A year 7 diverse short story lesson on Black is Who You Are by Niellah Arboine, focusing on narrative structure and themes of identity and self-love. A discussion-based lesson, students are encouraged to approach the questions in small groups, supporting their ideas with evidence from the text and sharing interpretations rather than looking to the teacher for the right answers. Questions are focused on students analysing structural choices and the effect of specific forms on the reader. The lesson leads up to students writing their own letter to their younger selves. The story is taken from the collection I Will Not Be Erased, published by gal-dem. You can find a slightly abridged version of the story (Was I somehow failing at being black?) in this Guardian article. This link is also copied to the notes section of the first slide. This resource is part of a short scheme of learning on short stories by diverse British writers. You can download my lesson on The Mouth Organ Boys for free here. You can download my lesson on A House Like No Other for free here. You can purchase the complete SoL here.

A year 7 diverse short stories lesson on Promise Me by Dorothy Koomson, focusing on narrative perspective and writer’s deliberate language choices. Students will read the story in sections, exploring concepts like unreliable narrator and how authors manufacture a surprising twist ending. There is scope within this lesson for students to practise extended analytical writing as well as a re-creative task where they can write a new version of the story from an alternative character’s perspective. The version of the story I used was published in EMC’s Literary Shorts Anthology, but a freely available version can be found in this Express article. This link is also included in the first slide of the lesson material. This resource is part of a short scheme of learning on short stories by diverse British writers. You can download my lesson on The Mouth Organ Boys for free here. You can download my lesson on A House Like No Other for free here. You can purchase the complete SoL here.

A complete scheme of work for year 7 studying My Name is Mina. This resource features 19 PowerPoint lessons and worksheets, as well as links to all YouTube videos used. Each lesson file has helpful notes, links, and discussion guidance in the notes section of each slide. The end goal of the unit is for students to write a short essay-style response that explores the themes of the novel, so most discussion is focused around exploring big ideas rather than close analysis. However, there are multiple lesson activities encouraging students to focus closely on the writer’s specific language and structure choices in the novel as well. In addition to the main essay task, there is a mix of shorter analytical tasks, reading comprehensions, creative writing, and speaking and listening activities that can be used for assessment purposes. When I taught the unit, I used a mix of class reading during lesson time and assigned reading for homework to move through the novel at a quick pace. At the end of the unit I watched the 1993 film Fly Away Home with the class and asked them to compare symbolism and character development in the film to My Name is Mina. There is a creative graphic essay task with three variations: one without the film (if you aren’t able to show it), one comparing the film to the novel, and one looking just at the film as a stand alone task. You can download lessons 1 and 2 of this scheme for free here: My Name is Mina Lesson 1 My Name is Mina Lesson 2

A short story lesson for year 7 on Home by Hena Kahn, building skills for inferencing and identifying and explaining supporting evidence. This lesson includes comprehension retrieval questions, discussion questions that guide students to focus on specific language choices, and a creative book cover design activity at the end which encourages students to consider the broader themes of the story. The story and page numbers referenced in the lesson were taken from the short story anthology Hero Next Door, but you can find an abridged version of the story on the scholastic website here. This link is also included in the notes section of the first slide. This resource is part of a short scheme of learning on short stories by diverse British writers. You can download my lesson on The Mouth Organ Boys for free here. You can download my lesson on A House Like No Other for free here. You can purchase the complete SoL here.

A complete scheme of work for year 7 diverse short stories, including PowerPoint lessons and copies of the texts, introducing key structure features and subject-specific terminology. This short, three-week unit guides students through a range of analytical discussion and writing tasks, as well as some creative tasks for nearly all of the short stories. You can download my lesson on The Mouth Organ Boys for free here. You can download my lesson on A House Like No Other for free here.

A year 7 lesson introducing David Almond’s novel My Name is Mina. This resource includes the PowerPoint lesson, accompanying extracts, and a sample of chapter 1 of My Name is Mina. This 45-minute lesson provides a light touch introduction to structural features, both visual choices like font, text colour, and images, but also narrative perspective, diary form, and setting, all of which are explored more thoroughly as the unit progresses. Helpful instructions or suggestions to guide student discussions are featured in the notes section of each slide. You can download lesson 2 for free here: My Name is Mina Lesson 2 You can also purchase the complete scheme of learning here: My Name is Mina Full SoL

This year 7 lesson on My Name is Mina explores William Blake’s poem The Schoolboy. Students make connections between themes in chapter 2 and the poem. This lesson follows on directly from my other free resource for lesson 1 of My Name is Mina, and is part of a complete scheme of work. The resource includes a PowerPoint lesson slides with links to the relevant videos in the slide notes sections, as well as a PDF of Blake’s poem The Schoolboy. The lesson was originally created as a cover lesson, and therefore would need adapting to include more teacher involvement. Alternatively, use it as a fully independent lesson for students. You can download lesson 1 for free here: My Name is Mina Lesson 1 You can also purchase the full scheme of learning here: My Name is Mina Full SoL

A year 7 diverse short stories lesson on A House Like No Other by Alexandra Sheppard, focusing on characterisation, symbolism, and themes of courage and confidence. This lesson guides students in a close analysis of language choices as relating to characterisation of Great Aunty V and Izzy, while also exploring the symbolism of the wooden bracelet and offering opportunities for creative writing to practise applying characterisation to their own writing. The short story A House Like No Other can be found in the anthology Happy Here. This resource is part of a short scheme of learning on short stories by diverse British writers. You can download my lesson on The Mouth Organ Boys for free here. You can purchase the complete SoL here.

A year 7 diverse short story lesson on The Mouth Organ Boys by James Berry focusing on characterisation and narrative perspective. The lesson is based around brief discussion of narrative viewpoint, followed by a creative writing task where students tell the story from a different character’s point of view. This short story is from the collection A Thief in the Village and Other Stories by James Berry. This resource is part of a short scheme of learning on short stories by diverse British writers. You can download my lesson on A House Like No Other for free here. You can purchase the complete SoL here.