A fully-resourced engaging English or Drama lesson which explores the narrative of act 1 scene 2 of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Portia’s choice of suitors. It also prompts students to consider the importance of exposition and spacing on stage when performing a play. This lesson is ready to teach and easily adaptable. It develops both English and Drama skills. Learning Objective: Explore the Scenario of Portia’s Choice in Act 1 Scene 2. Learning Outcomes: Students will consider how spacing and staging can be used to show character and setting. -Students will understand Portia’s dilemma in act 1 scene 2. Students will understand the features of a script and will put these into practice by writing their own. Lesson Outline: Do it now: Mind-map features of a script Starter: Thinking about exposition, the students create freeze frames of different scenarios in large groups. Activity 1: Summary of act 1 scene 2. Drama task where students act as Portia and her suitors. Activity 2: Modelling of script layout and script-writing task in pairs. Performances and peer assessment More Resources for The Merchant of Venice Click here for a bundle of all the lessons to take you through the play plus a quiz, knowledge organiser and character revision posters. Freebies: For character revision posters for your classroom, click here. For an English/Drama lesson based on Portia’s choice in Act 1 Scene 2, click here. For a Scheme of Work overview for the unit, click here. I am grateful for all reviews and feedback. If you found this helpful, have a look at the other resources in my LikeAnExpert shop.

1 hour assessment to assess students' knowledge of punctuation and grammar. This writing assessment has 3 sections: 1) Punctuation and grammar (15 marks) - students answer questions defining different sentence types and writing specific types of sentences about topics. They also write sentences using dashes, brackets, colons and semi-colons. 2) Proofreading (20 marks) - students read a piece of writing in which 20 pieces of punctuation are missing and add them in. 3) Descriptive writing (20 marks) - students apply their knowledge by writing one paragraph to describe a beach scene. Marking key and writing rubric is included for easy and quick marking. This test could be used at the beginning of a writing unit to find out gaps in knowledge or as an end of term assessment. It was designed for key stage 3 but could be applicable to key stage 2 or key stage 4. Included as a pdf for easy printing and as a word file in case you would prefer to edit the questions. Leave a review and choose any other resource for free from the LikeAnExpert shop.

Fully resourced and differentiated 1 hour lesson in which students learn how to independently close read a challenging text. This lesson has been designed to be reused multiple times as it teaches students the skills that they need to independently close read any new text to them. Easily adaptable to all abilities as you can differentiate the difficulty of the text given (example texts and teacher text selection advice included). Leave a review and choose any other resource for free from the LikeAnExpert shop.

24 question cards for students to use as prompts for book club discussion. I keep a laminated set with me and then students take it in turns to draw cards and answer the question. They make for great discussion!

A detailed booklet to prompt students to create their own mini anthology of poetry. This would be suitable for key stage 3 but could easily be adapted for older or younger students. It is included as a word document (for editing) and as a pdf (for easy printing and safe formatting). It includes grading criteria. Please see the accompanying scheme of learning which teaches all the techniques mentioned (similes, metaphors, personification, sibilance and assonance etc). For other English, PSHE and Media activities, see my Like An Expert shop.

A detailed one hour lesson to support students to explore the theme of curiosity and investigation as preparation for the IGCSE exam for Edexcel English Literature 4ET1 on the question on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (play by Simon Stephens) . This lesson explores the term ‘marking the moment’, and also prompts students to consider how the play has conventions of both a murder mystery and an anti-murder mystery. If you find this resource helpful, please leave a review and have a look at other resources available in my shop.

A thorough revision quiz that covers all 30 of the Gillian Clark poems on the CIE AS level English Literature syllabus (9695). This takes between one and two hours to complete. Round one asks students to identify the poem and the poetic techniques used in quotes from the poems. Round two asks them to identify poems with specific themes. Poems covered: Advent Apples Baby-sitting Blaen Cwrt Burning Nettles Catrin Climbing Cader Idris Cold Knap Lake Death of a Cat Death of a Young Woman February Hare in July Hearthstone Icthyosaur Journey Lunchtime Lecture Miracle on St David’s Day My Box Neighbours Pipistrelle Post Script Ram Scything Seal Stealing Peas Sunday (‘From the mahogany…’) Sunday (‘Getting up early…’) The Lighthouse Times Like These White Roses Leave a review and choose any other resource of up to the same value for free from my shop.

A 12 lesson scheme of work overview to support students in their studies of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (play by Simon Stephens) for Edexcel English Literature IGCSE 4ET1. All the resources are available on TES. The first lesson can be found for free here. If you find this resource helpful, please leave a review and have a look at other resources available in my shop.

A detailed and engaging one hour lesson to support students in their analysis of the theme of truth and lies in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (play by Simon Stephens) for Edexcel English Literature IGCSE 4ET1. This lesson is best used towards the start of the teaching unit and then referred back to as you work through the play. This resource contains a ready-to-teach Powerpoint with all teacher and printing instructions included. If you find this resource helpful, please leave a review and have a look at other resources available in my shop.

A detailed homework/online -learning resource for students to learn about the context of the black historical figures in John Agard’s poem ‘Checking Out Me History’. Answers are provided on a separate PDF. Students complete tasks on the following four figures: Toussaint L’Ouverture Shaka Zulu Nanny de Maroon Mary Seacole I use this to ensure that students have an understanding of who these figures were and their importance in history. This leads to a greater understanding of the poem. If you find this resource helpful, please leave a review and have a look at other free and paid-for resources available in my shop.

21 engaging and supportive lessons designed for home/online/virtual learning to assist students to independently read ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by John Boyne. This is aimed at key stage 3 students and covers both English Language and Literature skills. I have taken my popular scheme of work on ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ and redesigned it for students to be able to work through independently from home. Therefore it is a workbook style document and students type their work straight into the Powerpoint. This is ideal for students who are home-schooled or need additional support to study the novel. This workbook comprises of 21 full one-hour lessons, and it is 225 Powerpoint slides long. The Powerpoint/workbook contains: A contents page A knowledge organiser with all the key terms for the unit defined A calendar template so that you can support your students with when they should be working on their English work. 21 fully resourced lessons with spaces for students to complete the work in it. Extension tasks A helpsheet Space for teacher/parent feedback. Freebies: Two pre-reading lessons to introduce students to the context of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is available for free here. A lesson on chapter 1 of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is available for free here. A scheme of work for teaching the entire novel is available for free here. If you find this lesson useful, please consider purchasing this ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ Bundle or have a look at other resources available in my shop. . Leave a review and choose any other resource of up to the same value for free from my shop.

An interactive advent calendar for use in English lessons or as literacy activities in form time. Each day links to a new literacy or English activity such as descriptive writing, comprehension questions, games or critical thinking exercises. These work especially well as 10 minute starters for the beginning of your lessons. Happy Christmas! Leave a review and choose any other resource for free from the LikeAnExpert shop.

A scheme of learning overview document and end of unit assessment for an introduction to poetry; this unit is suitable for key stage 3 (particularly year 7) to build upon what they have learned in key stage 2. It embeds knowledge of poetic techniques, whilst also introducing them to poetic analysis. All the resources for teaching this scheme of learning are available in my shop (some of them are free!) Please leave a review!

A simple start of year activity that requires students to write an acrostic poem to describe themselves. This worksheet is very versatile and could be used as a lesson or homework activity in an English or PSHE lesson. It could be used for key stages 2 or 3. It is included as a pdf for easy printing and as a word document in case you would like to edit it. For other English, PSHE and Media activities, see my Like An Expert shop.

A simple match-up activity with 16 poetic terms and their definitions. I keep a couple of sets laminated and use them for speed matching; over time my students have shown a real improvement. If you find this resource helpful, please leave a review and have a look at other resources available in my shop.

A detailed knowledge organiser to introduce students to poetic techniques and structures. It includes the following sections: Influential poets Poetic structures Poetic techniques Poet laureate This knowledge organiser can be used for designing schemes of work, revision mats for students or giving them self-quizzing homework. Please leave a review and check out the LikeAnExpert shop.

A detailed and engaging one hour lesson to introduce the play version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (play by Simon Stephens) for Edexcel English Literature IGCSE 4ET1. This lesson introduces students to the assessment objectives for the Edexcel Pearson IGCSE as well as exploring the background and context of autism and sensory overload as a way to understand the character of Christopher. This resource contains: A full PPT with teacher instructions included. A KWL grid. A handout for the ‘do it now’/bellwork activity. If you find this resource helpful, please leave a review and have a look at other resources available in my shop.

A simple worksheet to help students to plan the creation of their own superhero. Students consider the main character traits that they would like their character to have and then plan backwards to think about how this could be portrayed to the reader through their costume, name, body language etc. This would be helpful when studying characterisation, connotations and superhero conventions. Suitable for KS3.

Worksheet for use in class or homework to prompt students to write a description of household objects. It is included as a word doc and pdf for easy printing and editing.