Students I've taught struggle to remember key quotations. I wracked my brains to try and find a way to help them remember without just learning by rote and repetition. This activity was particularly successful with my students. Print the carefully selected quotations with their short explanation and issue to students. You may wish to print 2-3 times to give students 3 quotations each. Ask each student on a sticky note to illustrate the quotation. Albeit simple, this activity really helps students to recall quotations as they remember the illustration they do. Allow students to use colour as it makes the activity for memorable. An alternative activity may be to give each student one quotation each and an A4 piece of paper. Ask them to illustrate the quotation on a larger scale, using colour, and then make a class display which the whole class can refer to.

Students are asked the question: Is Macbeth Evil? Based on their simple 'yes' or 'no' response, they are split into two teams: prosecuting team and defence team. You - the teacher - are the judge. Teams are initially given their 'first piece of evidence' (an extract) to analyse and annotate with their agenda/argument in mind. They are then asked to look at the 'play as a whole' to find other pieces of evidence to support their argument. A mock court case is then held with Macbeth on trial. Both teams present their cases and debate whether or not Macbeth is evil. The teacher - playing the role of the judge - then weighs up the arguments and makes a decision. For homework, students are given the same question which has been formalized into an exam question. This is a fun and exciting way of exploring an exam question which allows students to really get their teeth into a question. All lesson guidance is in the 'notes' section on each slide on the PowerPoint. This lesson is about encouraging students to develop a 'critical, exploratory, well-structured argument' which is at the top of level 6.

This exam question PEE plan is applicable to all questions on AQA's English Literature Paper 1. It allows a space for the question, and then separates it off into the two bullet points, then allowing students space to plan their PEE paragaphs. Students find this plan very clear and simple to use. It allows them to organise their thoughts and plan a coherent exam response.

Assign different foci to pairs or groups either before reading or as a separate task for them to explore the play. Students are to find quotations relevant to their theme/symbol. After the task, students may teach other pairs/groups about their theme or symbol.

Using this sheet, students map the rise and fall of Macbeth. They look at phrases used to describe Macbeth in the play. They must find evidence for each phrase. Once finished, this worksheet will illustrate - using quotations - the tragic downfall of Macbeth throughout the play.

In Act 2, Scene 1 Macbeth is deciding whether to kill Duncan or not. Read Macbeth’s soliloquy to students from ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me?’ Ask students to listen carefully as you read aloud to them – try to be quite dramatic and theatrical! Instruct students to jot down any words or phrases that they think are especially important. Ask students to feedback. Also, ask them about their first impressions of the speech. Issue Lesson 5 – Macbeth’s Soliloquy (High Ability Students) or Lesson 5 – Macbeth’s Soliloquy (Low Ability Students). Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pusU90ov8pQ This will aid understanding. With Lesson 5 – Macbeth’s Soliloquy, give pairs three highlighters to share. They must identify how Macbeth is feeling at the prospect of murdering King Duncan, exploring three possible choices: 1) Macbeth is intent on the murder. 2) Macbeth is undecided. 3) Macbeth is horrified by the prospect of murder. They’re to use 3 different colours to represent each of the three choices. They should try to highlight each line in a colour. Issue Lesson 5 – Macbeth Chart to students. They’re to create a line graph which illustrates Macbeth’s decision making. (20 mins) Students are to answer the following question: Why does Macbeth decide to kill King Duncan? Students should refer to the soliloquy, but also what’s happened in other scenes from the play. They should use the PEE format in their response. You may decide to make this form the basis for an extended piece of writing. Select quotations for low ability students to work with, rather than them trying to find their own. (Macbeth's Soliloquy - with helpful definitions - was taken from The RSC Shakespeare Toolkit for Teachers.)

Issue sets of these cards to groups or pairs. Students are to sequence them in the correct order. Great as a quick starter activity to get students thinking about the order of events in the play. Extend the task by asking students to find quotations to accompany all or some of the events.

This lesson takes students through how to respond to an exam question. The question is: Starting with this speech, explain how far you think Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a powerful woman. Write about: • how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in this speech • how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in the play as a whole Students explore the play where Lady Macbeth is featured. They highlight/annotate the exam question and speech. They then read through other parts of the play and pick out important quotations for their 'quotations' bank. Students also complete a PEE-based essay plan throughout the lesson in preparation for writing a whole response. Students also consider the assessment objectives. On the PowerPoint there are 'notes' at the bottom of each slide for guidance on how to conduct the lesson.

This 23 slide PowerPoint (for teachers) contains 50+ FUN activities for students to do when reading novels as a class. These tasks really do engage, enthuse and excite, and they can be used with any age group. Look at the 'previews' to see the kind of activities on offer. These activities really do jazz up 'reading' up students and gives them an active task when reading as a class.

'Pass the Buck' Students explore Belfast Confetti in a fun and engaging way by working in small groups and answering questions about the poem. The questions encourage students to analyse the poem from a different angle and consider small details in the poem. Divide students into six groups. Give each group a question on a piece of sugar paper. They will have 2 minutes with each question. They are to jot down as many ideas as possible in response to the question, but they can’t repeat what has already been written. Allow 8 minutes at the end of the task for students to present their sugar paper. Other groups must annotate their poem with the key ideas they hear. Explain that they don’t have to write everything down, but they should write down relevant points that help their own understanding.

Issue Belfast Confetti ‘Wordle’ to students. Explain that the Wordle contains the entire poem, with the prepositions removed. All that’s there is the core vocabulary; these lexical words provide the meaning of the poem. Tell students that you want them to sort the words into lexical sets (groups of words that are associated by meaning), categories essentially. Ask students to invent their own groupings and categories and find their own associations: for example, punctuation or place names. Students may then decide to create thematic categories. Through this activity students can ‘discover’ patterns of meaning, for instance underlying metaphors, before reading the poem and seeing them revealed in the true context of the whole text.

This is a fun way of offering further exploration of Bayonet Charge by appealing to students' different strengths and skills, e.g. artistic, creative, visual, mathematical or social. This is an engaging, outstanding lesson, and was designed with Garner's Multiple Intelligences in mind. You will need to prepare for this lesson beforehand by creating the 'resource stations': Resource Station 1: Visual – Saving Private Ryan Clip, available on YouTube, lined paper (x5), instructions Resource Station 2: Creative – activity (x5), lined paper (x5), instructions Resource Station 3: Social – activity, instructions Resource Station 4: Artistic – plain A4 paper, activity, instructions Resource Station 5: Mathematical – activity (x5), instructions Lesson Plan: Ensure that students are sat in groups of five. Tell them that the group they’re sat with is their ‘home group’. Show students the ‘resource stations’ slide. Explain to students that they’ll see five different resource stations around the room. Explain the activity at each resource station. Explain that each group will send one group member to each resource station to complete the activity. After 20 minutes, all group members will return to their home group and feedback what they’ve learnt. Give groups one minute to decide which group member will go to each resource station. If they cannot decide, then they’ll be randomly numbered one-five and will go to the corresponding station. Check students’ understanding by using ‘thumbs-up’. Ask a student to re-explain if there’s misunderstanding. Allow students to move to their designated resource station to start their activity. Instructions and resources will be ready at each station. Teacher facilitates, circulates, ask students questions to deepen their learning. After 20 minutes, students are to return to their ‘home groups’ to feedback. Tell them that they have 10 minutes and they should hear from everybody. Ask students in their books to write down three things they feel they’ve learnt from other people about Bayonet Charge.

Work through the PowerPoint for the lesson which includes a starter activity, contextual information, 'crunched poem' activity (creative, language analysis), annotated poem, exam question and comparison activity. This could cover 1-2 lessons.

Print off the slides in the PowerPoint and issue them to pairs or groups. Students are to analyse and annotate the opening lines with their ideas about what makes them effective and what makes them draw the reader in.

Print off the slides in the presentation, mix them up, and issue them to pairs or groups. Students to match the opening line to the correct story.

This is an excellent, fun and challenging quiz to do with secondary school students in an English lesson. This quiz tests students’ knowledge of children’s and teen literature. There are 52 opening lines - one for every week of the year - for students to try and identify. Students must decide which story the opening line comes from. Depending on your students’ ability, you can use the optional clues provided on each slide, available simply by clicking ‘clue’ on each slide. You can also challenge students to not only guess the story’s title but also the story’s author. There is plenty of scope for differentiation. Some notes for how to complete this activity are included in the ‘notes’ section the PowerPoint slides. Sample opening lines: “All children, except one, grow up.” - Peter Pan "Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy." - The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe “I found him in the garage on a Sunday afternoon.” - Skellig "My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue.” - Twilight “Sophie couldn’t sleep. A brilliant moonbeam was slanting through a gap in the curtains. It was shining right on her pillow.” - BFG The opening lines range from The Hungry Caterpillar to The Fault in our Stars. This quiz is a fun thing to do at Christmas or at the end of term, or just as part of a reading lesson to encourage students to read by engaging them in the opening lines. This quiz also offers opportunity for students to discuss which opening lines are their favourites, perhaps encouraging them to seek out the stories to read for themselves.

Students need to be in pairs or groups of three. They need to match the words to the time period. They need to read the cards carefully as the clues are in the text. Everyone should be able to work out the correct answers if they look out for the clues in the text.

Students learn what a kenning is and how it originated. They then look at some examples, guessing what the title of the kenning is. They then have a go at writing their own. This is a fun activity which engages students with Anglo-Saxon and Norse poetry.

In this lesson students revisit the features of gothic stories before identifying them in an extract from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Students are then told that they'll be re-telling a popular nursery rhyme in the gothic genre. They are shown examples of Jack and Jill in the 'romance' genre and then the 'gothic' genre to give them an idea of how a nursery rhyme can be adapted. Students then choose and nursery rhyme and have a go themselves. From personal experience, students absolutely love this activity and it really gets their creative juices flowing. It allows for very rich, high quality descriptive writing. This lesson is compatible with all abilities, but very successful with high ability KS3 students.

L.O.: To understand the content and context of Elvis’s Twin Sister. Assess: Students’ ability to: listen carefully to factual information about Elvis’s life; understand how humour is used to achieve particular effects. This resource includes a comprehensive lesson plan and PowerPoint to successfully teach students the poem Elvis's Twin Sister.