A few elements of my class really struggled with this concept. So, I’ve broken it down into a step by step guide. The class will each need a copy of the AQA Poetry Anthology for this. It focuses on Follower first and then sets them up for an academic tilt at a comparative response. I’ve had a good response from the elements of the class that initially struggled too.

A series of lessons designed to make sure students have a clear understanding of the “basics” and the “developed” skills and techniques required for EACH of the possible text types they could meet in Section B of the English Language Paper 2 exam. Because my lot were taught A Christmas Carol (and I was trying to kill two birds with one stone by revising this at the same time…), the tasks are all focused on writing within the world of Scrooge. To that end, they may require some editing on the part of the user - hence the reduced price.

A spreadsheet designed to track the academic progress of up to 30 A-Level drama students (you can do more, but you’d have to UNHIDE every hidden columns in order to make sure that the new cells work). I have included the 2018 and 2019 grade boundaries (as published by AQA), and left both the room and the capacity for the spreadsheet to be updated with 2020 and 2021 grade boundaries. The spreadsheet will tell you how many marks each student needs to achieve their target grade for each component of the course. The “Machine” calculates this on a section by section basis for each of the components. Additionally, there is room for up to 10 attempts for each of these components. The spreadsheet will then show you the BEST, AVERAGE and LAST marks each student achieved. Hopefully, this will make it easier for drama teachers to keep track of where their students are. NOTE: I’ve designed this with the best intentions, but if there is a “bug” or an improvement that you feel would be beneficial after purchase, then leave a note in the comments section and I will attend to it quick sharpish.

A collection of resources designed to support the teaching of Macbeth at GCSE level. The lessons assume that the class will be “acting” out the play, using the summary as a stimulus for the acting out element. I interspersed this acting with numerous directions to read the text aloud; overall, the students enjoyed this combination of normal language and Shakespearean. It has always been my way to establish an initial understanding of a Shakespearean text before trying to wade through the language. Hopefully, this will prove a useful starting point.

An easy to use spreadsheet where you build a bank of true or false statements (tab 3) which will then create a randomly generated worksheet of ten true or false statements (tab 1). Additionally, an answer sheet will be generated too (tab 2) allowing for the resource to be used in a whole class setting. All you need to do is populate the spreadsheet with true/false statements and then identify which statements are true, and which are false. Instructions are built into the spreadsheet itself.

A useful little resource that can be a starter/plenary element in your lessons. The spreadsheet generates ten randomly selected true or false statements from a bank of over 260. Each of the power and conflict poems is covered and there is the scope for you to add in your own or edit the statements that are there. I released this to my year 11s as a revision tool and they found it very useful. Additionally, I have included a blank copy of the spreadsheet so you can create your own ToF statement generator.

An introductory unit suitable for Year 7 students - I taught it to top and bottom set (with differentiation) classes. It is designed to get kids using the basic PEE style structure to create a reading assessment-worthy response. I don't include all of the extracts I used - I photocopied straight from the texts in all honesty - but this is more than enough to get going. Hope you find this useful.

I've found another use for all that knowledge we have about the old AQA English Lit anthology (The Sunlight on The Grass anthology). I have started to turn them into English Language Paper 1 Section A Mock Exams! This is one of them. There is no mark scheme, but if you use the Paper 1 mark scheme from the AQA website you should be fine. This one uses the start of On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning. I've taken one paragraph out but don't worry, it doesn't take away from the creepiness of the narrative voice.

I've found another use for all that knowledge we have about the old AQA English Lit anthology (The Sunlight on The Grass anthology). I have started to turn them into English Language Paper 1 Section A Mock Exams! This is one of them. There is no mark scheme, but if you use the Paper 1 mark scheme from the AQA website you should be fine. This one uses a section from When The Wasps Drowned - it's not the start bit, but if you think about it, it doesn't really need to be.

I've had a lot of fun teaching these lessons. Essentially, the idea is you spend a lesson exploring a poem and then a creative angle has been drawn from the text to inform the creative writing lesson that follows. Each of the creative writing lessons assumes a two hour window. A simple scheme, but I've found it to be rather effective.

A couple of lessons that focus on improving creative writing skills. I allude to tasks that have already been completed by the students - you can easily edit these to reflect your own tasks. Particularly pleased with the descriptive writing task as it got a bunch of lads who don’t “do” creative writing to talk about their feelings.

A stand alone lesson that assumes all participants have read and understood the text. I used it as a platform to show students what they needed to be revising. There is some focus on themes and a focus on an extract - both areas of which I use as a stimulus for class lead discussion. I finish with an exam based question - the focus is upon the characters that are manipulated, not the manipulator (just to keep them on their toes). Hope you find this useful.

A talking mock lesson (two hours long) with strategies on the slides for the students to refer to and time limits identified. The idea is that prior to each question, you are to remind students of how to answer the question. The expectation is that the class will have attempted a Paper 1 Section A beforehand - this is the lesson where they try and beat their previous scores. A quick word of warning: the exam paper is available elsewhere in my shop.

As part of my quest to engage students with the 15 Power and Conflict poems, I’ve come up with these Battle Cards. Essentially, the idea is to promote AO1 and AO2 related discussions that get the students to recall what they know about the poems they have been taught without having the actual poem in front of them. The students “score” each of the poem against a number of POWER and CONFLICT related areas. This is recorded on an A5 sized BATTLE CARD where they can draw supporting images(good for recall) and identify methods, key quotations and themes. The idea is for students to battle one another and use the cards as the stimulus point for the discussion. Whoever is best able to justify the score they have given for their card wins the round. I’ve included a blank card along with 15 poem specific cards (each of these has a supporting back ground image, but is the same as the blank card in all other respects).

Similar to a lesson I posted on A Christmas Carol. After a bit of a warm-up, the crux of the lesson is focused on establishing concepts then explicitly showing students HOW to identify methods - again, some still confuse quotations and methods - before pointing them at an exam question. UPDATE: I repeated this lesson a few weeks later with a different extract, but backing off a notch in terms of explicitly identifying methods.

My year 11s were STILL struggling with how to frame a method, so I came up with this stand alone lesson. The idea is that, having reviewed the slide where the methods are explicitly identified, the students will see that a method and a quotation are not the same thing. This was a successful lesson. UPDATE: I repeated this process with a bottom set year 10 class where I was even more specific. This was also a successful lesson, so I’ve included it.

I’ve used the opening chapter of the novel as the basis for an AQA Language Paper 1 mock exam. I’ve created an Answer paper too.