Inspired by fellow English teachers @Team_English1 over on Twitter, I've produced these essay plan starters for use with AQA GCSE English Literature: MACBETH. The intention is to use them frequently as starters to maintain retention and to develop students' recall skills, which are essential in the context of closed book examinations. I have produced the resource in TWO formats: EITHER as Powerpoint OR as SMART Notebook. Hope it's helpful to you. Matt :)

A highly differentiated resource to support students whose literacy is a barrier to accessing the new GCSE English Language exam papers. I have adhered to the question format of Qs 1 to 3 of the exam paper but have scaffolded the responses to enable less able students to practise the skills demanded by the new AQA English Language Paper 1A: Reading exam. To accompany the pupil workbook, I have produced a set of SMART Notebook slides for whole class interactive teaching of the resource. NOTE: I have produced lots of these differentiated papers now, using extracts taken from: The Monkey's Paw, The Hound of the Baskervilles, War of the Worlds, Dracula, The Pearl, The Machine Gunners, Z for Zachariah, The Sniper, A Christmas Carol, Frankenstein, Skellig, The Hobbit and more. Q1 - the same Q2 - cloze exercise Q3a - sequence the statements to show understanding of narrative events Q3b - cloze exercise to show comprehension of narrative events, using specialist terminology I have also uploaded lots of differentiated new AQA 9 to 1 Language Paper 2s, all available FREE at my 'shop'. Also, loads of 'actual' specimen papers! Help yourself and please leave a review.

A new AQA Eng Lang paper 1A practice exam paper designed for use with less able students. The extract is adapted (with some vocabulary and sentences simplified) from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and I have produced some simplified activities. Also included are a series of SMART Notebook interactive whiteboard slides, for teaching the resource Q by Q with the students, adding an interactive element to the Word resource. Q1 - the same Q2 - cloze activity where students are expected to provide relevant textual details Q3a - sequence the narrative events into the correct order to show understanding of structure Q3b - cloze activity modelling Q3 response. Pupils show comprehension by correct selection. In their own published Key Stage 3 English AQA test papers, Q3 is tested by pupils sequencing a series of statements in the correct order so I have adhered to this format. I know that pupils will not be given this level of support in their GCSE exam but they still need access to differentiated material and activities in order to make sufficient progress to be able to access the questions on the GCSE paper. I hope this is of help to those of you who teach students whose literacy is a real barrier to accessing this new exam paper and have now uploaded lots of others like this one. If you like this resource, I've created lots of other differentiated papers like this one, using extracts from the following novels or short stories: War of the Worlds, Dracula, To Kill a Mockingbird, Skellig, The Pearl, The Machine Gunners, Buddy, Z for Zachariah, The Sniper, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Monkey's Paw. Also uploaded to my 'shop' and all FREE are loads of typical specimen paper 1 and 2 practice exam papers for the new AQA 9 to 1 English Language exams, with accompanying SMART Notebook slides for teaching Qs 1 to 4, Q by Q. Please leave a review and help yourself. Matt :)

A new practice exam AQA English Language Paper 1: 'Creative Explorations in Reading' paper which uses a dramatic moment from 'Dracula' where Johnathan encounters the three hags during his stay at Castle Dracula. The resource contains 4 exam questions which adhere strictly to the format of the specimen paper. Also included is a series of SMART Notebook slides, to aid your whole-class interactive teaching of the paper Q by Q, for textual annotation. I've added a model response to Q3: structure, too. NOTE: If you don't use SMART Notebooks, you can still view the slides by downloading a FREE, SMART Notebook Viewer (which will open the Notebook in a format similar to Powerpoint on your computer). Very occasionally some of the graphic / text moves a little (a formatting glitch in the software!) You can access the viewer FREE of charge here: http://express.smarttech.com/ Loads of other Paper 1s and 2s, as well as differentiated versions, ALL FREE at my 'shop'. Please leave a review and help yourself! Matt :)

Designed for less able students at Key Stage 3 or 4, this is a practice exam paper for the NEW AQA English Language Paper 1A: Reading Fiction texts. Here, I have adapted an extract taken from Charles Dickens' classic novella, 'A Christmas Carol', simplifying vocabulary and sentencing so that the text is more accessible for pupils whose reading age is significantly lower than their chronological age. (I know it's a 19th C fiction text but it's just to practise the exam skills!) I've also designed a series of SMART Notebook slides for whole-class interactive teaching of the workbook resource, Q by Q. The format of the paper is as follows: Q1 - the same Q2 - cloze exercise focusing on how the writer uses language Q3a - sequence a series of statements to show understanding of narrative events / structure Q3b - cloze activity, modelling Q3 response, for pupils to complete. I know that the new GCSE paper is untiered and students will not be given this level of support in the exam. However, this resource is intended to provide an appropriate point of access and opportunities for students whose literacy is a barrier to learning to practise the reading response skills demanded by this exam - and to support the teachers who have to deliver it! I hope that it is of some use to you. I have produced other resources just like this one using extracts from Frankenstein, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Monkey's Paw, The Hobbit, The Sniper, The Pearl, Z for Zachariah, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Machine Gunners, Buddy, Skellig, Dracula and War of the Worlds. NOTE: I've also uploaded loads of specimen new AQA Language Paper 1 and 2s to my 'shop', all available free of charge. Please leave a review and help yourself! Matt :)

Designed for use with students in Y7 whose reading ages range between 7 and 10 years, a highly differentiated workbook of activities providing pupils with opportunities to develop and demonstrate their reading comprehension skills and subject knowledge. Activities include: * Cloze exercise summary tasks * Extension activities with sentence stems to support independent writing * sequencing activities to demonstrate an understanding of narrative structure, introducing key terminology in readiness for GCSE English Language * independent research task with prompts to scaffold * scriptwriting the dialogue which evidently takes place in the 'Missing Chapter', Chapter 13, teaching or consolidating conventions * AQA-style Language Paper 1 tasks on Qs 1 to 3, based on an excerpt from Stoker's 'Dracula' (adapted) * homophone activity arising organically out of the narrative in Chapter 25 * AQA-style Language Paper 1 tasks on Qs 1 to 3, using the climactic episode from the novel in Ch 27 * Post-reading book cover design task, with model and template Aswell as the 37 page pupil workbook, I have produced a set of SMART Notebook slides which replicate the workbook to support whole-class, interactive teaching of the resource. I hope that this resource is of use to colleagues who are teaching children with low-level literacy, providing an appropriate level of challenge and an appropriate point of access to build pupils' confidence and enjoyment of reading, promoting rapid and sustained progress. Matt :)

This resource was inspired by an excellent blog on Twitter by @LauraLolder and a subsequent resource for R&J that was produced by @MissMFrost and shared via @Team_English1 Using @MissMFrost's PPT presentation format, I have produced 13 essay plan starters for use with A Christmas Carol and have uploaded them in Powerpoint format and also SMART Notebook format should you prefer to use this instead. I hope they are of use to you. Matt :)