Thank you for visiting my shop. My aim is to provide high quality teaching resources that reduce the
need for hours of planning and help learners to achieve their potential in English and English Literature.
Please feel free to email me at sdenglish18@gmail.com with any queries, requests or comments.
Thank you for visiting my shop. My aim is to provide high quality teaching resources that reduce the
need for hours of planning and help learners to achieve their potential in English and English Literature.
Please feel free to email me at sdenglish18@gmail.com with any queries, requests or comments.
A lesson on ‘The Prelude’ for lower ability learners. It includes:
Multiple choice starter based on the Romantic Movement
What is ‘The Prelude’?
Context sheet + tasks
Suggested annotations for lower ability learners
True or false to test understanding
Comparison task with ‘Storm on the Island’
Review
This is a newly-differentiated version of the following resource:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/macbeth-annotated-act-one-11875448
This lower-ability version contains:
The full text of Act 1, translated (same as original)
Several key extracts for study
Scene summaries for Scenes 2-7
A range of activities to develop understanding.
Simplified contextual notes with a corresponding worksheet
Key information with corresponding worksheet.
This resource is aimed at lower-middle ability learners.
A 46-slide PowerPoint that provides a short course in narrative and descriptive writing for GCSE. It is aimed at middle-ability KS4 and is oriented towards AQA English Language 8700, Paper 1, Question 5.
The PowerPoint covers:
The writing AO’s, unpacked and turned into 7 ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions
The structures of 8700 Papers 1 & 2
The difference between narrative and descriptive writing
Descriptive techniques organised into the acronym MRS VAN SOAPS
Descriptive writing success criteria
Sample descriptive writing tasks (students choose 1 of 2)
A teacher-written response (presented as an extract from a full response)
Peer assessment
Short story structure (Freytag’s Pyramid)
Exploring Freytag’s Pyramid in relation to ‘A Christmas Carol’
Sample narrative writing tasks with planning activity
Narrative writing success criteria
Showing and telling in fiction
4 showing tasks with sample responses
DIRT tasks
Narrative choice: 1st or 3rd person with picture prompt activity
Self-assessment
Final writing tasks (descriptive or narrative)
Peer assessment
Reflection opportunity.
This resource incorporates others that have previously been on sale in my shop, either in their current form or slightly tweaked. If you already have these but wish to purchase this unit of work, please contact me at and we’ll try to work something out.
Resources also sold separately:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/descriptive-writing-techniques-match-up-activity-11749389
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/descriptive-writing-techniques-summary-mat-11747011
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/short-story-planning-flow-chart-11747165
These files were last saved in Office 2016.
This assessment tracker uses the 2024 grade boundaries for AQA 8702 Paper 1 and 2 (English Literature).
It will generate a grade for individual sections, each paper and the overall course.
Please email me using the address on my store front if you would like any adjustments made to your tracker, e.g. additional columns.
Please do not send any pupil data when requesting adjustments.
This lesson focuses on the creation of interesting and believable characters. It is aimed at lower ability KS3 and follows on from the ‘Developing Skills in Creative Writing’ series:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/developing-skills-in-creative-writing-12079150
However, it can stand alone.
Lesson Structure:
Do Now Task - see cover image
Feedback slide
How many of the following statements in relation to fictional characters do you think are true or false?
Feedback slide
The importance of creative interesting and believable characters, with two examples.
The major ‘Do’s’ and ‘Do Not’s’ of character creation
Character planning worksheet task
Tell a friend about your character
Write an extract from your character’s story, with WAGOLL. The WAGOLL is about a penguin who has never learnt to swim.
Peer Assessment
Review
A PPT that teaches ‘My Last Duchess’ from the Power and Conflict Anthology. It covers:
The contextual background
What is a dramatic monologue?
The poem, broken down into manageable chunks and annotated.
A series of questions for group work.
Suitable for upper-middle ability learners.
An alternative lesson for the same poem is available here:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/my-last-duchess-11933556
A double-sided, detailed context sheet for ‘A Christmas Carol’.
As this doesn’t seem to show on the preview, the reverse side of the sheet contains a section on working conditions in the Victorian age and the ideas of Thomas Malthus.
There is an accompanying worksheet on which students can write their notes.
If preferred, these resources can be purchased as part of a larger unit of work on Stave One:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/a-christmas-carol-stave-one-11996048
This assessment tracker uses the 2024 grade boundaries for AQA 8700 Paper 1 and 2 (English Language).
It will generate a grade for Sections A and B of both papers and arrive at an overall grade for each paper and the whole course.
Please email me using the address on my store front if you would like any adjustments made to your tracker, e.g. additional columns.
Please do not send any pupil data when requesting adjustments.
A lesson on Imtiaz Dharker’s ‘Tissue’ for lower ability learners. It includes:
Do Now Task (see cover image)
Keywords Task: architect, transparent, monolith and sepia. Learners look at a six images and suggest which keyword they represent. This worksheet is best printed in colour or at least projected at the time of use.
Contextual information with ‘How far do you agree with these statements?’ worksheet
Storyboarding the poem worksheet (learners insert quotes)
Analysing three quotations task
Comparison with ‘Ozymandias’ table
Learning Review
A two-page guide to writing a discursive essay. The topics covered are:
The purpose and content of the introduction
The role of topic sentences
Different forms of evidence
Concluding sentences
The use of counterargument
The content and purpose of the conclusion
This revision sheet is suitable for upper-ability learners at GCSE.
A lesson on John Agard’s ‘Checking Out Me History’ aimed at lower ability learners. It includes:
Do Now task (shown on cover slide)
Contextual information regarding the historical figures and events referenced in the poem, with corresponding worksheet.
Link to relevant video + the meaning of ‘Eurocentric’
Quotation Hunt + Challenge Task
Imagery in the poem worksheet
Comparison table to complete with ‘My Last Duchess’ in terms of the presentation of the abuse of power.
Review learning with challenge question.
A lesson that follows on from this introduction to speech writing for KS3:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/an-introduction-to-speech-writing-for-ks3-12049010
This is a speech-writing lesson based on the issue of gender equality. It includes:
Starter - learners say to what extent they agree with a series of statements relating to men and women.
Feedback slide
Key Facts about Gender Equality sheet
Links to Emma Watson’s HeForShe speech
Planning sheet task
Sample GCSE question (AQA-style)
Writing time
Peer assessment and review
This lesson is aimed at lower-middle ability learners and should take about two hours.
**UPDATE: WAGOLL now included and Slide 9 question corrected. **
This is a ‘crash course’ in Act Five aimed at lower ability learners who need to get through the text quite quickly. It includes:
An overview of Act 5 (see cover image) with tasks.
Scene summaries for Scenes 1, 5 and 8.
A storyboard for learners to fill in for Scenes 1 and 8. On a basic level, they can use the scene summaries to create captions for each scene, although you can increase the challenge by removing the quotations as well.
An activity which encourages learners to contrast the presentation of Lady Macbeth in Acts 1-3 with the sleepwalking scene.
A focus on Macbeth’s ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ speech. Learners number the images according to when they appear in the speech.
These resources were created for low-ability learners who only had a limited amount of time in which to approach Act 5. However, you could use these as starters or revision tasks for more able learners.
This lesson enables learners to explore ‘Kamikaze’ by Beatrice Garland. It includes:
Lesson Starter (see cover image)
An image of the sinking US Arizona with the question, ‘When do you think this photograph was taken’? Learners discuss and then feedback.
A context sheet contained a simplified explanation of the Pearl Harbour attack and the rise of Kamikaze pilots. There is a corresponding worksheet for this.
A link to a BBC interview with a surviving Kamikaze pilot with three questions to answer.
A sheet of questions to prompt annotation of the poem.
The lesson is aimed at lower ability learners whose primary goal is understanding.
A PPT that enables an exploration of Blake’s ‘London’. It is aimed at lower ability learners whose primary focus is understanding with some analysis of language and contextual ideas.
The starter/Do Now task is a multiple-choice, general knowledge quiz about London as a city.
Learners then read a context sheet for the poem and respond to the associated tasks.
They then read a translation of the poem and annotate their copies in their anthology. Suggested annotations included.
After this, they compare ‘London’ with ‘Tissue’ in terms of the presentation of human power.
The PPT concludes with a learning review.
Estimated time required: 1.5 hours.
A lesson on Ted Hughes’ ‘Bayonet Charge’ for lower ability learners, It includes:
Starter - a short explanation of what a bayonet is and how they were used in WW1. Learners then answer ‘Why do you think the bayonet was considered to be a suitable weapon for infantry attacks?’
Feedback slide
Basic contextual information about the poet.
A link to a relevant YouTube video
Learners then read the poem and use choose quotations to caption six images on a storyboard depicting the main events of the poem.
This is followed by a worksheet in which learners are asked to make three basic comparisons with ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ (this will have to have been covered beforehand). The table is partly filled in.
Review
This is Birling's early capitalist speech, annotated in Active Inspire. There are two slides. Please ensure you have access to Active Inspire software before you download.
This is the eleventh in the KS3 Creative Writing for lower ability learners. It follows on from this introduction to creative writing techniques:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/introduction-to-creative-writing-la-ks3-12065152
This lesson includes:
Do Now Task (see cover image)
Feedback slide
An introduction to flashback as a device + what is a flashback?
Links to YouTube videos in which flashback is used in 3 different films. Learners watch the clips and then say at what point the flashback occurs
An introduction to flashback as a structural technique + the difference between language and structure
Different ways of incorporating a flashback (worksheet)
Feedback slides
Flashback writing task with basic and challenge success criteria
Peer assessment
Review
Estimated time 1:5 hours