Of Mice and Men Much of the plot in the novel is cyclical, as are the lives of the characters. The story opens and closes in the same place, the men’s lives are a routine of work - earn money - spend money in the flop-house - work, and many of the chapters begin and end in similar ways. There are lots of examples of foreshadowing in Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck uses this technique to suggest that the characters couldn’t have avoided their fates – their destinies are inevitable. The task this resource offers is for students to look below the surface of the text and interpret how Steinbeck is offering clues about what will happen later on in the novel. I am looking for some original responses.

KS3 English Shakespeare Macbeth - 10 Characteristics of a Shakespearean Tragedy

This 23 slide PowerPoint (for teachers) contains 50+ FUN activities for students to do when reading novels as a class. These tasks really do engage, enthuse and excite, and they can be used with any age group. Look at the 'previews' to see the kind of activities on offer. These activities really do jazz up 'reading' up students and gives them an active task when reading as a class.

Issue 'Poem Analysis' and tell students that they're going to analyse a poem (cue students' inevitable groan). The 'poem' is really the lyrics from Eminem's and Rhianna's Love the Way you Lie, but DO NOT tell students this. Allow students to analyse the 'poem'. They're to: Underline the word/phrase you and your partner really like (you can do one each) What is this poem about? How do you know? What makes this a poem? Underline and label things that make this a poem. Discuss after students have had 10 minutes to analyse the poem and annotate it. Without saying anything, just play the beginning of Eminem's and Rhianna's song and watch students' faces. They'll be amazed and suddenly quite engaged with poetry which they thought they hated. Lead into a discussion about how musical lyrics are a form of poetry. As an extension task, you could ask students to bring in their favourite musical lyrics and analyse them like a 'poem'. A similar activity I've created is in my shop called: KS3 Poetry Starter - Engaging Students Who 'HATE' Shakespeare - Shakespeare or Singer QUIZ

Poetic devices glossary to assist with students' study of poetry.

This PPT offers students two activities to practise close reading and inference. The first activity gives students a scenario in which they have to consider whether the protagonist is guilty of theft. The answer isn't very obvious so students have to closely read the passage to make a considered decision. The second activity gives an RSPCA's description of a puppy for adoption. Students have to explain what they can infer from the passage based on evidence and reasoning.

Students are asked to analyse a short piece of dialogue between a teacher and student. They are to 'zoom' in on the language and focusing specifically on words, e.g. the difference between the words 'chat' and 'discussion'.

GREAT 10-MINUTE STARTER TO CEMENT THE FOLLOWING KEY TERMS AND THEIR DEFINITIONS: Accent Adjacency pairs Back-channel features Blend word Contraction Deixis / deictics Dialect Discourse markers Elision Ellipsis False start Fillers Hedge Idiolect Interactional talk Initialism Jargon Micropause Non-fluency features Overt prestige Paralinguistic features Phatic talk Prosodic features Received Pronunciation Repairs Slang Sociolect Standard English Tag question Transactional talk Transcript Turn taking Utterance Vague language INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACTIVITY: Cut out these dominoes and laminate them (optional). Give individuals or pairs one domino, including you, the teacher. You begin by reading out the definition on the yellow side of your card. The student who has the term on the blue side of their card that matches with your definition then puts up their hand and says their term out loud. They then read aloud the definition on the yellow side of their card. All class members will have to listen carefully to see if their term matches with the definition they’ve just heard, and so the game continues until it goes full circle, every student has spoken, and you eventually hear the definition that matches with the term on the blue side of your card. Essentially, you’re playing a large game of dominoes, where students have to match key terms with definitions they hear. Depending on your group’s knowledge/ability, you may work altogether to match up the terms with definitions, or, alternatively, you may decide to play this as an actual dominoes game on the floor. This is a great 10-minute starter that really helps students to remember key terms and their definitions.

Go through the PowerPoint slide showing statements about Shakespeare. Students move to the left or right of the room depending on whether they think the statement is true or false. Once students have made their decision, click the mouse and show the answer. Use the Teacher's Notes to give students a little bit more information about the fact. This is an interactive starter activity that students really engage with.

A starter which explains the three different sentence types with examples, making reference to main clauses, subordinate clauses and embedded clauses. Ideal to use as an introduction to a piece of creative/descriptive writing where you'd expect students to use varied sentences.

Put students into 6 groups and issue each group one section of the Wife of Bath and one translation sheet. Students are spend 3 minutes with each section and write the modern translation on their translation sheet. IMPORTANT: Students must make sure they write their translation in the correctly numbered space on the sheet to ensure it's in order at the end of the task. They're to use the helpful hints to guide them. After students have had all 6 sections, they're to read out what they've translated. Discuss as a class.

The first sentence of an article (often printed in bold, or capitals, or a larger font) is called the topic sentence, as it introduces the main topic/subject of the article. It aims to give you the whole story in one go – who, what, where, why and when. Explain that it’s imperative that a writer is clear, concise and correct in their topic sentence. Issue Topic Sentences to pairs of students. Ask them to write down the five Ws and see how many their topic sentence answers. Students will see how concise the topic sentence is, and what questions have been left unanswered. After 5 minutes, ask students to swap their topic sentence with another pair and do the same. Discuss: How well were the topic sentences written? How could they have been improved? (PW) Display PowerPoint. Ask students to use the facts displayed to have a go at writing their own topic sentence. Show students the sentence written in the Daily Mail article (slide 3). Discuss how they’ve focused on the mother at the start of the sentence. Students to swap their topic sentences with a partner to see whether it answers the 5 Ws. This resource is taken from my KS3 English Newspaper/Journalism SOW which you can buy from my shop.

In this resource bundle are three activities to learn the language features on a magazine's front cover: CARD SORT - cut out all of the cards and ask students to match up the feature with the example. FEATURE DOMINOES - students essentially play a spoken version of dominoes in which they match up language features with examples. Detailed instructions included on resource.. BLOCKBUSTERS - students have the cross the square on the PPT vertically or horizontally by asking a series of questions about magazine language features. MAGAZINE LAYOUT - students learn how a magazine is laid out. Firstly, put students in pairs. One partner spends 1-2 minutes studying the magazine layout before they have to turn over the sheet and try to explain to their partner how a magazine is laid out. Students learn the following features: Alliteration Emotive language Tag line Left side third Cover line Imperative Superlative Sky line Pun Masthead Second person pronoun Interrogative Hyperbole Central image Use of numbers Connotation

Looking at both tragic and comic features, students decide whether Act 4, Scene 1 of Much Ado About Nothing conforms more to a tragedy or a comedy. Students find evidence for each feature before making a decision. This could lead into some effective class discussion and debate. Students are asked to consider the phrase 'tragicomedy'.

This is a 6-7 week scheme of work that can be adapted to suit your needs, but it basically leads students up to pitching their idea for a new type of fast food restaurant. Essentially, it leads up to a very engaging speaking and listening assessment. Students must learn to work in a team with different roles. They must learn to delegate tasks based on students' differing abilities. The SOW involves mind mapping, problem-solving and decision-making. Having done this SOW with students before, it really does get their creative juices flowing. They end up taking it very seriously and really do think about their restaurant's brand name, slogan, logo, target audience, USP, appropriate location etc. The competitive element of the SOW really engages boys as well. Not only do students hone their speaking and listening skills, but they gain a basic understanding of how to create a business that will be successful when considering several different factors. The SOW is all included within the PowerPoint with 'notes' added to most slides to be completely self-explanatory. The PowerPoint contains 31 slides, which are very easy to follow and tell students exactly what they need to do.

This resource contains a PPT and a selection of poems for students to practise approaching unseen poetry. The PPT guides students through the following: 1. Title 2. Shape/form 3. Personal response 4. Voice 5. Vocabulary 6. Imagery 7. Structure 8. Interpretation Encouraging students to look at these aspects of a poem will enable them to engage and understand the unseen poem.

Ask your students to graph the build-up of tension in each act. Differentiation would include asking students to add quotes to their graph or illustrate pictures to help their understanding.

An informative PPT explaining how to use speech marks correctly.

Students are to correct a sentence which has used several incorrect homophones. They are then asked to create their own sentences using incorrect homophones for their partner to correct.

This is a fun, engaging starter which gets students excited about writing. Firstly, they watch the McCain Wedges advert before completing a guided writing activity where students write from the perspective of an inanimate object with question prompts. This often has hilarious results. The final activity offers student complete creative freedom, but please note, googly eyes are required.