This text can be used to help A-Level, IB and (I)GCSE students analyse context, audience, purpose and style. Particularly valuable is the subtext that it doesn't just inform but also advertises/persuades.

This cartoon can be used by English, media and politics students (A Level, IB, (I)GCSE) to understand context, audience, purpose and style.

This general worksheet helps students to analyse stage directions from any play, considering character, lighting, sounds, and other elements.

This worksheet/activity is designed for MA-HA A Level/IB English A students. It provides the references made in the play to characters from classical literature/mythology, in the order in which they are mentioned in the play, so is a great resource for revision. Students can work in class or at home to locate the quotation where the character is mentioned (if they put act/scene numbers this helps their essay-writing/referencing skills generally). Students are then encouraged to explain the significance of this being included (this column in the chart could be an extension task for those of higher ability, or all students could be asked to do it). Prompts are included to help students with the explanation/aid differentation.

This worksheet/activity is great for revision, and can be filled out as students encounter characters upon first reading/throughout their initial reading of the play, or completed retrospectively. It has been filled in with the names of characters from Brian Friel’s play “Translations” but could be easily adapted/used for other plays. Students are encouraged to make notes on multiple features including the characters’ attitudes, impact on them as readers, and how the characters speak. I usually print one copy of this out on A4 and then blow it up to A3 size to give students more space to write. It can also be uploaded to your school’s VLE so that students can download extra copies if they need it (or if they prefer to type onto a digital copy).

This quotes quiz was created for students revising Bao Ninh’s novel “The Sorrow of War” for their final exams. No answers are provided as the emphasis is on the quality of student analysis. Techniques-wise it tests student knowledge of literary and linguistic devices including personification, simile and metaphor, and alliteration. Aimed at MA-HA sixth-formers.

This grid is intended to encourage sixth-formers studying the novel “The Sorrow of War” to consider the reliability of both its author (Bao Ninh) and protagonist (Kien), as well as areas where the two intersect. This is also a chance to develop their abilities in terms of supporting their ideas with evidence from the text. Aimed at MA-HA students. Examples could be filled in by the teacher (maybe one per box) along with possible sentence stems for explanation to support lower-ability students. The resource could also be adapted for use with any other text that has an unreliable narrator and/or author.

This resource consists of anonymised quotations from real sixth-form student essays about Bao Ninh’s language use in the opening pages of “The Sorrow of War”. By asking students to identify what is good about them and what could be improved, it is possible to not only develop their justifications/opinions of these aspects of the novel itself, but also to allow students to critique the quality of the analysis. This helps to develop metacognitive and essay-writing skills as well as knowledge of the text. As such, it can be used with students who have no experience of the novel, as well as with students who are studying the novel directly. It would make a great starter/plenary activity, especially in the context of revision of the novel or essay-writing classes.

These comprehension questions were designed to support student learning when studying the Rumens poem “The Border-Builder”. They could be completed in class (in groups or alone), or set as homework. They are aimed at MA-HA (I)GCSE students and come with an optional extra credit assignment for extension purposes. Multiple copies of the questions are printed on one page to aid printing, photocopying and distribution.

This resource is great for KS4/KS5 Critical Thinking, Global Perspectives, TOK, or any similar courses. Students firstly have to identify knowledge claims on the sheet, as well as the grammatical particle that allows them to do so. They are then asked to assess how far they believe certain knowledge claims to be true. All of these activities could be done in groups or alone. The final statement on the sheet could be detached from the rest and used as a plenary activity, or as extension.

This table is designed to be filled in by students to illustrate the moods and atmospheres in the novel, with techniques identified and effects explained, as well as examples given from the text (paraphrase or direct quote). The various columns could be used to differentiate between the abilities of different groups of students, or filled in by all students. The final question on the sheet could be used as extension or plenary. This was designed to be used by students of IGCSE World Literature, who were reading the novel in translation, but it could also be used by native French speakers, or by students of A Level/IB French.

This PPT presentation/lesson encourages students to consider the differences between the way people speak in normal life vs how they speak on television documentaries. The starting question could be explored in a whole-class discussion or via various Kagan Strategies (e.g. Think-Pair-Share), and the resultant ideas revisited later on. An excerpt from a David Attenborough documentary (about the lyre bird) is transcribed onto the PPT for a student to read aloud in their normal voice. Students then watch the corresponding video clip (linked to in the PPT, or can be found on Youtube/supplied on request if there are problems with this). They should then compare how the student read it with how the text is spoken by Attenborough. They may wish to consider elements such as accent, pace and enunciation. Reference to the initial ideas generated by students is encouraged. The speech features terminology table (or a version of it adapted for your students) can be used optionally to help. I recommend using relevant exercises from the CGP GCSE English workbook as a plenary activity. This lesson was conceived of for students entering KS5 but is also suitable for KS4.

This scaffolded note-taking grid encourages students to consider the information provided to them through stage directions in plays, whether implied or explicitly stated. The grid includes space for note-taking on characters’ movements, descriptions of lighting, and descriptions of sounds, as well as space for quotations and explanations of effects on the viewer. This grid can be used to analyse the stage directions in any play, and can be subsequently used for revision and/or essay-writing. Printing on A3 comes recommended as this gives students more space to write.

This Powerpoint represents a full lesson on the characters of Bellamira and Pilia-Borza in Christopher Marlowe’s ‘The Jew of Malta’, and how these can be directed and played to comic or tragic effect. Please note that you need to source the appropriate scenes (IIIii and IIIiii) yourself. The Powerpoint directs students through various activities, including a ‘write 3, share 1’ starter, a class reading task, independent work on the direction of the scenes (which is differentiated via the methods through which students can carry it out: continuous prose, Flipgrid, collage, storyboard), and a plenary consisting of a gallery walk and exit slip for reflection.

Students should be assigned a speech topic that they could give to either Grade 9/Year 10 students or staff members/parents/governors. This could be, for example, “school uniforms should be abolished” or “the school day should start one hour later than it does now”. This planning grid enables students to compare what is required in terms of diction, tone, syntax and so on. Students should be made aware of the meanings of the terms in the grid before proceeding. Once they have planned, they could either write a comparative/analytical paragraph, explaining what is the same/different about each speech to each audience, and/or actually choose a speech to write based on the grid.

These six comprehension questions help to develop student understanding of the Keats poem ‘When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be’. The questions are laid out with 2 sets on one page for ease of printing, photocopying and distribution. The questions cover understanding of technique (such as metaphor and imagery) as well as ideas. There is scope for the final question to serve as an extension/optional question for early finishers.

This resource shows visually, on a continuum line, the political leanings/affiliations of most major British print news outlets. This is particularly useful for international students who may have to deal with British media texts in examinations but are not familiar with the cultural aspects surrounding them. The continuum shows whether each paper is a tabloid or broadsheet and whether they lean politically to the right or left, or whether they are more centrist. There is further scope to add extra imagery if desired. Students are also provided with weblinks to four independent analyses of British newspapers’ politics and culture (all links still active as of July 6th, 2021).

This 16-lesson (4-week) unit explores a prescribed selection of stories from volume 2 of Songs of Ourselves, as determined by Cambridge International Examinations. It helps students to analyse a variety of texts, techniques and historical and cultural contexts via a number of different media. Their studies will culminate in the production of a critical essay in line with CIE's requirements for official coursework. This unit was designed for students working towards CIE's IGCSE in World Literature, but could also be used for pupils (at GCSE, IGCSE, A Level, IB...) studying any of the short stories listed below: The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman) The Contest (Annie Proulx) On Her Knees (Tim Winton) Her First Ball (Katherine Mansfield) A Horse and Two Goats (RK Narayan) The Bath (Janet Frame) Journey (Shirley Geok-Lin Lim) The Third and Final Continent (Jhumpa Lahiri) The Moving Finger (Edith Wharton) The Open Boat (Stephen Crane)

This 16-lesson (4-week) unit plan for Henrik Ibsen's play, Hedda Gabler, explores characterisation, setting, themes, techniques, and text-to-self connections, as well as theatrical movements and practitioners and the influence of these on the play, and is enhanced by the contrasting cultures of production and reception via study of historical context. Pupils consider the links between style, context, content and purpose. They devise their own adaptation of the play to form a 1-hour staged reading of the production.

This 28-lesson (7-week) unit plan explores Shakespeare's classic tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, via examination of several of the playwright's specialist structures, including the sonnet form, rhythm, rhyme and meter, as well as techniques common to several types of literature, including antithesis, hyperbole, and juxtaposition. An effort is made in the unit to encourage text-to-self, text-to-world, and text-to-text connections in the pupils' readings. Contextual information is introduced as and when it is relevant, as opposed to systematically. Pupils consider the links between style, context, content and purpose.