I'm a passionate secondary English and History teacher and am the main planner of resources for my department; as such, I thought I would start sharing them here with the wider community of teachers and professionals. I am Australian trained, but currently teaching GCSE and A- Level (AQA specifications). All lessons are very visually engaging, with images, clips and a variety of activities. You won't find any boring/blank resources here!
I'm a passionate secondary English and History teacher and am the main planner of resources for my department; as such, I thought I would start sharing them here with the wider community of teachers and professionals. I am Australian trained, but currently teaching GCSE and A- Level (AQA specifications). All lessons are very visually engaging, with images, clips and a variety of activities. You won't find any boring/blank resources here!
I set this for my low-ability year 7 class just before the half-term break (holiday homework!), but you can use this lesson at any point throughout the term.
A lesson that introduces book reviews and provides students with a checklist for writing their own. The worksheet helps students understand how to structure their review. Enjoy!
A great lesson for introducing these English terms or revising them. The lesson looks at the poem “I Carry Your Heart” by EE Cummings; an excellent poem for examining language, structure and form. Lots of structured activities included: paragraph writing, revision of language techniques, peer marking, and an extension creative writing task.
For the GCSE paper Language Paper 2 (Non-fiction), this lesson facilitates students' development of summary writing skills (Q2 of the exam).
Ideal for a weaker class- visual clips of Wonderwoman and Guardians of the Galaxy make the material more accessible, with other written non-fiction texts the focus for the latter part of the lesson.
I’m very proud to share with you my 12 week unit of work on Macbeth. This unit is aimed at a high ability class and includes 12 weeks worth of lessons, power-points, worksheets, resources, homework etc. The first few weeks focuses primarily on contextual details, followed by elements of tragedy, higher order terminology, and skills pertaining to form, genre, language and structure.
Furthermore, this unit is designed as a flipped-model project. Students should read the play at home and focus on discussion and writing skills in class. I’ve included the 12 week program I wrote for my students, that details the breakdown of lessons, key terms for each week and required readings prior to each lesson. Feel free to adapt this to suit your own schedules. My students really engaged with the program and the flipped-model fosters independence, study skills, and student autonomy.
Enjoy!
Please note that character profile sheets are based on the Schmoop resources.
This brief workshop introduces students to the basic forms of narrative perspective (first, second, third-limited and third-omniscient).
Included are a few identification activities and tricks and tips for writing in perspective well.
My year 7s are studying non-fiction at the moment, which I personally find very boring! To spice things up, we’ve been looking at non-fiction textual forms through the theme of comic books (see my other lessons for examples). This lesson/2 lessons examines the features of speeches, with examples being the grand speeches comic villains perform.
Included:
Two clips of Ego and Bane- why are their speeches convincing?
Analysis activities for the Joker’s speech from The Dark Knight
Model critical paragraph
Creative: students write their own villain speech
Extension: Students create a comic page featuring their villain and given speech.
My class loved it. Enjoy!
A good formative or summative revision tool. This quiz is included in my "Literary Devices" pack (22 lessons covering all different language techniques geared at KS3-4) but am posting it for free as it can be used separately. Enjoy :)
A useful lesson for teaching comparison skills between these three Romantic poems. Part of the GCSE Power and Conflict poetry unit. Also includes a study crib sheet that students can use as a revision tool.
Student Council and myself ran an event for IWD this week and this is the resource that I made for all form tutors to deliver during form time.
Feel free to use; a great resource for a great day.
Find enclosed 10-12 lessons covering the first act of Shakespeare's play "Antony & Cleopatra." All powerpoints, activities and worksheets for the following are included:
- Shakespeare's context
- Student historical presentation task
- Plot
- Act 1 (scene by scene lessons)
I am not currently teaching this unit, but love the play. I've just designed it to sell. Would work for either KS4 or KS5.
Enjoy
A one off lesson if you’re teaching creative writing. Focuses on building descriptive paragraphs using image stimuli. Skills covered include:
Using adjectives and verbs
Sentence forms and lengths
Crafting effective language devices
Introducing my 12 week Crime & Punishment unit!
Introduce your students to the two GCSE language papers through this fun unit, focusing on the crime and detective genre. This program of study explores the history of the detective genre, conventions, characterisation, archetypes, language, genre, textual form, and structure. Students will build their critical and creative writing skills through a close study of several key 19th century and modern crime texts, such as “The Speckled Band” and “Perfume: Story of a Murderer.” They will experiment with crafting crime stories of their own.
The unit is split between fiction and non-fiction, so as to cover the skills required for the GCSE Language Papers 1 and 2, questions 1, 2, 3 and 5.
Included:
All power-points and lesson resources
Worksheets and homework
A social justice project focusing on the inquiry question: when is the law unjust? You can choose to therefore draw connections between the Crime & Punishment unit and real-world application. We personally took part in the Amnesty International “Write for Rights” Campaign, where we investigated unjust political processes around the world and unfair detainment of political prisoners.
Practise GCSE Language Paper 1 exam
Group projects (2-4 lessons alone)
Model texts (non-fiction and fiction)
I’m very proud of this unit- I hope you enjoy!
Two lessons for boys looking at language and structural analysis of an extract from the novel Jurassic Park. Fun clips from the movie, revision of the adventure genre and creative writing. Great for a double lesson!
We’re rolling out a new topic this year for year 9 which I’m super excited about: Crime & Punishment.
The purpose of the topic is to introduce students to the crime genre, explore both fiction and non-fiction texts, and begin to respond to GCSE style questions for Language Papers 1 and 2.
Find included in this pack:
Lesson 1-2: Introduction and expectations (you’re welcome to change this if you like). Conventions of the crime genre, examination of these in two crime extracts.
Lesson 3: Archetypes in literature overview and introduction to crime archetypes from “Rue Morgue” extract
Lesson 4: Types of detectives
Lesson 5: Practising language skills; applying Q1 and Q2 style analysis to “Rue Morgue.”
A great starting point for beginning the unit, and I’ll be editing and updating this resource as the term unfolds, so watch this space! Have also included a termly homework grid and all worksheets. For all other worksheets, print the single page of the PP as they appear in the resource.