Get your students thinking more critically as they decode the background behind a text with this display / prompt sheet. Print and laminate.

English teachers are the worst for mnemonics and acronyms. Particularly, since the likes of AFOREST PIE and MOPSA never actually cater for the needs of the students. Is that P for Personification or Pathetic Fallacy? That S, is it for Similes or Senses? Do you even know if they can remember both? Try SOAPMAPS instead. It's a far simpler approach to understanding what techniques make work more creative: Similes Onomatopoeia Adjectives Personification Metaphors Adverbs Pathetic Fallacy Senses Now the students can use the language devices to "clean-up their narrative direction".

Print and handout so that every student has a handy reminder of Drop Swap and Double spellings

Students, particularly those with low literacy or suffering from dyslexia, require strategies for reading. These prompts, logs, and question sheets are designed to draw out greater depth of comprehension.

I don't argue or negotiate with my students over the importance of English as a subject. I direct them to my "Break the ICE" posters which set out the reasons for them: Inference Communication Empathy All three skills are necessary for us to be fully functioning members of society. Further, they are intrinsic to a student's development in English.

The Interactive Grammar App is a classroom and lecture resource designed to aid the learning of grammar from secondary to degree level, by providing the ability to reveal or hide the breakdown of sentence construction on a number of levels. It uses Excel and simple mouse clicks to hide or reveal the info. Buy the app and its 167 sentences here: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/interactive-grammar-app-11334721

Created for my finals, this two-page infographic is a great way to summarise the order,features, themes and story types of each of the Canterbury Tales. A clear revision guide helping to expand student awareness - can be used as a display or knowledge organiser

Linking identification of word classes to language techniques, this simple worksheet helps build confidence in spotting what job each word or phrase is doing

Wanting to stretch your students through creative tasks? Impose restrictions on the approach they take. Use a single die to determine perspective, tense, genre and the narrator's tone.

I've been struggling to get my students to analyse with any effectiveness, so I'm currently trying (with some success-) the a visual approach - as an example from Journey's End (see the picture), Stanhope is talking negatively about Raleigh (talking him down). Using an interactive whiteboard, I can model answers on the word document really easily, and have been doubling up by getting the students to identify their keywords (underlining / circling) and then defining the word classes / linguistic device of those keywords, before moving onto analysis. There are instructions on the first page of the document. Most importantly, getting the students to replicate the model (red, downward arrow for negative and green, upward arrow for positive) will help them visualise what can often be a complex cognitive construction.

A handy set of worksheets for use with poetry analysis. Breaking down aspects into constituent parts for defining examples and inferring meaning.

I have been achieving great results with syllabified spelling tasks. My low literacy students are making greater strides in their confidence and are better able to retain the information. These worksheets introduce students to base words, suffixes and prefixes and then syllabifies them for ease of breaking spellings down. Also included are the KS2 National Curriculum word lists for 3-4 and 5-6 all syllabified.

These quick and easy ideas are a great and simple way of getting your students onto the task and off of their chatter. Included in several activities are extension and differentiation activities and alternatives, to best support the way you wish to use them: Includes: Crosswords Definitions Explorations Interpretation Pronunciation Register Response Syllabify Taboo Unscramble Wordsearch

Chart the progression and development of plot, theme, or character thoughts, feelings and motivations with these handy templates. 2 blank templates provide freedom for plotting story structure (rising and falling action), or creating your own chart to follow a particular theme or characters. There are 3 examples, using the dramatic structure of Conan Doyle's short story "A Scandal in Bohemia", A love, attraction and regrets chart for Dickens's "Great Expectations" and a moral integrity and principles chart for Payne's "No Man's Land". Useful for all text types, from short story, novels, plays or even epic poetry.

The mnemonic Restate / Relate Answer Cite Explain React Signify Rationale Racers represents an acronym designed to assist students in analysing texts with depth. I have tried PEE, PEEA, PEEL, and most recently AIDRWL, but found either a perpetual lack of insight or utter confusion. I have therefore continued to look for a suitable mnemonic that might be memorable and assist students in the delivery of their responses. I believe I have found that in Tantillo’s Racer (adapted here for my purposes). Adapted from Tantillo, S. (2014), Literacy and the Common Core. San Fransciso, Jossey-Bass (p.154)

Forget AFOREST PIE, it's random, ill-thought out, difficult to memorise and doesn't cater for all that it's meant to: don't put the onus on your students to remember Rhetorical Questions and Repetition or Anecdotes and Alliteration. So, try FAIRER APOSTLE instead for persuasive techniques. Along with a poetic devices knowledge organiser, a TAP (text-type, audience and purpose) knowledge organiser, and both a FAIRER APOSTLE and a SOAPMAPS worksheet (Similes, Onomatopoeia, Adjectives, Personification, Metaphors, Adverbs, Pathetic Fallacy, Senses). Use as knowledge organisers or poster displays

AQA's 2016 English Language exam requires a deep understanding of structure, You might wish to use this template with any text, either fiction or not. As a point of reference, a great way to introduce students to notions of structure is to use the template on the opening to the James Bond film Spectre (Day of the Dead).

Help your students get to grips with their English subject terminology with this SOLO taxonomy inspired booklet. In order to achieve higher grades, students must demonstrate their clear understanding of word classes, rhetorical devices and figurative language. By printing a copy of this booklet off for each student, you can help them take ownership for what they have and have not yet mastered the use of. Make use of it for revision, part of your assessment process or simply as a check to find out or verify what knowledge your students currently have, or where their weaknesses lie.

Reign your students in with this random slow writing sentence type generator. There are now 60 randomly generateable sentences, and you can add your own if you wish. On the RndSel worksheet, double-click the cell A1 but just press [Enter] to re-randomise. Copy and paste out what you need Updated: 18/04/18.

Build up student confidence in understanding grammatical word classes with these handy worksheets.