Before having children I was Head of KS3 English at a secondary school in Lincolnshire. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a teacher and I loved planning lessons and creating exciting resources.
Before having children I was Head of KS3 English at a secondary school in Lincolnshire. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a teacher and I loved planning lessons and creating exciting resources.
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.
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.
Revision booklet full of activities for students to do at home, lasting 10 weeks. It gives clear activities and reading for students to do each week. There are practice exam questions throughout the booklet.
The booklet functions as a workbook that students can hand in once they've finished. It's proved incredibly successful with GCSE students.
GREAT 10-MINUTE STARTER TO CEMENT THE FOLLOWING KEY TERMS AND THEIR DEFINITIONS:
Narrative stance
Semantic field
Prosodic features
Syntax
Paralinguistic features
Idiolect
Figurative language
Imperative
Graphology
End-stopped line
Interrogative
Enjambment
Phonology
Pun
Colloquialism
Connotation
Dialect
Discourse structure
Genre
Lexis
Idiom
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.
This is a resource to coincide with a unit of worked based on teaching the history of the English language. It is a dictionary for Lincolnshire Dialect. There is a lot of scope with this resource, e.g students could find out different versions of the word in alternate dialect. Or, alternatively, students write a play script in Lincolnshire Dialect - often with hilarious consequences, and mostly including farmers. Students then perform their plays which could become a speaking and listening assessment.
This is a glossary of terms / features of spoken language. This is far from an exhaustive ‘list’ – just some basic terms that you should be familiar with for analysis of spoken language data. It's organised in alphabetical order. It can be used as a guide for students to annotate and identify features in spoken language date.
Example of resource:
Accent: the ways in which words are pronounced. Accent can vary according to the region or social class of a speaker.
Adjacency pairs: parallel expressions used across the boundaries of individual speaking turns. They are usually ritualistic and formulaic socially. For example: ‘How are you?’/ ’Fine thanks’
Back-channel features: words, phrases and non-verbal utterances [e.g. ‘I see’, ‘oh’, ‘uh huh’, ‘really’] used by a listener to give feedback to a speaker that the message is being followed and understood.
Blend word: words that are formed by combining parts of other words – e.g. jeans + leggings = jeggings.
This is a fun, engaging starter which gets students excited about writing.
Firstly, they watch the McCain Wedges advert before completing a guided writing activity where students write from the perspective of an inanimate object with question prompts. This often has hilarious results. The final activity offers student complete creative freedom, but please note, googly eyes are required.
Students sometimes use the word ‘of’ where they should use the world ‘have’. This may be because the shortened version of ‘have’ sounds like ‘of’.
Students learn about the common error as described above, before correcting sentences.
Fun little starter to get students thinking. They're asked to look at 8 different objects and try to group them into pairs and explain their reasons why. Students can work individually, in a pair or in a group depending on their ability.
Students are asked to write a short paragraph about their weekend using three connectives from the list displayed in the PPT. Students are then asked to share their paragraph before reflecting on how connectives help to improve their writing.
Spelling activity based on unstressed vowels. Students learn what unstressed vowels are before trying to come up with tricks to remember spellings with unstressed vowels.
Before the lesson display the difference words/phrases used to describe Macbeth 'Rise and Fall of Macbeth'.
Students are to walk round the room and pick one phrase written on white paper and one phrase written on grey paper. They should jot these down in their exercise books.
Once they’ve done that. Ask students to think carefully about the ‘grey paper’ phrase. They should think about how they say it. Instruct students to walk around the room and say it to whoever they meet.
Feedback – Ask students how they said it? In what tone? Why?
Do the same again but for the ‘white paper’ phrases.
Feedback – Ask students how they said it? In what tone? Why?
Explain to students that these are all phrases used to describe Macbeth throughout the play. What does this suggest about the character of Macbeth?
This resource is taken from my KS3 Macbeth SOW which you can buy from my shop.
Will Christopher get to London?
Christopher is about to face a situation that will be very difficult for him. How will he cope? Will he manage to get to London?
In this resource students are asked to consider how Christopher's Asperger's Syndrome will affect his experience at the train station. They're to consider challenges he'll face and strategies he'll use to cope. This will take students 10-15 minutes to complete. Using either thumbs-up, thumbs-down or thumbs in the middle, vote as a class for whether Christopher will cope at the train station or not.
This resource is taken from my KS3 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time SOW which you can buy from my shop.
Powerpoint offering definitions of tragedy, tragic flaw, tragic hero to aid discussion of the play and its title character.
This resource is taken from my KS3 Macbeth SOW which you can buy from my shop.
Place the photographs around the room before the start of the lesson.
Tell students that placed around the room are some of the most iconic photographs ever captured.
Ask students to walk around the room, view the pictures, read the information and decide which one the most powerful impact. Why?
Ask: How important are photographs in newspapers? Do you think it would be possible to run a front page which did not have a photograph with it? Why/why not?
Ask: Are there times when using photographs is not justified?
Ask students to look at the list and decide what they think.
- Pictures taken of celebrities without their permission
- Brutal pictures of people hurt or killed in war or violence (The Falling Man 9/11 and Death in Africa caused controversy)
- Page 3 semi-naked shots
Students to write a short response in their books, giving reasons for their answers.
This resource is taken from my KS3 English Newspaper/Journalism SOW which you can buy from my shop.
This is an extended piece of homework that students can complete at home over a two-week period.
In lessons students have been reading Macbeth by William Shakespeare. They have looked at how different directors have interpreted the witches and how they look, move and behave.
They are going to create a portfolio of three pieces of work which shows how they would interpret the witches imagining that they are going to stage a production of Macbeth.
This resource is taken from my KS3 Macbeth SOW which you can buy from my shop.
Students are to correct a sentence which has used several incorrect homophones. They are then asked to create their own sentences using incorrect homophones for their partner to correct.
This PPT looks at three different responses to:
In Of Mice and Men explore the ways the writer presents relationships between characters.
LENNIE AND CURLEY’S WIFE
Focusing specifically on AO3:
Read and understand texts, selecting material appropriate to purpose
Develop and sustain interpretation of writers’ ideas and perspectives
Explain and evaluate how writers use linguistic, grammatical, structural and presentational features to achieve effects and engage and influence the reader.
There is a grade D/E response, a grade C response and a B/A response. Students are able to see how they can improve and develop their analysis to achieve higher grades.
There's also a comprehensive and detailed essay plan to aid students' planning of a response to the exam question above.