A wonderful lesson. Probably my favourite one ever. The kids enjoy the sense of mystery and the energetic, kinaesthetic lesson but it is based very solidly in seeing progression from them. This has worked for me at every school, with every ability and every year group. It's rare I get to bring up one of my favourite poets, Slyvia Plath, before 6th form, so I wanted to make sure they fell in love with her too. This poem is to her unborn child. The picture is painted pretty clearly in the imagery, so this is the overall puzzle the children have to solve: Who is she talking to when she says "You're". (Before this lesson is a great time to have a you're/your homework or starter.) At sixth form or for top set year 11 the students can work it out on their own or in pairs, but I have usually set it as group work in tables of four. This poetry lesson is also to get them to recognise different types of imagery, be able to analyse quotations and spot patterns in the imagery, making connections across the text. There is a second lesson attached which goes into much more detail about writing analytical paragraphs giving examples of other students' work. This could very easily become a mini-essay even at year 7. There are a range of different activities to suit each type of learner, so simply select the slides which are best for your class. Enjoy!!

EVERYTHING YOU NEED! This is a very academic scheme of work, designed to see rapid progress in reading skills based around Gothic literature. No filler, all killer ;D. I initially created this for my English department to use so it is completely comprehensive and should mean all you have to do is print (sometimes) and go! The students I've taught this SOW to (more than 90 different ages, abilities and backgrounds) found the subject matter really engaging and the assessments challenging, but achievable. There are a wide variety of abilities catered for (from set 1 to set 7). I have taught this at KS3 and introduction to GCSE in year 9. Foundation lesson plans are provided for each lesson as well as worksheets or assessments, a PowerPoint for each lesson and homework assignments. This is going to save you tonnes of time and energy. 8 different narratives are covered including poetry, short stories and extracts from novels. These include: * The Raven * The Mummy * The Red Room * Call of Cthulhu * Wyrd Sisters * The Graveyard Book * Harry Potter * Jekyll and Hyde The SOW focuses on reading skills including reading for meaning; understanding characters and motives; genre, themes, conventions and author's messages; language features and analysis; structural techniques and tension building; analytical writing scaffolding structures at sentence, paragraph and whole essay level. There are at least 9 weeks' worth of lessons covered, though it could easily be shrunk or extended to suit your students and the available time. I always aim to give you more than you could possibly need, so only select what is right for you.

Two speaking and listening activities to introduce the theme of crime and punishment in the novel Holes by Louis Sacher. These could be individual lessons to introduce the class to courtroom processes, decision making skills, ethics and morality, and speaking and listening skills in general. The first is a group debate where a list of crimes must be ranked and the class must come to a group decision about which are the worst crimes and which are least offensive, or offences at all. They include having mixed-race relationships, so open a historical (and *sigh* still apparently current) dialogue about racism and equality, useful for citizenship and PSHE. The second is a role playing activity where students set up a courtroom and put a young man on trial for stealing a pair of trainers. There are 9 different roles, including the judge and students can either take one role between two or the non-role-taking students could be the jurors. All PowerPoints come withe clear outcomes, starters, task instructions and plenaries. All you need to do is print one A4 sheet of role cards and/or a list of the crimes for each student (A5 works fine for these). This is a really useful lesson which students find really engaging and interesting, particularly if they are into mystery solving! As an extension activity you could ask them to report on the trial or debate for a newspaper/blog/TV news programme. The non-speaking characters could interview those who took part in the trial and use those quotations in their reports. A court scribe could also be used during the trial to make sure notes can be reviewed.

A complete lesson or two including interactive starter, specific questions for analysis, quizzes with answers and an AFL plenary which clearly shows progress. There is also a creative writing structure sheet provided for homework which is accessible for all abilities. These resources make a fantastic introduction to or recap on * any poetry SOW * language features and effects, particularly covering imagery. It clearly builds towards essay writing skills. * lessons on different accents and dialects (Scots) * poems from around the world / variations within English language. * 18th century Literature * Romanticism This was used as my first lesson for iGCSE poetry coursework and nearly half of the students wanted to analyse this poem in their essays because they felt so confident with it. That's with a male and female mixed-ability group of EAL students in year 9. If they loved it, so will your students! Check out my Love Poetry bundle to get extra value! Everything you need here for an excellent lesson. Enjoy!

A complete set of resources and a carousel lesson to accompany the poem which is featured in the iGCSE Songs of Ourselves Poetry Anthology. Starters, plenaries, background information, language analysis, imagery, outcomes, essay question, peer-analysis and essay structuring: everything you could need.

A variety of whole lessons reading lesser-known dystopian literature and tying these in with students' creative writing of a dystopian narrative. There is also a practice reading comprehension and a final reading comprehension assessment. This scheme of work is designed for middle to top set students at GCSE level. I found all the students really engaged with the topic and already knew loads of dystopian works of literature, films and computer games, so had to stretch them to read lesser known works. I've tried as far as possible to make this relevant to their interests and to be representative of a range of backgrounds instead of just the classic "dead, white males". My students really enjoyed this unit of work and I hope yours do too! Contains: Structuring narratives in interesting ways (very useful for getting A*s) Analysing and writing speech in ways that show originality and flair (as well as accuracy of punctuation) Creating original dystopian worlds Creating original dystopian characters Close analysis of individual words and basic PEE reading answers Improving and extending vocabulary Recognising satire and comedy in film and literature (Idiocracy and Harrison Vonnegut) because, frankly, all this dystopian stuff could get a bit depressing otherwise! A detailed and thorough comprehension of a (student-friendly version) of Stephen King's The End of the Whole Mess with optional scaffolding which should build towards GCSE style detailed essays covering plot summaries, close analysis, evaluation of word choice, structure, messages, themes, conventions, language features and more.

Resources for Drama work on Sweeney Todd. The script has been edited down to the bare essentials with only a few songs. Backgrounds are to be projected in the classroom to set the scene. Performance assessment proforma included.

One of my favourite poems from Wordsworth, this lesson is structured as a mystery, encouraging students to find clues from the poem to work out what happened to Lucy Gray. I used to find it hard to get students to write about structure, even though they could recognise its effects. This poem makes it so easy for them to spot the features and discuss techniques used to build tension in the poem. This is a complete set of resources which could span at least two lessons. I have included everything you need, from games and activities to language analysis questions and contextual information. Just walk in and teach!

These lessons cover, in detail, the first three chapters of the novel and include everything for each lesson: objectives, starters, activities, analysis, character sheets, quizzes, plenaries and the text itself, just in case someone forgets a book (which inevitably happens!). This is a wonderful book to study with year 8 or 9 and fills in a lot of the gaps in their knowledge of the USA between the end of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. It is a sweet story, told through the eyes of our plucky heroine, Cassie as she learns about the unfairness and danger of her society. It holds up some important mirrors to today's society and the political and social issues we all still deal with. This goes well with the 1930s historical context lessons I have uploaded to my store. Look out for part 2, coming soon!

15 full 90 minute lessons with all resources for a huge Fantasy SOW! There are resources for creating fantasy world, creating characters, designing a quest and writing stories with each part clearly explained for all abilities with fool-proof explanations. There is also a large focus on active reading and comprehension tests for all abilities so the students see modeled examples of well-known and less well-know authors. I have also included resources for use before, during and after watching The Never Ending Story (which worked well with my low ability group and high ability group) to demonstrate story structures. This is part 1 of 2

Potential interview or cover lesson? I love Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire. Reading extracts from books I love always makes for more interesting lessons and revisting book 1 will keep me going until April when the new season starts! There are enough activities on the PowerPoint to easily cover a 2-hour lesson, though it could be cut down to an hour without difficulty. Activities include: learning new vocabulary; guided reading; drama; a short video clip for comparison and consolidation (caution: it uses the word "bitch" while talking about dogs, but is clearly also a joke at Tyrion's expense about his promiscuity); helps assess their ability to find quotations and read for basic meaning (Who is saying what? How do authors blend descriptions of people and places?); an assessment of their reading skills with questions focused on characters and relationships; differentiated from bottom sets to top sets with a range of questions; answers are included for those questions. Phew! I hope this is pretty much fool proof! I have tried it with all of my sets (bottom = levels 2 - 4; middle = 4 - 6; top = 5 - 8) who found it challenging (good!) but also showed some of their best work. Bottom set were able to complete the questions with short answers in about 20 minutes. My top set were still working after an hour, giving much longer answers with quotations and analysis of language. Obviously, some activities are more suited to some groups and lessons than others, but there is enough variety here to keep everyone interested. I would love to know how you get on with this! Please let me know, particularly if you use it for an interview. (Remember your relevant outcomes/objectives!)

10 starter games which help students with memorising lines, characterisation, imagery etc. Plus a bonus one! These are all tried and tested and beloved by my classes from 11 - 19! Examples are given of any more complicated games. No printing or resources needed apart from this Powerpoint (and not even that necessarily if you know the rules!) (These also make fun games for parties either at the end of term or, frankly, after a few pints at the pub!)

This sequence of lessons spanned about 10 weeks but these were the powerpoints I used to structure the first 6 lessons. After this, rehearsal took on a larger role. These 6 PowerPoints include starters relevant to the dramatic skills the students should practice, introductions and with clear objectives and activities to develop students’ abilities and play with the text. There are also plenaries beyond just comparing themselves to the objectives. I performed this version of the script (the pdf is included for your ease here. It is not my work but is freely available) with year 7 and it has more than enough drama with none of the swearing or racism. The lessons themselves have activities for a range of abilities and ages and would be easily adapted to any other text. They work on voice, showing status through body language, symbolism, memorizing lines, teamwork and characterization, among other topics. This play is for 14 students, so we had understudies for each part and they teamed up to work on characterisation (though some decided to perform in contrasting ways) . The narrators took on a character each, other itinerant travelers in our case, but we discussed making them cats or dogs, birds or even angels. Break a leg!!

Book the ICT room, print these two sheets, done!

A range of activities related to Emily Bronte's poem Remembrance, also known as "Cold in the earth", a repeated phrase in the poem. This poem deals with themes of grief, loss and death as well as hope. It is one of the poems in the anthology Songs of Ourselves in the CIE English Literature iGCSE, and the mark scheme relates to that exam, but of course you can replace these with your own exam board's mark scheme if it is different. The PowerPoint has everything you need for the lesson: a quiz, a spelling test, a language feature starter, questions to help students annotate the text, an activity on imagery within the poem which could allow students to bring in Drama or ICT, structured outcomes and a final plenary which helps them structure and self- or peer-assess their paragraphs writing about language in the poem. This could easily take place over a couple of lessons, depending on how much time you give students to feedback on their imagery projects. Best of luck to any teachers preparing for exams! I hope this saves you time and energy you sorely need for teaching and marking.

At least two lessons of in depth study of London by William Blake. There are tonnes of activities here to guide students of any age through the poem's background, the language, structure and form and write responses based on the meaning and message of the poem. Outcomes and objectives are included throughout with a meaningful plenary to help students see their progress. This is part of my larger SOW on Romantic Poetry, but it is a beautiful poem to study on its own as well. Enjoy!

A poetry assessment lesson suitable for KS3 or KS4 focusing on the poem The Cry of the Children by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Too often we concentrate on the famous men of the Romantic era and bypass significant works by their female counterparts. Redress the balance with me! A starter on historical context, objectives and clear assessment criteria are given to help students achieve an empathetic and critical response to the poem. This was used in both my middle ability and top set classes, but I have also included a PowerPoint on inference to support their answers.

Everyone needs a hand with structure and planning. This is a simple one-page word document which breaks down a story into 8 paragraphs. Students can draw a picture for each box to help them visualise the most important part; higher ability students can write key vocabulary and style notes; or, for less able or SEN students, they can write a sentence or two and this can become a topic sentence for developing later.

A webquest created for my year 7s on a range of companies to demonstrate more positive and less positive examples of corporate responsibility (or lack of). Students worked in pairs or threes. I have a range of abilities so the links used are of a wide range including Youtube videos of short length for weaker students and articles from other sources for more able who can evaluate sources afterwards.

I like to have inspirational quotations on the board while my students read. We often make time to discuss them at the end. These were simply compiled in one place and cost me nothing but time, so enjoy!