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.

The idea of this exercise is to show students how a writing-to-describe question can be answered in a clever and interesting way. The question being 'Describe an average day at school', and the answer being given from the perspective of a pair of scissors.

The SOW takes students through the following learning objectives: Lesson 1 Obj: To be able to define ‘allegory’ and ‘satire’ Lesson 2 Obj: To be able to identify persuasive devices / To research the background and context of Animal Farm. Lesson 3 Obj: To be able to identify language used for characters in Animal Farm Lesson 4 Obj: To be able to identify differences between Snowball and Napoleon Lesson 5 Obj: To be able to use knowledge of the content of Chapter 4 to plan newspaper article. Lesson 6 Obj: To be able to identify improvements to be made through planning. Lesson 7 Obj: To be able to understand how power and language are interlinked. Lesson 8 Obj: To be able to understand how Animal Farm relates to Russian history. Lesson 9 Obj: To be able to analyse and interpret events in Chapters 8 and 9 Lesson 10 Obj: To be able to identify what makes an effective speaker and listener. Lesson 11 Obj: To be able to work effectively as a group and prepare a speech Lesson 12 Obj: To be able to present speech and peer-assess Lesson 13 Obj: To be able to analyse and discuss the film adaptation of Animal Farm Lesson 14 To be able to analyse and discuss the film adaptation of Animal Farm

Two lessons that teach students all about Shakespeare's sonnets, their structure, rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter. Packed with interactive activities, including lots of drumming with hands on the desk! The learning objectives are as follows: WALT: identify the structure and rhyme scheme of a sonnet. WALT: explore another of Shakespeare’s sonnets to take inspiration from to write my own. These two lessons lead students up to writing their own sonnet as a writing assessment.

This activity teachers students that good writers show us their characters rather than just telling us about them. Firstly, students look at an example of 'showing'. The example is a questionable supply teacher entering a classroom. Students are then asked to put their new-found knowledge to the test by transforming a 'telling' piece of description into a piece that 'shows' the character. This activity will last between 10-15 minutes.

Students to correct these commonly mixed-up idioms. This activity could lead into a lesson about the origin of idioms and why idioms are part of the English language.

This resource takes students through the process of reading and understanding an exam question. It encourages students to look closely at the wording and dissect the question before they even consider answering it. All too often students glance at the question and make a start on the answer. This resource helps students see why it's so important to really engage with the question. You can swap the questions on the PPT and activity with exam questions that are relevant to what your class is studying.

Do ‘Starter Activity for Descriptive Writing’; this should put students in the right mind-set for descriptive writing. This activity should encourage students to tune into their senses, which is an essential skill for writing descriptively. Ideally, students should use mini whiteboards, but if these are not available, then exercise books are satisfactory. Hand-out ‘An Example of Writing to Describe’ sheet. Ask students, in pairs, to read it through and highlight – in different colours – the words and sentences that relate to the five senses. Recap the five senses – sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. Feedback. Ask students why description is important. Hand-out ‘Planning Sheet for Descriptive Writing’. Explain that, as it is a planning sheet, it does not matter if they alter or change their ideas throughout. They are to write about a place or event, perhaps building on the ideas they established in the starter activity. Students could write up their piece of descriptive writing as a writing assessment.

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.

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.

Issue the worksheet to students and ask them to identify whether the line comes from Shakespeare or a contemporary singer. After 5-10 minutes, go through the answers using the soundtrack to show which lines are from contemporary singers. The exercise proves to students that contemporary singers use similes, metaphors and other poetic techniques in the same way Shakespeare did.

A fun, accessible resource for students to revise the key tips for questions 1-4 in Section A of the AQA Non-fiction Higher paper.

Ask students to create a social network for the characters using this user-friendly sheet. On the characters' connecting lines write how the characters are connected. Around each character's face write key quotes and characteristics. An example is shown.

A printable classroom aid for students to use to remember the necessary language skills for writing to describe - SIMPLES, with each letter standing for a different language skill. I used this with my GCSE classes and it proved really helpful for the writing section of the AQA non-fiction exam - the meerkat helped!

GREAT 10-MINUTE STARTER TO CEMENT THE FOLLOWING KEY TERMS AND THEIR DEFINITIONS: Alliteration Emotive language Tag line Left side third Cover line Imperative Superlative Sky line Pun Masthead Second person pronoun Interrogative Hyperbole Central image Use of numbers Connotation INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACTIVITY: Cut out these dominoes and laminate them (optional). Give individuals or pairs one domino, including you, the teacher. You begin by reading out the definition on the yellow side of your card. The student who has the term on the blue side of their card that matches with your definition then puts up their hand and says their term out loud. They then read aloud the definition on the yellow side of their card. All class members will have to listen carefully to see if their term matches with the definition they’ve just heard, and so the game continues until it goes full circle, every student has spoken, and you eventually hear the definition that matches with the term on the blue side of your card. Essentially, you’re playing a large game of dominoes, where students have to match key terms with definitions they hear. Depending on your group’s knowledge/ability, you may work altogether to match up the terms with definitions, or, alternatively, you may decide to play this as an actual dominoes game on the floor. This is a great 10-minute starter that really helps students to remember key terms and their definitions.

L.O. To identify and understand emotive language, and its effect on readers. The PowerPoint begins by asking students to look at two different headlines at a time and to decide which one is most emotive, and why. They then focus on two particular headlines and translate their ideas to paper by writing a PEE paragraph. In the next activity, they then have a go at editing a series of headlines by replacing words with more emotive words. Students should share ideas as an entire class. Students then look at a newspaper article and underline/highlight the emotive words. They then complete a table whereby they think about 'more emotive' and 'less emotive' words than the ones in the article. As a final activity, or as homework, students answer the following question about the newspaper article in PEE paragraphs: How does the writer’s choice of emotive language make us (the readers) feel about the dog and its previous owners?

Here's a fun plurals starter with a competitive element - bound to engage the boys! In 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' style, this activity asks students to pluralise different words. As the monetary amount increases, the words get more and more difficult. For example, the £100 word is 'face', the £16,000 is 'goose', the £125,000 word is 'quiz' and the £1,000,000 is 'ox'. There are two versions of the game to play on two separate occasions; the second round takes students from 'house' (£100) to 'stimulus' (£1,000,000). This is a fun, competitive starter that engages students in plurals - incredible!

This is a fun, dynamic lesson in which students are creative right from the start. They do a shared writing activity as a class before analysing an extract from John McGregor's If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. This is an exemplary piece of descriptive writing entirely based on sounds. Students then start to plan their own piece of descriptive writing about a most loved or hated placed based entirely on sound. This then leads into students writing a descriptive piece about three paragraphs long that could be used as a writing assessment.

Students get into pairs. One partner must face the board, the other partner must face the back wall. The partner facing the board must try to describe the poetic device without actually saying what it is. The partner must guess what that poetic device is before their facing partner can move onto the next word. Students then swap places to swap roles. This starter activity lasts approximately 10 minutes. Students, especially boys, enjoy the competitive element. I've also enclosed a poetic device glossary which you may wish to hand out to students before or after the activity, depending on your group's ability, to recap some of the poetic devices.