This resource bundle contains 2 video clips (of Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith making a Victoria sponge), a grid for students to fill in with instances of linguistic features such as hedging and fillers, and an answer grid for the teacher. For extension purposes, the grid contains some blank lines for students to fill in any other features they believe they have spotted. The ‘cosmetic surgery or speech feature?’ game is also included along with the lesson plan.

The attached questions about obesity can be used in social studies, PSHE and Global Perspectives lessons to explore the themes of the human body, health and disease. The questions encourage students to consider how society influences how we see overweight people, to identify the differences between underweight/healthy/overweight/obese/morbidly obese, to question whether someone can be healthy and overweight, to explain why we need fat in our bodies, and to research hereditary disorders such as Prader-Willi and Cushing's syndromes. All tasks could be completed by all students, or you could divide students into groups and give each group a different question which they then research/consider more thoroughly.

The text file is taken from the Financial Times and talks about climate change in Tibet. Students should read this in advance and come to class with a list of vocabulary questions, which could be worked through in groups for speediness if there are many questions. If there are only a few questions, this could be done as a class. The comprehension questions help to gauge student understanding of the content and begin to assess their critical thinking skills. This exercise can be used for students aged 14-18 in subjects such as Geography and Global Perspectives.

Students comparatively evaluate fast foods from different popular outlets based on calories, saturated fat, size (grams), appearance, taste, price and value. The task enables numeracy and literacy integration within social studies-style subjects (including Global Perspectives and PSHE) by asking them to create bar graphs and write commentaries based on their findings, which can then be used for display.

This column by Dave Barry can be used by secondary English students to understand cultural context, as well as how humour is created and used in writing. It can also be used by French classes for a tongue-in-cheek insight into French culture. The comprehension questions are as follows: How far does Dave Barry exaggerate? Is some of what he says true? Explain your answer. Give an example of how Dave Barry uses language in a humorous way. EXTENSION: What technique(s) does he use and why? Dave Barry also makes fun of Americans. How?

This text can be used by secondary students of all ages to understand how humour is created and used in writing. Comprehension questions are included. This is designed for use by English students, but could also be used in French classes for some tongue-in-cheek insight into French culture.

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 advertisement was kindly supplied to me by Save The Children Supporter Care. It can be used to help A-Level, IB, and (I)GCSE students analyse advertisements through the lenses of context, audience, purpose and style.

These Christmas ads can be stuck to the wall so that your students can react to them in relation to context, audience, purpose and style. If laminated on first printing they can be used for years to come. Students can annotate using Post-It notes. If you are in a rush, then just print them and have students write on them directly. Colour printing is highly recommended. These posters are mainly of use to A-Level/IB students, but could also be used for (I)GCSE language and media courses. Note: one of the posters is appropriate for 16+ only.

This 16-lesson (4-week) unit explores a variety of poetry from the 1500s to the present day. It examines several aspects of poetry, including specialist structures, rhythm, rhyme and meter, as well as techniques common to several types of literature, including personification, alliteration, and onomatopoeia. 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 about the lives of the poets studied is introduced as and when it is relevant, as opposed to systematically. Pupils consider the links between style, context, content and purpose. Their studies of poetry culminate in the production of a piece of official coursework – an essay addressing a key theme across several poems studied. The unit was designed for students studying the Cambridge IGCSE in World Literature, but could easily adapted for (I)GCSE, IB or A-Level students studying the same poems. The poems for which there are lesson plans in this unit are as follows: Futility (Wilfred Owen) The Death Bed (Siegfried Sassoon) First March (Ivor Gurney) Last Sonnet (John Keats) If thou must love me (Elizabeth Barrett Browning) lion heart (Amanda Chong) I years had been from home (Emily Dickinson) Homecoming (Lenrie Peters) The Border-Builder (Carol Rumens) Rhyme of the Dead Self (ARD Fairburn) The Caged Skylark (Gerard Manley Hopkins) Song (George Szirtes) The Road (Nancy Cato)

Many of these resources were made by Penguin to support work on The Great Gatsby. They are also referred to in my lesson plan pack, available for download on TES. There is also a file containing ideas for teaching The Great Gatsby, compiled from around the internet. Finally, there is an article about flappers that can be used with your most able students.

This worksheet encourages students to identify key sonnet features (iambic pentameter, volta, syllabic count), give examples of these, and comment on effects.

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.

This revision sheet lists possible reasons for Blanche's behaviour in scene 1 of A Streetcar Named Desire. Underneath are spaces for students to write in evidence from the scene supporting each point. This could therefore be used not just for revision but also as a scaffold for weaker students&' essay-writing.

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 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 literary and linguistic techniques matching game could be printed, laminated and cut out so that students can use it kinaesthetically (which is how I used it) or distributed as a worksheet where students just draw lines between the terms and their definitions (but you would need to mix up the definitions in the document first!). It was designed for IGCSE students but could be used throughout secondary depending on your students’ abilities. It includes literary devices such as flashbacks, as well as linguistic devices such as complex sentences. Great as a starter or plenary activity, or for revision.

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 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.

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.