A 7-page, in-depth guide to writing essays suitable for A Level and GCSE students. The resource includes a combination of advice and practice activities and covers the following: 1. How to re-draft essays, with strategies to make them clearer and more sophisticated. 2. Writing a hypothesis to start your essay effectively. 3. Using the passive voice. 4. A long list of sentence stems that are suitable for use across the board in literature and language essays. I originally designed this booklet for A Level writing workshops but now use it with GCSE classes as well. I find it particularly useful at the start of the A Level course, but also at any other point when you want to improve students' essay writing skills. Some of the examples used are taken from a range of essay-writing subjects, not just English, to demonstrate the fundamental principles of good essays which are applicable to a range of subjects. The guide would therefore be useful for other essay-writing subjects with the exception that most of the Sentence Stems section is most suitable for English.

A thorough introduction to Angela Carter designed for A Level students beginning study of The Bloody Chamber. The booklet covers key biographical information on Carter, including the experiences in Japan which shaped her as a writer. There are accessible introductions to essentialism, feminism, including the virgin-whore dichotomy, and post-modernism. Charles Perrault's version of 'Bluebeard' is also included to kick off study of the title story of the collection, as well as an exploration of artistic influences on Carter's version of this tale, including Impressionism and Symbolism. There is an analysis of each of the Marquis' wives and a collaborative research task. The booklet includes a number of questions and wider reading tasks. Designed for the OCR spec as part of the 'Gothic' module which heavily weights context and requires knowledge of the author's biography and wider works as well as critical traditions and alternative readings. Includes occasional reference to Dracula, as this was the partner text, however could be used with any other Gothic partner text or on its own. I studied Carter for my undergraduate dissertation and Master's degree and draw on that knowledge here, in a format that aims to be compact and accessible for students.

A descriptive writing lesson drawing on the opening scene in Macbeth, the meeting of the witches on the heath. The lesson focuses on on sensory description and using a range of writing techniques including descriptive words, similes, metaphors, alliteration and personification. The activities check and reinforce understanding of these techniques before they put them into practice. The resources are fully differentiated with modelling and scaffolding included. Students identify one or more target skills to focus on and there is a further challenge activity for those who complete the main writing task. The progress slide allows you to demonstrate progress within the lesson easily and students enjoy working through the levels. Engaging full colour resources are provided. This could be used with a KS3 or lower set KS4 group and is great for using alongside the study of Macbeth to develop essential writing skills and create interleaved English studies.

A detailed but compact A3 reversible revision resource for A Level students studying Angela Carter and The Bloody Chamber. One side of the sheet focuses on context and the other side on critics and theoretical approaches, both key Assessment Objectives on the OCR new linear A Level. The theoretical approaches covered are feminism, post-modernism and pyschoanalysis and a list of key critical quotations is provided. The context side includes a summary of source texts, a reminder of the text's artistic influences, a number of quotations from Carter herself, taken from her letters and essays, and information on other key Carter texts The Sadeian Woman, Fireworks and The Passion of New Eve. My Sixth Form students found this resource extremely useful for revision as the contextual and critical knowledge required for the exam can seem overwhelming - this brings it together in one place.

A carousel lesson on Angela Carter's 'The Lady of the House of Love' for A Level Literature. Gets students focused on close analysis of language and symbolism and encourages them to make links to themes and context. Resources included are: Instruction slides; twelve A3 sheets containing key quotations from the story, with space for students to write their ideas in response to these quotations; a completed version of these sheets containing many points which are useful for understanding and revising the tale. The completed version is very useful for students to compare with their own version and is particularly helpful for revision.

Twelve challenging questions on 'The Erl-King' by Angela Carter (part of The Bloody Chamber collection) designed to be completed after reading the story. Created for the OCR A Level spec which heavily weights context and requires knowledge of critics, so these questions develop both of those skills.

A detailed, 22-page e-Book on the background, key themes and characters of Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad focusing on historical context, power, sexuality and weaving. Created to give A-Level students the necessary background on The Odyssey and the roles of Penelope and Odysseus in Homer's text, it looks at themes of power and sexuality in the original text, throughout history and the ways in which Atwood explores, challenges and expands on these. The e-Book is divided into the following sections: - Aristotle's philosophical conceptions of power. - Male power in The Odyssey, focusing on Odysseus, Telemachus and The Suitors, followed by a detailed analysis of how male power is represented in Homer's text, looking in particular at storytelling as a male prerogative. - Female power in The Odyssey, focusing on Penelope, the Maids, Circe and Calypso, and the threat of female power and sexuality. - Context on the Virgin-Whore Dichotomy and the Femme Fatale in 20th Century Culture. This is developed into a discussion on the cultural conception of two Penelopes; the virgin and the whore. - Detailed section on the Maids in both texts and their connection to Artemis and her 12 Moon Maidens. - Does Penelope sleep with the suitors? An exploration of this question in Homer and Atwood's texts. - What other forms does female power take?: A look at inaction and weaving as key forms of female power. - Penelope throughout History - An overview looking at Penelope in Ovid's Heroides, 16th and 17th Century poetry and 21st Century film and theatre. - How far does Atwood reject and rewrite the limiting portrayal of Penelope? - An exploration of what Atwood's Penelopiad achieves. Contains critical quotations from Cixous, Stein and Gregersdottir. Please note, the file will need to be opened and read in iBooks, which can be done on any iPad or iPhone, so works well for student revision on the go.

A selection of resources for teaching the novel Dark Matter to Key Stage Three. The resources included are: 1. A one-page set of analysis questions for Chapters 3 & 4, with a point, evidence explain model to show students how to write analytical paragraphs. 2. A creative writing lesson focused on using pathetic fallacy inspired by Dark Matter, including a group carousel activity. There are three resources for this: Lesson Slides, A3 carousel resources for printing and a 3-page handout for students including two extracts from Dark Matter in which Michelle Paver uses pathetic fallacy and a guidance page to help students start writing. 3. A sentences lesson which uses Dark Matter to teach students how to identify and use simple, compound and complex sentences - includes lesson slides and a 3-page worksheet of sentences exercises for students to practise. 4. A whole-text analytical essay writing activity to be completed once you have finished reading the novel. This one-page handout introduces the essay to students, gives them question options to choose from and models how to plan the essay. If you have any questions, please ask!

An A Level revision resource with fifteen key quotations from The Merchant's Tale which cover a range of themes and events. The meaning of each quotation is explained in modern English and there is a ticklist for the student to use when they have learnt the quotation. I found this particularly helpful for students who struggled to learn many quotations in Middle English as it provides a good range of quotes which could be used in lots of different essays.

A detailed knowledge organiser for AQA Power & Conflict Poetry Anthology, with chunked up knowledge designed to be easily digested and learnt while challenging students at the highest level. Images are used as cues to support memory. Each poem has sections on: Key ideas on power and/conflict Key quotations Key ‘soundbites’ of language analysis that can be easily digested and learnt Form, structure and perspective Context Suitable poems for comparison, with a brief summary comparative points At the end, there is space for students to practice: Retrieval of key quotations from memory Retrieval of key points of comparison for each recommended pair of poems.

A double-sided A3 quotations revision resource for Romeo and Juliet, organising key quotations by theme and character. Characters run down the side of the table and themes run across the top. Where a quotation is relevant to both a theme and a character, it is included in the relevant square. 44 of the 88 squares are filled with one or often numerous quotations. The other squares are blank for students to fill in their own additional quotations as part of the revision process. The characters covered are: Romeo, Juliet, Lady Capulet, Lord Capulet, The Nurse, Friar Lawrence, The Montagues, Mercutio, Benvolio, Tybalt and some quotations from minor characters and the Chorus. Themes covered are: Love & Sex, Fate, Death, Conflict & Reconciliation, Parent/Child Relationships, Friendship, Youth & Age, Marriage (linked to women's roles). My students said that they found this a useful and detailed overview of key quotations which helped them to make connections between themes and characters in their revision.

An 8-page workbook on the treatment of women in Romeo and Juliet. The first page contains a summary of key points about the role of women in the play, contextual information and societal expectations of noblewomen. The booklet then focuses on Juliet, Lady Capulet, The Nurse, Romeo, Friar Laurence and Lord Capulet. For each character, students are asked to find and analyse evidence for relevant events and relationships. For example, the Lady Capulet section asks students to look at: Her relationship with Juliet, including her limited involvement in her day-to-day upbringing; her relationship with the Nurse and her relationship with Lord Capulet. This could be used as a first-teaching resource or as a revision resource. It can be differentiated through different roles in group work - asking less-skilled students to find evidence and more-skilled students to analyse it.

Two English Language exams suitable for Year 7 and Year 8/9 respectively. Each exam has a reading section (Section A) and a writing section (Section B). There are two versions of the Year 8/9 exam, one of which has extra scaffolding to help students structure their essay response. The reading sections are both based on responding to the articles named below, which I cannot include here due to copyright issues but can easily be found on Google. Year 7 exam: Section A Reading - 8 comprehension and analysis questions based on the article ‘Remember When: Memories of Childhood Holidays in Mombasa’ by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. There is a glossary of challenging vocabulary in the article. The first four questions are based on comprehension and information retrieval and the last four focus on language analysis. Questions 6, 7 and 8 require longer responses and offer students the opportunity to demonstrate extended analytical responses without requiring a full essay response which students at this stage might not yet be ready for. (Google the title of the article to find it on The Independent website). Section B Writing - Students have a choice of three writing questions. They should respond to one of these. The options are a descriptive piece based on a choice of two images, a creative piece and writing to inform the reader about a personal experience. Year 8/9 exam: Section A Reading - An extended essay question based on the extract from ‘Taking on the World’ by Ellen MacArthur. (Google the title of the extract to find it in the Edexcel IGCSE 2012 Anthology). There are two versions of this question, one of which has extra scaffolding to help students to structure their essay response. This is useful for students who are not yet confident in formulating independent essays. Section B Writing - Students have a choice of three personal reflective writing questions. They should respond to one of these. The options are a descriptive piece based on a choice of two images, a creative piece and writing to inform or explain. Any questions, please ask!

A 24-page detailed and interactive character revision resource for Macbeth covering key characters in depth and twenty-two characters in total. This booklet is designed to give students the thorough and complex knowledge required by the new GCSE. The character profiles for major characters contain: Key Facts, covering their role and relationships in the play Character Function & Development, focusing in detail on how each character functions at a symbolic level, linking to relevant context, and how they develop over the course of the play Characteristics Key Quotations section, including space for students to do their own analysis of each quotation Summary of themes linked with the character Key summaries are also provided for minor characters, e.g. Lennox, Angus and Ross . Although the focus is on character, the resource also provides much detail on key events, themes and context. At the end of each section there is a space for students to make their own revision notes. At the end of the resource, there is a character development activity focused on how key characters evolve over the course of the play - the first of these is completed as an example and students should complete the others themselves when they have completed their character revision from the booklet. I have used this resource to: Provide staggered revision homework and followed up with tests on each character As a support resource for essay-writing As a way to introduce characters or explore them in more depth as a class. As a research resource for jigsaw learning activities, dividing the class into groups and assigning a major character to each group. To help students understand how to think about character function and development. Differentiation can be done in a number of ways - through the character assigned to a student, the sections they are asked to work on, and the number and length of quotations they are expected to revise. This is a particularly useful resource for a high-ability group with high target grades. It gives them the level of detail and breadth of knowledge that will allow their essays to stand out, and is designed to get them thinking at a functional and symbolic level considering the whole of the play. Any questions, please ask.

A full Paper 1 Non-Fiction Texts and Transactional Writing mock exam for the new Edexcel IGCSE English Language A 2016 specification, to be first examined in Summer 2018. I designed this to mimic the sample material provided by Edexcel so it includes all the question types you would expect to find in Sections A and B of the exam. The booklet is 19 pages in total, providing space for students to write their answers. The two extracts that Section A is based on are from the 2012 specification - ‘Taking on the World’ (Ellen MacArthur) and ‘Explorers, or Boys Messing Around?’ (Stephen Morris - also in the updated 2016 anthology). For copyright reasons, I can’t include these extracts, however they are easily found on the Edexcel IGCSE website in the 2012 anthology (green cover). Any questions, please ask!

A detailed handout explaining the Pluto and Proserpina Interlude in The Merchant's Tale. Their unique presentation and nuanced relationship is explored in relation to the wider tale. Designed for the OCR specification, which weights context heavily.

1-page resource with key quotations Space to add attributions or explanations for each quotation I use for retrieval practice

An A4 cloze exercise on Aristotle's Concepts of Tragedy which could be used with Shakespearean or modern tragedies. I designed it for use with A View from the Bridge and used it as a revision exercise, but it would also be a useful in-class test of students' understanding after you've introduced the concepts. Differentiation = the missing words are on the back for students who need support but they can attempt to complete as many gaps as possible before referring to this.