framework. Children love learning from these resources, whilst they are also of great use to teachers, as there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They are also generic enough to ensure that they are appropriate for use with all texts. Activities within the booklet include: - Word Witch - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Spot when a word has been read wrongly by following the sense of text;' - Scary Stepping Stones - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Enjoy reading and discussing the order of events in books and how items of information are related;' - Poets' Got Talent - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Enjoy reading poems and know some by heart. Say what you like or don’t like about a poem;' - Story Mountain - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Enjoy reading and discussing the order of events in books and how items of information are related.' Plus many, many more activities (the booklet is over 20 pages in length!) All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on a separate document (included.)

This highly engaging and informative double lesson (around 1.5 to 2 hours of teaching materials) helps build students’ ability at using varied and imaginative techniques to describe emotions in their creative writing. Specifically, students learn how to create in-depth paragraphs detailing the emotional state of their narrator and characters, both implicitly and explicitly. I wrote this lesson because I noticed that there are an extremely high volume of students that approach creative writing tasks (even in their GCSEs) offering little depth or detail in terms of their characters emotions. Even though they have clearly learnt a number of writing techniques from their teachers, their emotional writing often merely explicitly states how a character feels, using the same four or five emotions. In this lesson, students learn: - To define what emotions are; - To understand and use the vast range of emotional vocabulary and synonyms available in the English language; - To investigate different emotions, including how they can manifest themselves; - To understand how emotions can be communicated utilising a range of descriptive devices; - To create an imaginative and emotionally-driven piece of creative writing; - To self-assess their creative writing attempts; Included are all worksheets, and detailed and visual PowerPoint presentation, which explains each concept clearly, and a lesson plan for teacher guidance.

This lesson aims to improve students’ understanding of one of the key scenes in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth – Act II Scene II. In particular, they learn to make insightful interpretations about Shakespeare’s use of symbolism, and are enabled to understand how this would have affected Shakespearean audiences. The lesson utilises a range of tasks, that require students to be visual and interactive learners. It follows this learning journey: - Defining the key term 'symbolism' and establishing its importance as a literary technique; - Understanding the different objects that were used as symbols in Shakesperean times through a multiple choice team game; - Reading and interpreting Act 2 Scene 2, and establishing how symbolism is utilised throughout; - Summarising the events of the scene; - Analysing Shakespeare's intentions in using literary techniques, and considering the audience reactions to them; - Peer/self evaluating the learning in the lesson. Included in this resource pack are: - A well-presented, thorough, and informative, whole-lesson PowerPoint presentation; - Resources for the reading and interpreting activity - full scene transcript with space for notes; - A template to help scaffold the main task, complete with P.E.E instructions; - A comprehensive teacher guidance form/lesson plan to assist delivery. All images in this resource are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the lesson presentation.