Cicada | Year 5 English Unit | 15 Complete Lessons + Resources + Mark Scheme

A 3-week, fully resourced primary literacy unit based on Cicada by Shaun Tan. KS2 Fiction. National-Curriculum-aligned grammar, WT/ARE/GD differentiation, and ready to teach.

What’s inside (35 files)

This complete English unit gives you everything for three weeks of high-quality teaching, designed to match the standard of leading primary schemes (Literacy Tree, Write Stuff, Power of Reading).

• 15 lesson PowerPoints — illustrated cover slides, success criteria, vocabulary previews, modelled writing, “big questions” (Bloom’s-laddered), differentiation tiers, plenary, and reflection.
• 15 differentiated resource sheets — Working Towards, Age-Related Expectations, and Greater Depth, with sentence frames, word banks, and writing frames.
• Complete teacher unit plan — unit overview, key themes, model texts (WT/ARE/GD), full session-by-session plans, key questions, assessment focus, and vocabulary focus.
• Child-friendly mark scheme — “I can…” success criteria for the final writing piece, ready for self- and peer-assessment.
• 3 weekly exit tickets — 5 multiple-choice questions per week, with teacher answer keys.

Final writing outcome

A reflective narrative depicting the unrelenting grind of city life from the perspective of an undervalued worker, paired with a descriptive poem about transformation that captures the moment a long-suffering character finally breaks free.

Grammar features (Year 5 NC-aligned)

• Relative clauses (using which, who, whose, where, that) to expand and describe the office setting.
• Parenthesis (brackets, dashes and commas) to enclose Cicada’s quiet, interior thoughts.

Themes explored

Exclusion and isolation, patience and endurance, transformation and freedom.

Key vocabulary

Monotonous, fluorescent, perseverance, indifferent, obscure, metamorphosis, relentless, iridescent.

Format & compatibility

• Editable PowerPoint (.pptx) and Word (.docx) files.
• UK English spelling.
• One printer-friendly A4 page per resource sheet.
• Compatible with Literacy Tree, Write Stuff, and Power of Reading planning approaches.

Year groups & key stage

• Year 5 (KS2).
• 15 sessions over 3 weeks (≈45–60 minutes per lesson).

Tags

KS2, Year 5, English, fiction, Shaun Tan, reading and writing, complete unit, differentiated, NC-aligned, lesson plans, resources, cicada