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Humble English Teacher hoping to cut down on teachers' workload by providing high quality resources (from primary to secondary - mostly English but some other subjects too). Please share and review if you like what you see here.

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Humble English Teacher hoping to cut down on teachers' workload by providing high quality resources (from primary to secondary - mostly English but some other subjects too). Please share and review if you like what you see here.
Love & Relationships: All Poems (AQA GCSE)
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Love & Relationships: All Poems (AQA GCSE)

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PowerPoints for teaching all 15 of AQA’s GCSE Love and Relationships Poetry cluster. Presentations include key themes, ideas and questions for students. Designed to supplement your teaching of the poems. 15 PowerPoints included. All designed by Mr_Gradgrind.
AQA English Language Creative Writing Exemplar (Top Band)
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

AQA English Language Creative Writing Exemplar (Top Band)

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This resource includes a top-band exemplar piece of creative writing about the touching relationship between an old man and a dog. As per Section B of AQA’s English Language Paper 1 (worth 40 marks), this creative writing is a response to an image, which is also included here in a PowerPoint. Students could read, annotate, and discuss this response either before or after trying to produce a story of their own from the image. The creative writing exemplar could equally be used as a model to other GCSE pupils not studying the AQA syllabus.
A Christmas Carol: Scrooge as an Outsider Essay (Top Band)
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

A Christmas Carol: Scrooge as an Outsider Essay (Top Band)

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This is a top-band exemplar essay on how Dickens presents Scrooge as an outsider in ‘A Christmas Carol’. Based on a genuine AQA Literature past paper, this essay is perfect for HA pupils to see how to structure a sophisticated and perceptive essay. The extract and exam question are included on the first page.
Unseen Poetry Practice Questions (AQA)
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Unseen Poetry Practice Questions (AQA)

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A booklet featuring 25 poems for students to practise analysing ‘unseen poetry’ for the AQA GCSE Literature exam. Each poem is accompanied by a question emulating the style of AQA’s exam questions. Some poems are coupled together to allow comparative essays, as per the final question of the exam. Poets include Armitage, Blake, Heaney, Larkin, Plath, Sassoon and Whitman.
Marriage in The Farmer's Bride & Singh Song: Essay (Top Band)
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Marriage in The Farmer's Bride & Singh Song: Essay (Top Band)

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This is a top-band exemplar essay analysing how marriage is presented in ‘The Farmer’s Bride’ by Charlotte Mew and ‘Singh Song!’ by Daljit Nagra. These poems are studied as part of AQA’s ‘Love & Relationships’ cluster at GCSE and this question and answer reflects the question style of the exam. Exam question paper is also included.
Creative Writing Exemplar: AQA GCSE (Top Band)
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Creative Writing Exemplar: AQA GCSE (Top Band)

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This top-band descriptive writing exemplar is a perfect model for those studying AQA GCSE English Language. Based on Question 1B, where students must complete a 40-mark piece of creative writing, this exemplar on a dark forest and a mysterious man is ideal for teaching structure, narrative, language, vocabulary, punctuation, and much more.
Persuasive Speech Exemplar (Top Band): AQA English Language
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Persuasive Speech Exemplar (Top Band): AQA English Language

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Help students to score high marks in the hugely significant 40-mark persuasive writing question of AQA’s English Language Paper 2 (Section B). This top-band exemplar response (responding to the statement: ‘Superheroes are bad role models for children.’) always engages students with its relevance, reasoning and relatability. Layered with an abundance of lingustic techniques, sophisticated vocabulary, advanced punctuation, and coherent structure, this exemplar response is perfect for showing students how to impress examiners in this challenging part of the exam.
Linguistic Techniques Posters (x11)
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Linguistic Techniques Posters (x11)

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11 specially designed posters on linguistic techniques designed to aid students’ learning of key vocabulary. Each poster uses an example to explain each technique. Perfect for your classroom or corridor displays! Features: Simile Metaphor Personification Alliteration Rule of Three Hyperbole Repetition Onomatopoeia Rhetorical Question Imperative Oxymoron
Macbeth: Supernatural Essay (Top Band)
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Macbeth: Supernatural Essay (Top Band)

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This top-band essay analyses how Shakespeare presents Macbeth and Banquo’s attitudes to the supernatural, based on the (infamous) AQA exam question from 2018. Many students found this question challenging when it appeared in the summer of 2018. This essay is perfect (for HA pupils, in particular) to see how to structure a sophisticated and perceptive essay. The extract and exam question are included on the first page.
Of Mice and Men: Complete Lessons
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Of Mice and Men: Complete Lessons

8 Resources
This bundle includes detailed and comprehensive lessons for all six chapters of John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’, as well as an introductory lesson to the novella’s social and historical context. Each lesson includes questions, discussion points, tasks, creative writing prompts, essay questions, and exemplar responses to help students to analyse the text to the high standard. Also included is a crossword on the classic novella as an engaging revision/starter/homework activity for students.
A Christmas Carol: Complete Lessons
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

A Christmas Carol: Complete Lessons

8 Resources
This bundle includes complete resources for Charles Dickens’ timeless classic, ‘A Christmas Carol’. Detailed lessons are included on each of the novella’s five chapters, plus an introductory lesson on the story’s social and historical context. The bundle also includes a fun and engaging crossword activity for students based on the novella, as well as a worksheet for students to use to consolidate their understanding of the text’s key themes.
An Inspector Calls: Sheila Essay (Top Band)
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

An Inspector Calls: Sheila Essay (Top Band)

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This top-band essay on Priestley’s presentation of Sheila in ‘An Inspector Calls’ is an excellent exemplar for students. At the end of the essay is a highlighting key for students to unpick the essay’s techniques and structure, allowing for detailed discussion of the exemplar in class. This resource is particularly useful for challenging HA pupils to reach the top bands.
Nothing's Changed: Tatamkhulu Afrika
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Nothing's Changed: Tatamkhulu Afrika

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This lesson includes three resources designed to teach Tatamkhulu Afrika’s harrowing apartheid poem ‘Nothing’s Changed’. Included is a PowerPoint with some background on Afrika’s life and Apartheid, and questions on the poem; a copy of the poem with contextual notes (as per Section A of the AQA exam); and a top-band exemplar response to a Section A question. This final resource is a detailed and sophisticated essay analysing Afrika’s poem. These resources are perfect for those studying POLITICAL AND SOCIAL PROTEST WRITING at A level with AQA, but could be adapted to teach the poem in a broader context.
Animal Farm: Complete Lessons
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Animal Farm: Complete Lessons

13 Resources
This bundle includes lessons for all 10 chapters of George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ as well as a detailed introduction to the novella’s social and historical context. Lessons analyse the novella’s key characters, themes, and ideas, while offering close scrutiny of Orwell’s language. Close attention is paid to the novella’s function as an allegory of the Russian Revolution and subsequent rule of Stalin over the Soviet Union. Questions, discussion points, and tasks are included for students throughout. Extract-based questions are also featured, as well as creative tasks. This bundle also includes a crossword on ‘Animal Farm’, to be completed as an engaging revision/starter/homework task, and a ‘Seven Commandments Tracker’ for students to analyse when and how each commandment is broken as the novella progresses. These lessons are ideal for KS3 or GCSE students (ages 12-16). PowerPoints saved as PDFs. Buyers of this bundle save 65% of the resources’ combined total price.
Twelfth Night: Complete Notes Acts 1-5
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Twelfth Night: Complete Notes Acts 1-5

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This resource contains detailed and academically challenging PowerPoints for all five acts of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’. Each PowerPoint goes through an act scene-by-scene, analysing language, theme, character and context, combining scholarly notes from a range of sources. These PowerPoints work well when accompanying the reading of the text in class. Students find them useful for revision of the play too. These five PowerPoints have the potential to cover several weeks of lessons. These resources are aimed at A level students (particularly those studying comedy as a genre), but could be used for the study of the play with any high attaining group.
Porphyria's Lover: Robert Browning
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Porphyria's Lover: Robert Browning

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This is a thorough and comprehensive 30-slide lesson on Robert Browning’s poem ‘Porphyria’s Lover’, which is studied as part of AQA’s GCSE Literature anthology on ‘Love & Relationships’. This lesson unpicks key themes of obsession, possessiveness, delusion, control and violence with close analysis of language, form and structure. Students are also encouraged to consider Browning’s use of the dramatic monologue form and how the poem’s gender dynamics might act as a mode of satirising masculinity. Also included are many small questions, tasks and discussion points for students, as well as a ‘mock’ essay question in which students must compare ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ to another poem, just like in the real AQA exam. The lesson is aimed at GCSE students but could be adapted for KS3. PowerPoint saved as PDF.
The Farmer's Bride: Charlotte Mew
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

The Farmer's Bride: Charlotte Mew

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This 47-slide lesson explores Charlotte Mew’s poem, ‘The Farmer’s Bride’. The poem is studied as part of AQA’s ‘Love & Relationships’ anthology. This lesson explains Mew’s life and context against the backdrop of the Suffragette movement, before exploring the poem’s language, themes, imagery, structure, and form in comprehensive detail. Questions, discussion points and tasks for students are included throughout. Extended essay questions are set at the end of the lesson, and an exemplar essay introduction is provided for one of the questions. PowerPoint saved as PDF.
Singh Song: Daljit Nagra
MrGradgrindMrGradgrind

Singh Song: Daljit Nagra

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This 40-slide lesson is a thorough and comprehensive study of Daljit Nagra’s poem, ‘Singh Song!’, included in AQA’s GCSE English Literature ‘Love and Relationships’ poetry anthology. The lesson unpicks key themes of excitement, passion, rebellion, identity, duty, romance, and infatuation. Also included are small questions for students and a ‘mock’ essay question in which students must compare ‘Singh Song!’ to another poem, just like in the real AQA exam. PowerPoint is saved as PDF.