A fantastic Harry Potter themed writing lesson for KS3 students with support and stretch differentiation. This can easily be adapted for a range of classes. Includes tasks aimed at developing writing with a range of sentences, punctuation and techniques to show not only accuracy but flair. See my other resources for more supportive writing lessons.

“Miss - what’s a structural feature?” A few lessons for reading focused on identifying language and structural devices - and knowing the difference between the two! Students will be exposed to a number of short extracts first, with the aim of selecting a range of devices in a scavenger hunt game. The bulk of the lessons then focusses on a fairly challenging Jaws extract (My mid ability year 8s took well to this). They will be given opportunity for thorough class annotation and then sent off to create group presentations on their given section of the text. Lesson ends with an informal writing assessment based on the Jaws exploration thus far.

Are humans more important than animals? Does social status impact outcomes? This set of lessons provides excellent opportunity for speaking and listening before delving students into colourful, silent debates on a carousel of interesting topics (picked by my year 10 class). There are even links to their English literature texts so it provides a really excellent cross-topic study (texts linked to debate topics are: Jekyll and Hyde and An Inspector Calls). This leads to a transactional GCSE English Language style writing assessment at the very end of the slide. Plenty of support provided for printing and engaging stretch and challenge tips and tasks. Fully editable and valuable KS4 resource. My class are a set 2 Y10 class and the first lesson was graded ‘outstanding’.*

A super fun series of writing-focussed lessons that I made for my LA Y7 class. My class are assessed using Primary-style descriptors but this shouldn’t impact the delivery of these lessons to any LA KS3 class or Primary students. Students look at dystopia and utopia as concepts and then explore these in their own writing. They write creatively, and also write transactional pieces based on pertinent global issues in our own world. The unit ends with some fantastically creative project-based work on designing and promoting their own planet.

An engaging, well differentiated and guided AO2 focussed lesson that I created for my Y10 class in response to their feedback. Will suit students studying this text in KS4 with any exam board.

A lesson for KS3 lower ability helping to engage them with descriptive and instructional writing. Includes a fun paired drawing task to encourage engagement.

How do you explain what a complex sentence is in a memorable way? A full set of lessons focussing heavily on the basic technical writing skills with stretch and challenge tasks. Lessons move into a focus on writing with “flair” where students consider how to show, not tell through the use of literary devices. A really solid refresher or entry into improving writing skills for the demands of SPAG and AO5 as they work towards GCSE. A range of my KS3 classes have loved these. This edition contains reference to AREs (Age related expectations) - you may just delete this word. The descriptors are all very relevant.

Using extracts from texts such as ‘A Street Cat Named Bob’ (included on the slides), this walk-through series of lessons guides KS3 (or even lower ability KS4) students to identifying the GAP of a text, writing comparisons, evaluations and analysis paragraphs of the impact of language and structure. Very directive towards GCSE requirements. Worked excellently for our Y8s.

Here is an excellent introduction to a conflict themed scheme of lessons - you will get around 5 lessons from this resource. Students explore the idea of conflict first, then complete an “around the classroom” World War fact hunt to engage the class with the context of the unit. War poetry is then provided on slides with a series of lessons focussed on viewpoint and language and structure. This leads to some pieces of written work and a literacy-centric reflection of this work at the end.

A walk-through of Edexcel’s Paper 2 3a)… with a tongue-in-cheek reference to this week’s porter questions Contains 2 actual exemplars (that I’ve typed from the original scans) from the 2017 paper: one a 10/20 mark and one a high mark Opportunity to practice a question (not previously used in the exams or sample material) Tips and prep for the AOs for Jekyll and Hyde a and b and Poetry and paper layout All resources printable from PPT.

Lesson series to support review writing. Include links/files to support engaging lessons where students can watch engaging short films / listen to songs to master the art of review writing. Plans for peer assessed and teacher assessed task attached. For reference - taught to a lower ability Y10 class.

A simple but super useful strategy to help your EDEXCEL English Language candidates with their comparison (7b) question. You will need to supply your own texts to use with this - but there are plenty of resources available.

Engage your classes with unpicking writer viewpoint through the use of language and structural devices. A simple but engaging lesson using an extract from Riz Ahmed’s “Typecast as a Terrorist” (full text printable from slide 2 of the PPT). My year 8 class found the topic engaging and relevant and this led to some excellent PETE/PEE paragraph responses on how viewpoint is presented in a text.

A simple yet really animated and engaging dinosaur adventure walk-through for lower ability KS3 or even primary age pupils. Focuses on primary expectations such as writing to instruct, listing and using a range of sentence structures. I created this for my Y7 class which includes a range of SEND.

How do you engage students with the art of subtlety? How do you remove explicit descriptions in place of literary devices which imply mood? This simple yet highly effective lesson helps pupils of a range of abilities with understanding how to improve their use of implicit meaning in writing. The lesson begins with a whole-class game of taboo, and leads to a description of a short youtube clip and peer assessment (note: you may want to change the clip if too violent).