I'm a university lecturer of Drama and English Literature. On this page you'll find loads of powerpoint presentations filled with useful resources for teachers and students interested in English Literature, Drama, Art History, and Academic English / Research. Useful for all levels.
I'm a university lecturer of Drama and English Literature. On this page you'll find loads of powerpoint presentations filled with useful resources for teachers and students interested in English Literature, Drama, Art History, and Academic English / Research. Useful for all levels.
This presentation explores F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel, The Great Gatsby. The slides outline its publication, reputation as ‘The Great American Novel’, and themes such as corruption, the American Dream, class, nostalgia, and love. An in-depth character outline depicts all of the major characters with reference to the themes associated with their actions/role in the novel. Three slides are dedicated to close textual analysis of important moments/themes in the novel. The scholarship of Sarah Churchwell is referred to and there are also suggestions for further reading. This powerpoint is useful for A Level and undergraduate students looking at The Great Gatsby.
This resource is aimed at undergraduate university students and A Level students aiming to gain high grades in English Literature. The question is focused on Dystopian Literature and takes George Orwell’s 1984 as its example. With a step-by-step guide, the resource answers the question: To what extent does dystopian literature reflect the society in which we live? By focusing on George Orwell’s 1984, debate the relevance of dystopian literature.
It includes guidance on how to:
** Write an introduction, main body, and conclusion
Develop an argument
Make detailed points
Quote literary critics
Use footnotes
Reference
Compile a bibliography**
The resource explains how to write an essay and also provides examples through a sample essay.
In this Developing a Speech module you will learn how to plan, write, and structure a speech about any given topic. You will gain excellent writing and presenting tools in order to engage your audience in your chosen subject / speech. This PowerPoint covers:
Key points in developing a speech
The Canons of Rhetoric
Strategies for finding a topic
Developing your main idea
Gathering material
Creating an outline / structure
Writing introductions
Signposting / having purpose and direction
Using supporting matierals
Writing conclusions
This is a great resource for teachers and students of any subject. It is ideal for anyone who needs to do a presentation and wants some guidelines for writing / planning their speech.
This presentation explains how to interpret a performance. It provides useful quotes about performance analysis and illustrates how thinking about drama is different to thinking about poems or novels. The presentation explores the impact art has on the world around us and considers what makes a performance a work of art. It also focuses on the role the audience has on the interpretation of a play.
This presentation is on Hard Times by Charles Dickens. It is aimed at ALevel and undergraduate level university students exploring the work of Charles Dickens, the Industrial Revolution, and/or Victorian literature. The slides focus on how Dickens explores issues surrounding the Industrial Revolution in Hard Times. With particular focus on Dickens’s views on the rights of workers during Victorian Britain, this presentation draws on literary criticism to debate the two philosophies of that time: Utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill) and Political Economy (Adam Smith). The is resource also contains: key quotations, discussion points, and quotes from literary critics (including Mikhail Bakhtin). Perfect for preparing an essay on themes surrounding Dickens’s representation of the lower-class workforce in his novels, especially Hard Times.
This resource is useful to students and teachers covering cause and effect essay writing. It contains lots of in-class tasks linked to cause and effect essays.
What a cause &/ effect essay is
The block / chain structure of a cause and effect essay
How to identify cause and effect
Vocabulary to express cause & vocabulary to express effect
Tasks and exercises for activity work
Sample essay with cause / effect highlighted
Further essay questions
The PowerPoint is also useful for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners and for IELTS preparation.
Charting the founding of the Kingdom of Hungary to the present-day, this presentation is suitable for anyone interested in the political and cultural history of Hungary.
Topics covered include:
Settling in the Carpathian Basin
The Foundation of Hungary
King Matthias and the Medieval Ages
The Ottoman Invasion
The Habsburg / Austro-Hungarian Empire
The 1848 Revolution
Coffee Culture and the Arts
The Treaty of Trianon
Jewish Influence in Budapest
The Nazi Occupation
The Soviet Occupation
The 1956 Revolution
1989 and the End of Communism
Budapest Today
A great resource for teaching purposes and anyone wanting to understand Hungary’s history and culture.
This presentation is aimed at GCSE English literature students studying J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls. It contains in-class activities as well as homework questions. It focuses on the idea of social responsibility in the play and also helps students to understand the importance of stage directions and set. A great resource for anyone teaching or studying An Inspector Calls at GCSE level.
In A Guide to Public Speaking, you will learn how to successfully present your research / topic in front of an audience. The PowerPoint consists of over 50 slides of useful tips to presenting your knowledge / subject.
It goes through the fundamentals of public speaking:
Overcoming fear and anxiety about giving a speech
Nonverbal communication skills
Developing a speech
Vocal aspects of public speaking
Making PowerPoint slides
Keeping your audience engaged through audience analysis
This is a great resource for students and teachers. There are also practice exercises and further reading suggestions that will make you a great public speaker! Enjoy and good luck!
This **Thinking Skills Assessment guide **answers all of your TSA questions. It tells you about the TSA, what to expect in both Section 1 and Section 2 papers, and how to prepare and improve your problem solving & critical thinking skills. It also provides you with lots of sample questions taken from past papers (with answers), and gives guidance on how to get the best result. At the end of this document, you’ll find a list of helpful further reading resources.
Essential document for teachers, tutors, and students preparing for the TSA.
Suitable for Oxford University, Cambridge University, and UCL admissions TSA exams.
For Section 1, there are 18 past paper questions with answers
For Section 2, there are 16 past paper questions and an additional 2 questions with ‘thinking steps’ and essay writing tips.
**This document also provides a breakdown of verbal and numerical reasoning skills. **
This presentation focuses on theatre during the 1960s and Postmodernism. It is useful for anyone interested in the artistic trends and socio-political events of the '60s. It refers to the work of Patrice Pavis to discuss the shift of focus from the actor to the spectator and then looks at ‘Off-Off Broadway’ performances. Jerzy Grotowski’s ‘Poor Theatre’, The Living Theatre, The Open Theatre, and Robert Wilson’s productions are looked at in turn. The Wooster Group moves the presentation forward to explain Postmodernism with reference to the ideas of Jacques Lacan, Jean-François Lyotard, Fredric Jameson, and Baudrillard.
This presentation highlights some of the major shifts in recent theatre history that have become significant moments for the recognition of women’s playwrighting and theatre making. With examples from Judy Chicago’s Feminist Art Program, the first Women’s Theatre Conference, critic Michelene Wandor’s influential study of sexual politics in the theatre, and women’s theatre groups from the 1970s, the slides trace the history of women’s playwriting. The powerpoint then focuses on the work and influence of Caryl Churchill, especially her play Vinegar Tom. Critics like Janelle Reinelt and Elin Diamond are also quoted in a clear, easy to follow manner. A final slide contains some recommended reading suggestions.
This presentation explores Postdramatic Theatre. It begins by defining ‘drama’, ‘theatre’, and ‘performance’, before giving a clear and detailed explanation of the Postdramatic. Hans-Thies Lehmann’s theoretical writings are quoted from and explained in relation to the work of Robert LePage, Robert Wilson, and Forced Entertainment. The presentation contains video clips, photographs of performances, helpful quotations from practitioners and critics as well as tasks for students to expand their learning. The Postdramatic is broken down into easy to follow slides that look at the aspects of the Postdramatic including textscapes, the visual, time, repetition, and the body. The final slide offers quotations from Tim Etchells about the notion of risk in the work of the Postdramatic.
This presentation looks at theatre and nation, specifically the Irish Theatre tradition. It looks at the history of Irish theatre and focuses on comments by W. B. Yeats and the Abbey Theatre. Concepts such as gender politics and the mother nation are explored in relation to Marina Carr’s play The Bog of Cats… The powerpoint includes close analysis of scenes from the play, quotes from notable scholars, and comparisons between Carr’s work and that of John Keats and Samuel Beckett. This powerpoint is useful for anyone studying nation and theatre, Irish theatre, and Marina Carr’s drama.
This presentation explores Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. With clear character discussions, analysis of themes, quotes, and contextual information, it is an ideal teaching and study resource for anyone studying The Merchant of Venice. It contains: a plot summary; contextual information about Shakespeare’s decision to set the play in Venice; a discussion of racial prejudice (especially from Antonio towards Shylock); character studies of Shylock, Jessica, and Portia; a discussion on the idea of value, and details from three notable performances of the play. The last slide contains a quiz with 10 questions focused on details from the play.
Ideal handout for university and A Level students working on Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine.
The handout offers:
Questions to encourage discussion and analysis of Cloud Nine
An explanation of Mikhail Bakhtin’s Carnivalesque
**Carefully selected extracts from Cloud Nine **
**Scholarly readings of Churchill’s play **
Perfect for students writing an essay or preparing for a class/seminar on Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine.
This package includes a PowerPoint lecture, *full written lecture, * and detailed handout on Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street
It explores the novel’s concern with gender and race (particularly Hispanic communities in America), drawing parallels between Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street and Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own.
The lecture document includes a university-level overview of 20th-century gender theory.
Ideal for A Level and university students working on Cisneros’s novel.
This presentation outlines the shift in drama from Realist to Symbolist to Modernist forms of theatre. It uses work by Chekhov, Maeterlink, and Beckett to illustrate the differences between representational and Avant-Garde playwrighting and scenography. The explanation of Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotics is supported by examples form Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. The presentation also covers the work of Ionesco and Tom Stoppard when discussing the Theatre of the Absurd (a term coined by Martin Esslin).
This presentation looks at Ibsen’s drama focusing on his major play: Hedda Gabler. The sildes offer detailed information on and colourful examples of the historical context, gender politics, and themes of Ibsen’s drama. The powerpoint then examines Hedda’s character with links to short videos of performers such as Ruth Wilson discussing playing the role and what makes Hedda tick. This presentation is useful for anyone interested in Ibsen’s drama, feminism in his work, and performing his tragic heroine: Hedda Gabler.
Handout aimed at A Level and University students focusing on race in British Theatre. Includes quotes from Kwame Kwei-Armah’s play Elmina’s Kitchen and scholarship discussing race in the theatrical landscape across the UK.