This is a fully resourced Scheme of Work for Crumbs from the Table of Joy. This has been produced as a ready to teach resource. I am charging for it as it has taken many hours to produce, as there is currently no other Crumbs resources available on the internet. The scheme is designed to run for roughly 55 lessons when considering extra time for reading and annotating lessons. It includes a few exam style questions, and a model answer. The exam style questions are all extract based, as I want to see Cambridge’s question focuses for the whole text before writing these. The lessons cover context, character motivation, analysis of motivations of author and character, and much more. There are also a few extra lessons constantly being added, including one on Langston Hughes’s “Luck” which appears at the start of the play. If you have anything else you think I should add to the scheme please get in touch and I will add a lesson on it.

This is a set of fully resourced lessons aimed at preparing students to answer unseen poetry and prose questions. Having found a lack of resources for both unseen poetry and prose I have created this resource which is designed to give students all the skills needed to approach the questions. This should take roughly 25 lessons to complete, although, it is easily adaptable to last more by giving students longer to develop annotation skills. I have tried to make the texts as engaging as possible, and ensure it covers a broad range of literature: Kendrick Lamar, Dave, Billy Bragg, Shakespeare, Barret Browning, Osundare, Rupi Kaur, Maya Angelou, Dangaremba and others. It is not designed for students to study the context of these writer’s, but rather use their works as a way into studying unseen. The unit has resources that can be easily adapted based on whether students have already studied the poetry anthology, and the novel already. There are differentiated resources to help with IGCSE essay writing included as well. There are also model paragraphs on a range of texts. As always please email me if there is anything you would like me to add, as my resources are always constantly under development, and I am keen to constantly improve them.

The contextual links used here are based on substantial reading of literary criticism related to the play, and then brought back into an accessible format for GCSE. It contains contextual notes, 24 slides (with discussion questions, videos and activities) and a review of Osama the Hero. These lessons are designed to give students the ability to make truly perceptive comments on DNA context that go beyond simply making references to “gangs” which ultimately is quite repetitive. It is pitched for a top set and designed to take 3-4 lessons. It covers: Dennis Kelly’s other plays “Osama the Hero” and Post-9/11 literature as a concept. Phil and Utilitarianism. Emotional Abuse in relationships. Victim Blaming. In Yer Face Theatre. Phil as Machiavellian Post Truth Society. These concepts are not generally talked about in revision guides and other material, and should stretch student’s answers to be much more perceptive. Please get in contact if there is anything missing, or that you would like me to add.

This resource is a scheme of work that hopefully offers a series of unique ways into descriptive and narrative writing. The scheme should last at least 20 lessons. It has a fantastic lesson that guides students through planning descriptive writing, so that it is planned for effect. It has some fun and unique creative writing activities often responding to different pieces of art. It has a lesson on planning narrative writing using a curated list of short films. It has a feedback lesson focused on making writing more concrete and maintaining tense (examiners reports from Cambridge often cite lapses in tense as a major reason for losing marks). It has a series of lessons on punctuation for effect (punctuated by pictures of cute animals) All resources are included and all videos are linked in the notes section of the slides. As I tend not to recommend that students do narrative writing for the exam there are less lessons on this. Please get in contact if there is anything you’d like me to add or clarify about the lessons.

A re-upload of my scheme of work for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Based on mixed reviews, especially as the quality of resources for the text available has improved, it has been uploaded now for free. This should represent a good jumping off point for planning your own lessons. It looks at the entire text, moving from context, to theory, to close analysis. The context lessons look at: Masculinity Patriarchy Race Class Southern identity The opening of the play looks at: Staging of the play (including Williams’s evocative descriptions) The presentation of Brick and Maggie in the opening. Depictions of wealth and class. Essay writing guide lesson and essay planning lesson on the presentation of Maggie in the opening. Lesson on the symbolism of the crutch, with a touch on Freudian analysis to prepare for A2 study. Depictions of Brick’s alcoholism. More lessons will be added as I develop and finalise the scheme whilst teaching it. The lessons on the second half of the first act look at: Page by page questions for three pages on Brick and Maggie’s relationship. Extract based exam question designed in the style of Cambridge AS Level. Research task on the Lavender Scare and Freudian analysis, and considerations of Brick and Skipper’s relationship. Brief consideration of the opening of Act 2. The next lessons include a series of slides designed to get students comfortable with considering literary theory, as well as later lessons developing their analysis, and an extract based question in the style of Cambridge exams. It looks at: Feminism Misogyny Lies, Lying and Mendacity Symbolism Homosexuality and Homophobia Close analysis of sexuality Tension The presentation of Big Daddy in the whole text. Reading of University level essay with discussion questions to guide reading. Analysing Brick and Skipper’s relationship. The final lessons are a little thin on the ground but contain a choice of two final exam style questions.

The idea of this scheme is to expose students to IGCSE type questions and skills (albeit without an explicit focus on it) over the course of the scheme. The theme of the scheme is town planning. Students will create their ideal town, and over the course of the scheme they will add more details to it. The scheme covers the following skills: Answering IGCSE comprehension questions. Descriptions of character. Creation of atmosphere. Non-fiction writing of advertisements. Blog posts. Using existing texts to create new texts. Understanding voice, and features of different non-fiction. Bonus Skills: The scheme looks at protest art and song because half way through the scheme a road will be built in the town that the students have grown to love. This is a very fun moment, as students love creating their own protests. It has a focus on creative writing through looking at the creation of a town identity. Increased focus on comprehension can be created through asking comprehension questions about any of the texts from the booklet. There are also starter slides in a separate ppt focusing on developing IGCSE style comprehension skills. This involves a lot of lessons where students will just be writing, so regular feedback is important, but due to the extended periods of writing their should be time to get in their books. It is quite a long scheme but it gives a chance to develop key skills. The baseline assessment at the start will work well to do a comparative assessment at the end. The comparative assessment can use a Cambridge IGCSE past paper Q1A-E, 2A-C and a Question 3 response that will utilise all non-fiction skills. The Scheme folder contains a 32 page resource booklet, however, you may choose to print some resources individually. It also contains over 70 slides with success criteria and learning objectives.

I would love to get your feedback! Leave a review of any of the resources, email me a screenshot and your purchase receipt at: spdwilkins@gmail.com, and I’ll send you another resource (of the same price or less) from my shop for free. A series of discussion questions geared towards a chapter by chapter approach to analysing “Petals of Blood” by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. I have also included my slides for a rough overview of how I studied the text. However, this is far from a comprehensive series of slides, but potentially a nice place to begin planning lessons from. I taught the majority of the text through class discussion in a seminar like format, so slides were not overly relied upon.

This is an engaging introduction lesson to the themes of Boey Kim Cheng’s The Planners. It supports students to understand the ideology behind the decisions made by leaders when creating a city. It is in essence a city builder board game that I have created to teach students about the poem. Slight disclaimer: this is not an all singing all dancing analysis of the poem (that is all available), but rather a very fun way for students to learn the poem; it is well suited to a last day of term or Friday lesson with year 10’s. I have also now added a series of discussion questions for after, which allow students to compare their ideological positions with the decisions they made. If you don’t like the resource or think it’s missing something get in touch, and I’ll add even more. This was a lot of fun to make, and even more fun to teach.

I would love to get your feedback! Leave a review of any of the resources, email me a screenshot and your purchase receipt at: spdwilkins@gmail.com, and I’ll send you another resource (of the same price or less) from my shop for free. A detailed series of discussion questions on the documentary Paris is Burning. Prepared as a way into independent study of the film as part of the IBDP English Language and Literature A course.

Bonus short lesson on Stevie Smith’s Touch and Go also now included. Cambridge IGCSE Anthology lessons on “Rich and Poor; or, Saint and Sinner” and “Children of Wealth”. The poems work well together as texts with an underlying criticism of the wealthy, and the lesson on Rich and Poor, leads well into a study of children of wealth. These lessons contain a series of discussion questions designed to get students to reflect on their own position in society and reflect on their own perspectives prior to reading the poem. The slides for “Rich and Poor” also cover key sophisticated ideas in relation to the poem and ends with an annotation task following a practice exam question and thesis. The lesson on Children of Wealth looks at the concept of affluent neglect and then moves on to an annotation document that has a series of questions designed to probe student understanding. In order to constantly integrate English Language IGCSE skills the lessons also contain 2 question 1F style questions. It does not contain line by line annotation as sparknotes tends to do a very thorough job of this. Also shared in the folder is a copy of the 15 poems from the anthology.

Cambridge IGCSE anthology lessons for At the Bus Station and A Long Journey. Although not entirely linked thematically, both poems are written by Zimbabwean writers which allows students to engage well in the context of the production of the two poems. These lessons cover the contextual background of the poem, have a creative way into each poem (such as re-creative writing or drama activities) and contain example exam questions, guides to annotation and paragraph writing scaffolds and models. In order to constantly integrate English Language IGCSE skills the lessons contain a practice descriptive writing task and a series of questions on a context text which mimic questions 1A-E. It does not contain line by line annotation as sparknotes tends to do a very thorough job of this. Also shared in the folder is a copy of the 15 poems from the anthology.

Please note: I now also have a full scheme of work for sale on my TES shop. This is a model essay written in response to the question “How is Godfrey presented in the opening”. This could easily be adapted into an extract question, however, for now it focuses on the prologue. This is one of few Crumbs resources currently available, and I will begin to share more as the year goes on. Please do get in touch and if you are also teaching Crumbs and would like to collaborate. Please note this is a purposefully overly critical response to Godfrey’s portrayal designed to get students to think about whether they agree or disagree, but should function as a good model for how to write about the play. Now added is a Youtube video on how to write an analysis of Crumbs. It’s a little rough around the edges.

I created this resource for fun, and to see how hard it is to create a full example exam paper following the Cambridge past papers. Far too much work went into it, to not share it with others. It has been designed so that the question 1 questions are quite easy. But that in question 2 and 3 it gets progressively harder using Charles Dickens’ Hard Times as the text. I have also produced a mark scheme for it, although, there is no indicative content for Question 2C, 2D and 3 as I find this less necessary when marking these papers. It might not be perfect, but I think it’s pretty good, and is a useful alternative paper if your students know how to access past papers and mark schemes online. As always if there’s anything I could do to improve please drop me an email at spdwilkins@gmail.com