In this lesson the characters’ attitudes to death are explored. There’s a comparison to be made with Donne’s sonnet ‘death be not proud’ and the lawyer-ly way in which preachers (and law-trained Donne) convince people about death.

This lesson examines the conversations between Isabella and Angelo in MEasure for Measure. Iambic pentametre and structure is used to add to Isabella’s emotional appeal.

In this first lesson of my scheme of work for high grade GCSE on Measure for Measure, Students are asked to read the whole play together over 2 or 3 lessons with minimal explaining. Then they discuss the knotty problem of whether Juliet and Claudio were allowed to have sex or not.

Act 5 scene 3 of Romeo and Juliet

The reality of Juliet’s situation in Act 3 scene 5 of Romeo and Juliet

This focuses on how the law is interpreted in Measure for Measure. You’ll need access to EMC and a recording (my timings are Audible Gieldgud) to get the most from this lesson.

This lesson focuses on the Duke and Angelo in Measure for Measure A1S3 &4. If you have the Audible Gielgud version there are prompts in the notes for timings to listen to.

Detailed examination of Act 1 S2 of Measure for measure

This lesson takes a class through writing a poem using the ‘Golden Shovel’ technique. Uses ‘Essential Beauty’ by Larkin as the starting poem.

This is a series of writing prompts to stimulate descriptive writing

This creative writing lesson encourages students to write rhyming poetry through building up a word bank and then knitting words together

The balcony scene A2 s2 with a focus on Juliet teaching Romeo not to be such a posing courtly lover.

For use with lesson 6 of my scheme of work, the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet, divided into sections

The balcony scene with place to annotate elements of courtly love.

I’ve summarised the play Measure for Measure for teacher notes and included a cast list

Some ideas for essay planning for Measure for MEasure

This lesson finishes off the play and suggests some analytical title formats for students to plan

This very long lesson / 2 lessons includes lots of examples of the kinds of literature which existed before novels. It aims to show students quite how dull most literature was and why the conditions arose for the birth and growth of the novel as a genre. It’s pretty context heavy and perhaps a bit dry unless you get students to come and read out some of the pre-novel literature reproduced on the slides - pompous and long winded speeches, religious tracts, sermons to young women on how they should behave, religious poetry, translations of the Classics etc etc. By contrast, novels seem modern, insightful and emotionally mature. I’ve put suggestions in the ‘notes’ section of each slide.

This lesson works with the extract where Darcy rejects Lizzie at the ball. It’s got some analytical tasks and then a creative task on the conversation Lizzie had after the ball with her sisters on social media.

This introduces the idea of what rhyme and half rhyme are used for in poetry. It can be used for higher level GCSE or A Level students.