Ideal way to focus students on 'Boy: Tales of Childhood' - 15 plus searching questions on the early childhood and school chapters of his autobiography, designed to test student knowledge. At the end of the slideshow is a useful set of web links to websites, background films and documentaries, which would be ideal starting points for student research.

This 16 slide presentation was originally created for a comparative essay task and is an ideal way of introducing the genre, introducing new focus texts and covering comparative skills. It goes through the key terms, starting with ‘Utopias’ and defining what they are, with examples and quotations, then moving onto their flipside, the dystopian vision. I used it with my A level students who were studying ‘1984’ and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ for coursework, but it would easily transfer across to the other texts such as ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and ‘Frankenstein’. This resource explores the same over-arching ideas behind the exam topic and explains a lot of the tricky contextual references and theories.

Just a nice clear grid which pulls together the main types of sentence structures, explaining some of the effects these can have on the writing. Has space in the grid for students to experiment with their own writing as well. By no means an exclusive list, but a useful handout for students struggling to vary their expression or even understand why they should. Works with a range of ages of students, from juniors to sixth formers.

A useful list of approximately twenty key quotations for the novel, ideal for last minute revision and consolidation. Please see my LOTF bundles for more useful resources.

This resource was created with the IGCSE Paper 2 'Writers' Effects' task in mind, I found that my year tens were left cold by the sample past paper texts, so used this extract from the famous horror tale. As it is so well written, the students respond well to it and start to grasp how much detailed analysis is needed in these ten mark tasks. Obviously we then moved on to exam board papers, but thiis is ideal as a starting point. Ideally, if your were a year ten teacher you would use this as a starter, get them thinking about the language, then introduce the AOs for the task. You could then give students allocated quotations to hone their analytical skills upon. This task would also be useful practise for unseen prose analysis and for anyone studying the actual novel in full, so is very flexible, suitable for IGCSE or year nine pre-IGCSE students.

1) A great slideshow lesson with lots of images and colour which focuses on the essay: 'With close reference to his use of language, explain how Richard manipulates and controls his victims.' 2) This file is an ideal way to encourage younger year 8 or 9 students to write paragraphed analysis on a Shakespearean villain. 3) The group tasks encourage students to discuss the language, and there are slides which model suitable language analysis techniques for students to use on their own examples. 4) You can return to the in-depth quotation analysis slides and technical terminology definitions when teaching Macbeth at GCSE; similar skills and techniques appear!

A full clear slideshow with tasks, getting students to zoom in on the language Richard uses in the play. You might like to then follow this work with my 'Shakespearean insults tournament' and 'Shakespearean grammar' resources, as students will then be more confident with the language and able to create arguments between Richard and his enemeies.

Designed to give students a good overview of the historical Richard as well as Shakespeare's own exaggerated and distorted play version. The slides go through the key political details, explain who Richard was, then show students how Shakespeare adapted him for the stage. Clear and lots of targeted questions.

This is a great slideshow with lots of tasks and interesting background material to help introduce GCSE students to the contextual background of Romantic poetry. You could also deliver this at the end of year nine as a stand-alone unit. There are over 14 slides which explain what the poetic movement was, the concerns voiced by Blake, what the 'Fall' was and how Romantics wanted to redeem it and, finally, links on to a study of 'The Prelude'. The poem section is covered in the last part of the resource to enable students to analyse the section using their new-found contextual knowledge of Romanticism, This resource could be adapted to be used with older or younger students, but is ideal fr GCSE students, particularly those studying the AQA anthology, which includes the extract from Wordsworth's poem.

Students of all ages love these, so, as term approaches, treat yourself to my fairground- themed story grid! It works so well and you will be amazed at how much writing previously reluctant scribes can produce.. You need to colour print out the boards then, to recycle them, do get them laminated. Game rules: Split students up into pairs or no more than three. Brighter students can do this independently, but it's more fun in pairs. You need two dice per card. Ebay sell really good cheap foam ones. All the squares show close up details of aspects of a fairground. One child is on the red numbers side and the other one the green. They throw dice to get two numbers, such as 1, 6. Look up 1 and 6 on the board. Where the numbers coincide is your 'focus square'. They then have to write between 3-4 descriptive sentences for that square. They have to link , so they produce, between them, a single continuous piece of paragraphed description. between each other's squares. They will need about 6 focus squares, which means three paragraphs each. Boys get really competitive over besting each other, and soon a really good bit of writing emerges. The aim of the game is that they help each other come up with good words and imagery for each square, but, together, on a single page of paper, they co-author theor masterpiece. They are not allowed to swap squares. Some are harder than others - for example, the text squares ask students to incorporate that phrase into their paragraph. Others are abstract, such as a black hole - good for forcing unimaginative kids to think in abstract and symbolic ways! This works well with my slideshow tips for good narrative writing, also available in my shop. Once the students have done their timed mini descriptive pieces, get them t read out their work to each other. You will see a huge differentiated range. It teaches students loads of skills, from improving their grammar and vocabulary to teamwork, from speaking and listening skills and boosting confidence to creating textual cohesion and good links between paragraphs. It's also lots of fun to play!

Very thorough and detailed focus questions on the early sections of the novel. Tests students of all abilities and encourages them to select quoted details, then comment on them with follow up questions. Covers first two chapters.

This activity can fill most of a lesson and consists of students completing the cloze test blanks for similes in a list, using their analytical and discursive skills to make the best choices. Ideal paired activity.

A very impressive and detailed student response to 'Macbeth', revealing a detailed understanding of the key AOs, particularly contextual factors. The essay structure is good and hones in on the question's focus words. A wide range of terminology is applied and analysed in depth, grading this a secure level 6. Completed during timed conditions Ideal as a student revision aid and to extend any complacent students!