Here you will find challenging, but engaging resources for all abilities, that will engage your students and support their progress in English.
Please do note hesitate to leave feedback and/or connect with me via Instagram!
Here you will find challenging, but engaging resources for all abilities, that will engage your students and support their progress in English.
Please do note hesitate to leave feedback and/or connect with me via Instagram!
Context
This lesson explores the use of foreshadowing in Arthur Miller’s infamous play: A View from the Bridge.
Links to AO2
Content
Students will recap the definition of foreshadowing as a starter task, then proceed to brainstorm ideas in order to analyse key quotations from act one.
Differentiation:
Extension tasks, exemplary paragraph and writing frame provided.
Suitable for all sets, during a single period of approximately 50 minutes.
Follow on lesson could include peer assessing the students’ paragraphs and redrafting to include alternative analysis.
This worksheet is suitable for all abilities to plan a persuasive piece of writing.
Students are given opportunities to create a new product or ‘sell’ their favourite experience or commodity.
Can be used as an extended starter sheet in a persuasive writing lesson. Teachers need only provide their own success criteria for a persuasive speech; i.e. use of rhetorical questions and exclamation marks.
Plenary: most impressive speeches read aloud by teacher or student.
These lessons were used for non-specialist English teachers and were deemed fun and effective for students.
Suitable for all abilities; KS3-lower abilities KS4.
Content:
This interactive lesson is most suitable for a double period of two 50 minute lessons.
The students will partake in a range of analytical tasks, including close reading, challenging ideas of stereotypes and evaluative assessments of pair work.
The starter task will introduce the students to the play ‘DNA’ by Dennis Kelly; key words are highlighted to guide less able students to the main ideas in the text.
The students will then have a guided discussion on the definition of gangs, reviewing images of young people in groups and review a video with a short commentary on gangs. They will then decide how the images represent gangs (or not.)
Teacher led discussions will enable the students to contemplate where their interpretations are derived from i.e. media, own experiences etc.
Students will then practise a dramatic reading of the beginning of the play; teacher should monitor the students and select 4 to perform at the end of the lesson.
Students will then peer assess each performance using an evaluative sheet.
Content:
This lesson explores language and structure in the poem ‘Half-Caste’ by John Agard. Students will complete a variety of independent and paired tasks in order to pick apart the subtleties of the popular poem.
Also includes an interactive mini plenary that assesses the students’ understanding of the writer’s choices.
Differentiation:
Sentence stems provided for response task.
Separate resource includes full writing frame to comment on language and structure.
Extension and super extension tasks Links to AO2, typically for a mid-top set at KS3/4.
Lesson duration: 100 minutes (double)
Lesson recently rated good+ in an observation with outstanding features.
This resource can be set for a literacy lesson (approximately 50 minutes,) or for homework.
Students will review the basic rules of sentence structures and complete a variety of literacy tasks, including the revision of nouns and adjectives, aimed at improving literacy.
The workbook is differentiated and becomes more challenging, concluding with a descriptive writing task.
This resource has been used for EAL learners and low ability students.
This lesson was recently judged as outstanding in an observation.
Students studying 19th century literature will be introduced to an extract from Thomas Hardy’s ‘Arch Deceiver,’ considering what the term ‘deceive’ means and looking for clues in the language and structural elements of the text.
This lesson includes paired and individual tasks with a focus on inference.
A suitable follow on lesson would be to convert notes from the grid into paragraphs, using paragraph structures of your choice.
Typically for a mid-top set, for a 50 minute lesson.
Power point and extract included.
Teachers need only print copies of slide 6 for students to complete.
This lesson can be used for any group at Key Stages 2,3 and 4.
The lesson explores the features of gothic writing, and asks the students to create their own fictional character.
Some brief notes on the origin of Gothicism is explored and linked to modern day literature and film.
An ideal, light hearted, creative lesson for new classes/last lessons of the day and for cover.
Typically suited to a 50 minute lesson. Can be extended to a double if students are asked to create a story based on their fictional characters.
This lesson explores the role of responsibility in the play, An Inspector Calls.
Students will complete a close reading activity and peruse a modelled paragraph, hitting AO2 and AO6.
Suitable for a mid-top set and an approximately 50 minute lesson.
This lesson offers the opportunity, for students to analyse language and structure in the poem ‘Infant Sorrow,’ by William Blake.
Starter task encourages students to work independently by reading and annotating the poem, utilising a dictionary for unfamiliar words.
A thorough, timed task is the main activity and focuses on the structure of the poem (stanzas, line breaks etc.) as well as the use of language to communicate ideas to the reader.
Plenary task is a self assessment against AO2.
Differentiation:
Students may work in pairs to complete the starter task.
Simplistic to complex analysis questions provided in the main task.
Extension tasks provided for closer analysis of language in the poem.
Typically for a 50 minute lesson-students can complete the main task as homework if the set is lower than a 3 and timing for the starter task goes beyond 10 minutes.
This activity encourages students to identify stressed sounds.
Typically for a low ability KS3/4 group.
Can also be used for primary aged students.
Teachers need only print copies and cut in half.
This lesson explores the complexities of the war poem, Poppies.
Students will be given tasks that utilise their critical thinking skills to find out the meaning of the poem. Imagery is the focus, with the tasks geared towards a response that will show the students’ understanding of how imagery creates meaning for the reader.
Differentiated sentence starters and extension tasks provided.
Plenary encourages students to review their work, checking for spelling, punctuation and grammar accuracy.
Can be used for any set studying conflict poetry.
This lesson focuses on the imagery in the free versed poem, Quickdraw by Carol Ann Duffy.
Students will review the term ‘imagery’ and key words from the poem in pairs.
They will then read the poem and briefly annotate for imagery.
Finally, they will be shown an exemplary response and will complete their own commentaries in imagery in the poem.
Differentiation:
This lesson is targeted at KS3, however, lower KS4 groups can also benefit from the activities.
Poem has highlighted key words and phrases, with exemplary annotations.
Model paragraph provided with highlighted elements for reviewing against mark scheme.
Typically a 50 minute lesson.
This lesson is focused on question 5 (40 mark question)
Students will revise brackets, discourse markers and synonyms before completing a mock question 5 response.
Students will spend 40 minutes writing their piece.
This lesson is designed for students who are targeted at level 5 and above for the English Language exam.
Typically a double lesson (100 minutes.)
This lesson will give students the opportunity to review the structural elements in news articles.
Students will compare two articles, sharing the same story and decide how each portrays a specific portrayal of character through the use of language and selection of images.
Teachers need only to print copies of the articles (links provided.)
Differentiation
Main task includes sentence starters, stretch and challenge tasks.
Typically for a 50 minute lesson. Previously used for a Media after school club lesson.
Suitable for all sets.
These lessons explore the use of imagery in Macbeth’s soliloquy-act , scene 7.
Students will annotate the extract, brainstorm ideas and translate these ideas into sentences and then paragraphs.
Used with an intervention class to help aid understanding and encourage critical thinking skills.
Part 2 goes into more detail and the students will write a complete PEEL paragraph.
Lesson is heavily geared towards gaining marks for detailed explanations- a key focus for KS3 students.
Sentence starters and extension tasks provided.
Resource provided is act 1, scene 7, with underlined words and phrases for lower ability students.
Get your students working!
This is an interactive revision booklet containing 35 pages, for those studying: Romeo and Juliet, Jekyll and Hyde, An Inspector Calls and the Power and Conflict poetry cluster with AQA.
Students will be directed through a range of tasks daily, to consolidate knowledge of the texts and also the specifics of the exams, such as assessment objectives and timings.
Lots of quizzes, web links and check boxes to keep the students on task.
Extended writing opportunities and guided essay plans included.
Encourage independent learning over summer with self reflection and SMART plan pages reviewing lockdown learning routines.
Parent box included to assist with monitoring of learning, making it easier to keep track of students’ progress.
Suitable for all abilities in KS4. Colour coded for ease of differentiating tasks/days.
Can be used for summer learning or as a homework booklet during term time.
Certificate of completion included, to be signed by teacher and Principal.
This is a general lesson merging current affairs with transactional writing skills.
Students will pick out language and structural techniques in an article, discuss everyday examples of techniques being used in media and write their own ‘good news story’ in the form of an article.
Good for recapping and lifting the creating variety during home/online learning.
Includes a pre written Kahoot quiz at the end for identifying techniques in different sentences. PIN included.
Suitable for both key stages 3 and 4.