This resource offers a fun way of researching WW1 context. Before the lesson print of the questions and put them into colour-coded piles. You'll need as many questions as you have groups of students. For example, if you have 6 groups, you must have 6 print-outs of the questions. You'll need 6 x yellow questions, 6 x green questions, 6 x blue questions etc. Put students in teams of 3-4 students. Students must have immediate access to a laptop or computer to be able to find the answers to the questions. You need to put the piles of questions on your desk. Issue Q1 to all groups and 1 piece of paper to all groups for them to write their answers on. Groups must find the answer to Q1, write it down on their answer sheet and then bring their answer sheet to you. If the answer is correct, you issue them with Q2, and so on until groups have found all the answers to all the questions. It is basically a race to the finish, but the answers must be of quality because you have to 'okay' them before they're issued with the next question. Students enjoy the competitive element of this task. You may wish to give the winning group a small prize as an added incentive. Discuss the contextual research once the task is over and discuss its links with the poems being studied.

Poetic devices glossary to assist with students' study of poetry.

Work through the PowerPoint for the lesson which includes a starter activity, contextual information, 'crunched poem' activity (creative, language analysis), annotated poem, exam question and comparison activity. This could cover 1-2 lessons.

Issue the worksheet to students and ask them to identify whether the line comes from Shakespeare or a contemporary singer. After 5-10 minutes, go through the answers using the soundtrack to show which lines are from contemporary singers. The exercise proves to students that contemporary singers use similes, metaphors and other poetic techniques in the same way Shakespeare did.

A fun, accessible resource for students to revise the key tips for questions 1-4 in Section A of the AQA Non-fiction Higher paper.

Ask students to create a social network for the characters using this user-friendly sheet. On the characters' connecting lines write how the characters are connected. Around each character's face write key quotes and characteristics. An example is shown.

This scheme of work contains 13 lessons with over 35 resources, taking students right through the play. It is a comprehensive scheme of work that was incredibly successful with Year 9 students of varying abilities. It includes a reading, writing and speaking & listening assessment. This SOW includes film clips and drama to really engage students with the play. Opportunities to differentiate tasks for higher or lower abilities are highlighted in green in the SOW. Whilst the scheme was put together by me, some resources are taken from the RSC Shakespeare Toolkit for Teachers. The SOW has the following reading, writing and speaking & listening assessments: READING - Starting with this speech (Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 2, Scene 1), explain how far you think Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a tragic hero. WRITING - Letter from Macbeth to Lady Macbeth arguing for or against her ideas. SPEAKING & LISTENING - Dramatic performance of Act 3, Scene 4 (the banquet scene with the ghost of Banquo) The SOW takes students through the following learning objectives: LESSON 1 To understand the characteristics of a tragedy and to understand the battle described at the opening of Macbeth LESSON 2 To explore the meeting between Macbeth, Banquo and the Witches and how to make interpretive choices about the stage of the scene. LESSON 3 To develop an understanding of characters’ thoughts and motives LESSON 4 To understand the persuasive tactics that Lady Macbeth uses to influence Macbeth. LESSON 4.5 To construct a letter that has a clear purpose. LESSON 5 To understand how Macbeth makes the decision to kill Duncan LESSON 6 To understand the Macbeths’ reactions to their murder of Duncan LESSON 7 To understand the motivations of Macbeth and Banquo in the aftermath of the murder of King Duncan. LESSON 8 To understand how Act 3, Scene 4 works dramatically. LESSON 9 To recap the plot and to develop an understanding of how Shakespeare has presented Macbeth as a `tragic hero. LESSON 10 To understand the rise and fall of Macbeth / To identify dramatic devices and to start planning your essay LESSON 11 To structure an essay response to Macbeth which analyses language and dramatic devices. LESSON 12 To see a performance of Macbeth LESSON 13 To see a performance of Macbeth

A printable classroom aid for students to use to remember the necessary language skills for writing to describe - SIMPLES, with each letter standing for a different language skill. I used this with my GCSE classes and it proved really helpful for the writing section of the AQA non-fiction exam - the meerkat helped!

GREAT 10-MINUTE STARTER TO CEMENT THE FOLLOWING KEY TERMS AND THEIR DEFINITIONS: Alliteration Emotive language Tag line Left side third Cover line Imperative Superlative Sky line Pun Masthead Second person pronoun Interrogative Hyperbole Central image Use of numbers Connotation INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACTIVITY: Cut out these dominoes and laminate them (optional). Give individuals or pairs one domino, including you, the teacher. You begin by reading out the definition on the yellow side of your card. The student who has the term on the blue side of their card that matches with your definition then puts up their hand and says their term out loud. They then read aloud the definition on the yellow side of their card. All class members will have to listen carefully to see if their term matches with the definition they’ve just heard, and so the game continues until it goes full circle, every student has spoken, and you eventually hear the definition that matches with the term on the blue side of your card. Essentially, you’re playing a large game of dominoes, where students have to match key terms with definitions they hear. Depending on your group’s knowledge/ability, you may work altogether to match up the terms with definitions, or, alternatively, you may decide to play this as an actual dominoes game on the floor. This is a great 10-minute starter that really helps students to remember key terms and their definitions.

Here's a fun plurals starter with a competitive element - bound to engage the boys! In 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' style, this activity asks students to pluralise different words. As the monetary amount increases, the words get more and more difficult. For example, the £100 word is 'face', the £16,000 is 'goose', the £125,000 word is 'quiz' and the £1,000,000 is 'ox'. There are two versions of the game to play on two separate occasions; the second round takes students from 'house' (£100) to 'stimulus' (£1,000,000). This is a fun, competitive starter that engages students in plurals - incredible!

This is a fun, dynamic lesson in which students are creative right from the start. They do a shared writing activity as a class before analysing an extract from John McGregor's If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. This is an exemplary piece of descriptive writing entirely based on sounds. Students then start to plan their own piece of descriptive writing about a most loved or hated placed based entirely on sound. This then leads into students writing a descriptive piece about three paragraphs long that could be used as a writing assessment.

Students get into pairs. One partner must face the board, the other partner must face the back wall. The partner facing the board must try to describe the poetic device without actually saying what it is. The partner must guess what that poetic device is before their facing partner can move onto the next word. Students then swap places to swap roles. This starter activity lasts approximately 10 minutes. Students, especially boys, enjoy the competitive element. I've also enclosed a poetic device glossary which you may wish to hand out to students before or after the activity, depending on your group's ability, to recap some of the poetic devices.

Students are issued with a scenario and asked to represent/show the story from the perspective of any of the people numbered 1-9. They must consider their perspective carefully. Ask themselves what can they see and hear? Write a short account; write in as much detail as your perspective allows. This activity is a hands-on way of finding out how narrative perspective can alter the narration of a story. This will lend itself well to leading into a discussion about a narrator's point of view and reliability of narrators.

Issue Characteristics of a Shakespearean Hero to pairs. Read through. Students are to find evidence for the characteristics; some have been done for them. After this activity, ask students: What is your personal response to Macbeth? Is he a likeable character? Do you feel sorry for him? Or do you think he deserves everything he gets? This resource is taken from my KS3 Macbeth SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Explain to students that Macbeth is going to write a letter to Lady Macbeth explaining the decision he’s arrived at. He should either persuade Lady Macbeth to give up on her ideas, or concede that Lady Macbeth might have a point, and he wants to go through with it. This could be written up in full as a writing assessment. This resource is taken from my KS3 Macbeth SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Readers want to consume the news as quickly as possible; they don’t want to excavate nuggets of meaning from mountains of words. The news needs to be written clearly, concisely and correctly – THE 3 BIG C’s. Illustrate with the following: Write on the board ‘FRESH FISH SOLD HERE’ The fishmonger had a sign which said ‘FRESH FISH SOLD HERE’. The fishmonger had a friend who persuaded him to rub out the word FRESH – because naturally he wouldn’t expect to sell fish that wasn’t fresh; to rub out the word HERE – because naturally he’s selling it here, in the shop; to rub out the word SOLD – because naturally he isn’t giving it away. And finally to rub out the word FRESH – because you can smell it a mile off. Using the same principle, you can ask students which words they could remove and why. Explain that vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a machine has no unnecessary parts. This doesn’t mean that the writer should make every sentence short, or avoid all detail. It just means that every word should TELL. Issue Wasteful Words sheet. Discuss the example; check understanding. Students to complete the sheet by giving the sentences a good butchering. Students to to try to make the sentences crisper, shorter and more to the point. The underlined words indicate where wasteful words are being used. After activity, ask students to complete the following sentence in their book. Writers have to be economical with language when writing the news because… This resource is taken from my KS3 English Newspaper/Journalism SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Grid for students to use to analyse and record their own day of talking, considering the participants, the purpose, the content etc. A grid is also included for students to analyse their parents' day of talking.

In this resource bundle are three activities to learn the language features on a magazine's front cover: CARD SORT - cut out all of the cards and ask students to match up the feature with the example. FEATURE DOMINOES - students essentially play a spoken version of dominoes in which they match up language features with examples. Detailed instructions included on resource.. BLOCKBUSTERS - students have the cross the square on the PPT vertically or horizontally by asking a series of questions about magazine language features. MAGAZINE LAYOUT - students learn how a magazine is laid out. Firstly, put students in pairs. One partner spends 1-2 minutes studying the magazine layout before they have to turn over the sheet and try to explain to their partner how a magazine is laid out. Students learn the following features: Alliteration Emotive language Tag line Left side third Cover line Imperative Superlative Sky line Pun Masthead Second person pronoun Interrogative Hyperbole Central image Use of numbers Connotation

Students are asked to analyse a short piece of dialogue between a teacher and student. They are to 'zoom' in on the language and focusing specifically on words, e.g. the difference between the words 'chat' and 'discussion'.