This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use throughout the reading of Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol.' Teachers have found them particularly useful in exam revision, comprehension tasks, or guided reading sessions. They are perfect for aiding the progress of students towards meeting the KS4 expectations within the new National Curriculum framework - this makes the tasks suitable for all examining bodies. Students have found these resources extremely engaging, and for teachers there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They also relate to key extracts, characters, and themes from the story, ensuring that students gain a deep understanding of the text. Activities within the booklet include: - 'Context: 19th Century Britain' - to aid students with 'Drawing on knowledge of the purpose, audience and context of the writing, including its social, historical and cultural context and the literary tradition to which it belongs, to inform evaluation;' - 'Dickens' Description' - to aid students with 'Analysing a writer’s choice of vocabulary, form, grammatical and structural features, and evaluating their effectiveness and impact;' - 'The Ghost of Christmas Past' - to aid students with 'Seeking evidence in the text to support a point of view, including justifying inferences with evidence;' - 'Editing the Text' - to aid students with 'Making an informed personal response, recognising that other responses to a text are possible and evaluating these.' Plus many, many more activities (the booklet is around 30 pages in length!) I've also added it as a PDF in case the formatting differs on your computer. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on a separate document (included).

This engaging and informative lesson enables students to make insightful and developed interpretations regarding the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in ‘A Christmas Carol.’ In particular, they explore how his character is originally introduced, and then developed throughout the appearances of the three ghosts. The lesson follows a step-by-step learning journey, in which children learn through: - Reading and understanding the selected extracts to determine the key traits of Scrooge's character at different points in the text; - Noticing trends in Scrooge's character throughout the text, observing how he has developed from the opening of the text through completion of a 'Character Arc.' - Analysing Dickens' intentions in developing the character of Scrooge throughout the text; - Peer assessing each other's learning attempts. Included is: - Whole lesson PowerPoint - colourful and comprehensive; - Selected extracts demonstrating Scrooge's development; - Character Arc template; - Analysis template with success criteria for creating well-structured responses; - Comprehensive lesson plan. There are also opportunities for group learning, peer assessment, and whole class discussion. This was originally taught to mixed ability year 10 groups, but can easily be differentiated for groups of different ages and abilities. All images are licensed for commercial use, and image rights are listed on the last page of the presentation.

This engaging and informative lesson enables students to make precise and detailed interpretations of Harper Lee’s language choices throughout To Kill a Mockingbird. In particular, students identify and analyse the effect of Lee’s language in her descriptions of settings in the novel, using precisely selected extracts, before applying these concepts to their own descriptive writing attempts. The lesson follows a step-by-step learning journey, in which children learn through: Defining and exemplifying the descriptive writing techniques, through a fun and interactive bingo game; Identifying the language techniques that Lee uses in her descriptions of settings in the novel;’ Analysing the effectiveness of Lee’s descriptive writing; Creating their own descriptions of settings, using Lee’s model examples, a structure strip, and the techniques that they have gathered over the course of the lesson; Peer assessing each other’s learning attempts; Included is: Whole lesson PowerPoint - colourful and comprehensive; Bingo Cards Teacher’s Bingo Questions/Guidance; Selected extracts (from chapters 1, 12 and 15); Descriptive Writing Structure Strip; Descritpive Writing Helpsheet; Comprehensive Lesson Plan. There are also opportunities for group learning, speaking and listening, peer assessment, and whole class discussion. I originally used these resources with year 10 and 11 classes, however colleagues have used them for between year 8 and year 13 with some adaptations. All images are licensed for commercial use, and image rights are listed on the last page of the presentation.

This detailed and visually-appealing resource offers a complete reference point for students learning or revising Charlotte Mew’s love and relationships poem 'The Farmer’s Bride.’ It contains comprehensive sections on: Context; Line-by-Line Analysis; Poetic Devices/ Language Devices; Themes; Form/Structure; Poems for Comparison; Critique of the Poem. Key words and ideas are underlined for easy reference. The resource is designed to be printed onto A3, and is provided as both a PDF and a Word version (so that you can edit if you want to). All images used are licensed for commercial use and are cited on a separate document (included).

This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use throughout the reading of J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.' Teachers have found them particularly useful in comprehension or guided reading sessions. They are perfect for aiding the progress of children towards meeting the upper KS2 expectations within the new National Curriculum framework. Children love learning from these resources, whilst they are also of great use to teachers, as there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They also relate to key extracts, characters, and themes from the story, ensuring that children gain a deep understanding of the text. Activities within the booklet include: - 'An Interview with Dumbledore' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Understand what is read by drawing on information from more than one paragraph, identifying key details that support the main ideas, and using quotations for illustration;' - 'Rowling's Description' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Explain meanings of words that they know and ask the meaning of new words. Link the meaning of new words to words that they already know;' - 'Severus Snape!' and 'Ron Weasley!' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Understand what is read by drawing on information from more than one paragraph, identifying key details that support the main ideas, and using quotations for illustration;' - 'Figurative Language in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Discuss and evaluate how authors use language, including figurative language, to create an impact on the reader.' Plus many, many more activities (the booklet is 22 pages in length!) I've also added it as a PDF in case the formatting differs on your computer. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on a separate document (included).

This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use throughout the reading of Susan Hill's 'The Woman in Black.' Teachers have found them particularly useful in comprehension or guided reading sessions. They are perfect for aiding the progress of children towards meeting the KS3 expectations within the new National Curriculum framework. Children have found these resources extremely engaging, and for teachers there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They also relate to key extracts, characters, and themes from the story, ensuring that children gain a deep understanding of the text. Activities within the booklet include: - 'Context: The Rural North' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Know the purpose, audience and context of the writing and drawing on this knowledge to support comprehension.' - 'Hill's Description - The Horse and Trap' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Know how language, including figurative language, vocabulary choice, grammar, text structure and organisational features, present meaning.' - 'Mr Jerome' and 'The Woman in Black' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Study setting, plot, and characterisation, and the effects of these.' - 'Vocabulary Inspector' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Learn new vocabulary, relating it explicitly to known vocabulary and understanding it with the help of context and dictionaries.' Plus many, many more activities (the booklet is 21 pages in length!) I've also added it as a PDF in case the formatting differs on your computer. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on a separate document (included).

This engaging and stimulating lesson enables students to create travel brochure texts containing appropriate and imaginative language choices, utilising a range of different language techniques with subtlety in order to craft writing that serves the dual purpose of being descriptive and persuasive. In particular, students learn how descriptive language such as of similes, metaphors, and personification, in addition to persuasive devices such as statistics, rhetorical questions, and personal pronouns, can help to create truly authentic and effective travel brochure pieces. The lesson follows a clear, logical, bite-size learning journey, which guides students towards differentiated learning objectives. Over the course of this journey, they become able to: - Define what travel brochures are and understand their purposes; - Identify the persuasive and descriptive language devices that travel brochure writers employ - Analyse the effects of the language in a model travel brochure text; - Utilise a clear and challenging success criteria document in order to construct their own travel brochure pieces; - Self/Peer assess travel writing attempts. This resource pack includes: - A visually engaging whole-lesson PowerPoint presentation; - An interesting and ambitious travel writing extract (with a highlighted version for teachers): -A logical and challenging worksheet, encouraging students to analyse key features; - A detailed lesson plan, complete with what the teacher and students should aim to achieve at each stage of the lesson. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the PowerPoint.

This detailed and visually-appealing resource offers a complete reference point for students learning or revising Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Sign of Four.' It contains comprehensive sections on: - Context; - Chapter by Chapter Summary (with quotes); - Main Characters; - Themes; - Doyle's Language Devices; - Features of Detective Novels. Key words and ideas are underlined for easy reference. The resource is designed to be printed onto A3, and is provided as both a PDF and a Word version (so that you can edit if you want to). All images used are licensed for commercial use and are cited on a separate document (included).

This engaging and informative lesson enables students to make clear, detailed and well-informed links between Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and its social and historical context. In particular, students develop their understanding of the 1930s American South, The Great Depression, and racial inequalities, before connecting this understanding with what they read in precisely-selected extracts. The lesson follows a step-by-step learning journey, in which children learn through: Creating American South timelines using clearly explained context cards, in order to establish an understanding of context; Researching further information about the social and historical context of the novel, using a guided research sheet;’ Reading selected extracts from the text, in order to link ideas regarding context and text together; Analysing how the features of context are portrayed in the novel; Peer assessing each other’s learning attempts; Included is: Whole lesson PowerPoint - colourful and comprehensive; Timeline Cards Research Template; Selected extracts (from chapters 1, 9 and 15); Essay template Comprehensive lesson plan. There are also opportunities for group learning, speaking and listening, peer assessment, and whole class discussion. I originally used these resources with year 10 and 11 classes, however colleagues have used them for between year 8 and year 13 with some adaptations. Please note that students will need internet access for the research introduction task. All images are licensed for commercial use, and image rights are listed on the last page of the presentation.

These resources enable students to understand and analyse the significance of the ending in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. More precisely, students learn to make clear and accurate interpretations regarding the increasing inequalities on the farm. Furthermore, students analyse how the final events of the novel help Orwell to get his message across to the reader. It is likely that there are enough resources here to be used over at least two hour-long lessons. Students learn through the following tasks: - Gauging and collaborating previous knowledge of 'equality' through a discussion-based starter task; - Reading chapters 9 and 10 with a particular focus on the increasing inequalities between the different animals, and demonstrating their understanding through a related activity sheet; - Gauging the inequalities between the animals through the design and explanation of an 'equality graph' (template and instructions provided); - Understanding how the events of the final chapters help Orwell to get his message across to the reader; - Analysing how the inequalities between the animals are evident through either a character analysis of Boxer or Napoleon (template and success criteria provided); - Peer assessing their partners' learning attempts. The following resources are provided: - Engaging and colourful step-by-step PowerPoint - Teacher lesson guidance/plan; - Equality graph template; - Two analysis template: Boxer and Napoleon; - Chapters 9 and 10 worksheet (plus teacher answer sheet); - Copies of Chapters 9 and 10. All images and videos are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the PowerPoint.

This detailed and visually-appealing resource offers a complete reference point for students learning or revising Lord Byron’s love/relationships poem 'When We Two Parted.’ It contains comprehensive sections on: Context; Line-by-Line Analysis; Poetic Devices/ Language Devices; Themes; Form/Structure; Poems for Comparison; The Poet’s Influences. Key words and ideas are underlined for easy reference. The resource is designed to be printed onto A3, and is provided as both a PDF and a Word version (so that you can edit if you want to). All images used are licensed for commercial use and are cited on a separate document (included).

These resources enable students to understand and analyse the Old Major’s dream and the events of the animal revolution, in the opening two chapters of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. More precisely, students learn to make clear and accurate interpretations about events and characters, with appropriate links to the Orwell’s allegory and relationship to context. Students learn through the following tasks: - Gauging and collaborating previous knowledge through a discussion-based starter task; - Reading the first two chapters and demonstrating their understanding through a related activity sheet; - Developing their understanding of characters and context through a a making links activity; - Analysing the allegorical nature of the opening chapters by further exploring the connections between characters and contexts; - Peer assessing their partners' learning attempts. The following resources are provided: - Engaging and colourful step-by-step PowerPoint (includes links for video) - Teacher lesson guidance/plan; - Chapters 1 and 2 worksheet; - Making Links Activity Sheet (1x more difficult, 1 x easier); - Copies of Chapters 1 and 2. All images and videos are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the PowerPoint. Note - internet connection is needed if you plan to use the video.

Based on the popular game show 'Pointless', this resource is perfect for use as a whole lesson resource, enrichment option, or revision tool. Editable, so that you can change to any other topic or change questions. (I've also added a blank template so that you can make your own games from scratch). Containing almost 30 slides of sound clips, interesting tasks, and suitably challenging questions, this resource is effective at both promoting engagement and enhancing learning. There are several full rounds of questions to build or revisit knowledge of characters, plot, and themes in 'Animal Farm.' Round 1. The characters in Animal Farm Round 2. Quotations from the text Round 3. Settings and Objects Round 4. Themes in Animal Farm The nature of this game ensures that the resource can challenge students of all levels. A blank template has also been added, so that you can create your own games!

This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use throughout the reading of J.K Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.' Teachers have found them particularly useful in comprehension or guided reading sessions. They are perfect for aiding the progress of children towards meeting the KS3 expectations within the new National Curriculum framework. Children have found these resources extremely engaging, and for teachers there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They also relate to key extracts, characters, and themes from the story, ensuring that children gain a deep understanding of the text. Activities within the booklet include: - 'Context: Magic' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Know the purpose, audience and context of the writing and drawing on this knowledge to support comprehension.' - 'J.K Rowling's Description of Harry' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Know how language, including figurative language, vocabulary choice, grammar, text structure and organisational features, present meaning.' - 'Severus Snape' and 'Ron Weasley' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Study setting, plot, and characterisation, and the effects of these.' - 'Vocabulary Inspector' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Learn new vocabulary, relating it explicitly to known vocabulary and understanding it with the help of context and dictionaries.' Plus many, many more activities (the booklet is 24 pages in length!) I've also added it as a PDF in case the formatting differs on your computer. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on a separate document (included).

This engaging and informative lesson aims to improve students' knowledge and understanding of the character of Crooks in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men: His dreams, his loneliness, and how his plight is a product of living in 1930s America. The lesson also aims to improve students' analytical skills, so that they can demonstrate sustained and sophisticated interpretations of the character. This pack includes the full lesson presentation, with tasks and key information, an extract from the text with close reading questions, a writing to analyse help-sheet, and full teacher guidance. The learning journey is clear and progressive, following a pathway of increasingly more difficult tasks, including: - An opening task to ascertain what is known about Crooks, and racism in 1930s America - An extract from the text that highlights some of his characteristics and his loneliness. - Questions to encourage students to infer and deduce hidden meanings, and understand Steinbeck's message, - Joint creation of an analysis success criteria; - An opportunity to answer an exam style question based upon the character of Crooks; - A chance to peer assess against the success criteria. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the presentation. You can choose to buy this resource alone, or as part of the 'Of Mice and Men - All Lessons and Scheme' bundle, which contains seven full lessons, resources, teachers notes, and PowerPoint presentations, plus a Pointless Of Mice and Men game, for just £5!

This informative and engaging lesson aims to improve students' knowledge and understanding of the character of Lennie in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. It also aims to improve their analytical skills, so that they can demonstrate sustained and sophisticated interpretations of the character. This pack includes the full lesson presentation, with animations and key information, a worksheet with clear and concise instructions, an example analysis extract, and full teacher guidance. The learning journey is clear and progressive, following a pathway of progressively more difficult tasks, including: - An engaging memory game task to recognise and remember items and ideas that are related to the character of Lennie; - A worksheet that enables students to demonstrate understanding of key quotations about Lennie, and to link Lennie to key themes and ideas. - Close reading of a modelled example analysis paragraph; - Joint creation of an analysis success criteria; - An opportunity to answer an exam style question based upon the character of Lennie; - A chance to peer assess against the success criteria. Students should have read, (or during this lesson read) up to the section in which George and Lennie meet their new boss, in order to fully access the lesson. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the presentation. You can choose to buy this resource alone, or as part of the 'Of Mice and Men - All Lessons and Scheme' bundle, which contains seven full lessons, resources, teachers notes, and PowerPoint presentations, plus a Pointless Of Mice and Men game, for just £5! -

This engaging and interesting lesson aims to improve students' knowledge of the main themes (Dreams and Loneliness) in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. It also aims to build their skills in retrieving information from texts, understanding the writer's ideas and opinions, and making precise and confident interpretations about texts. The lesson uses a range of tasks, that require students to use their visual and interactive skills. It follows this learning journey: - Understanding what dreams and loneliness are, and how we each experience them; - Defining themes and understanding how writers use them; - Understanding how and why themes are used in other famous texts; - Retrieving evidence from the text to demonstrate where the characters experience dreams and loneliness; - Analysing how the themes are used to help get across John Steinbeck's ideas about 1930s America; - Evaluating each others' analytical attempts. The resource includes a comprehensive and visually engaging PowerPoint presentation, a worksheet for recording the retrieved quotations, a helpful template for the main task, and a lesson plan/ teacher guidance sheet. All images in this resource are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the lesson presentation. You can choose to buy this resource alone, or as part of the 'Of Mice and Men - All Lessons and Scheme' bundle, which contains seven full lessons, resources, teachers notes, and PowerPoint presentations, plus a Pointless Of Mice and Men game, for just £5!

This detailed and visually-appealing resource offers a complete reference point for students learning or revising J.B. Priestley's 'An Inspector Calls.' It contains comprehensive sections on: - Context; - Scene by Scene Summary (with quotes); - Main Characters; - Themes; - Priestley's Dramatic Devices; - Features of Form. Key words and ideas are underlined for easy reference. The resource is designed to be printed onto A3, and is provided as both a PDF and a Word version (so that you can edit if you want to). All images used are licensed for commercial use and are cited on a separate document (included).

I delivered this CPD session to all members of our staff team who maintain regular contact with parents and other stakeholders, in a bid to improve the quality, accuracy, and clarity of our written communications. I'd recommend that the session takes about 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes to deliver. We had received some negative feedback comments, regarding our communications, varying from examples of poor grammatical accuracy, to instances in which the tone of emails, letters, and other forms of correspondence were perceived as rude. It is surprising how common this is across schools, and how little training is provided on these forms of interaction. Following this training, we are receiving far fewer complaints, and many staff members now keep the help-sheets pinned up by the desks to refer to when communicating with parents. Participants learn through: - Participating in a fun pub-style quiz to eradicate common spelling, punctuation, and grammar misconceptions and errors; - Considering the role of parents, their needs and interests, and what they expect from their child's school, as a means to understand why schools sometimes receive difficult communications; - Reading and analysing examples of poor written correspondence, considering how both the tone and the accuracy can be improved; - Exploring different language strategies to create a personal, polite tone within emails, by considering the connotations of different words; - Taking away help sheets that can be referred to whenever written communications are being drafted. The resource pack includes: - Colourful and engaging whole-session PowerPoint presentation ; - Examples of written communications for participants to analyse; - Quiz answer sheet; - Accurate Written Communication help-sheet; - Polite Written Communication help-sheet. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide. (Please note that the only section of the PowerPoint that you may wish to modify is with regards to the distinct features of parents at your own school - Aside from this, the resources are good to go!)

This detailed and visually-appealing resource offers a complete reference point for students learning or revising Thomas Hardy’s love/relationships poem 'Neutral Tones.’ It contains comprehensive sections on: Context; Line-by-Line Analysis; Poetic Devices/ Language Devices; Themes; Form/Structure; Poems for Comparison; The Poet’s Influences. Key words and ideas are underlined for easy reference. The resource is designed to be printed onto A3, and is provided as both a PDF and a Word version (so that you can edit if you want to). All images used are licensed for commercial use and are cited on a separate document (included).