English teacher for the last decade; huge passion for teaching and creating interactive resources that lead to better engagement, better outcomes and better classroom environment! Have a look through my items for sale!
English teacher for the last decade; huge passion for teaching and creating interactive resources that lead to better engagement, better outcomes and better classroom environment! Have a look through my items for sale!
A great lesson (with a video clip) during which students investigate Meghan Markle’s speech on the topic of gender equality.
I’ve attached an annotated version of the transcript for the teacher or team leader if you want to set students up on an independent task.
The lesson structure is as follows:
Quick starter looking at some persuasive techniques in print media
Look at the transcript and video
Annotate the extract
Look at model paragraph structure together
Write an essay
Peer Review
Students loved it!
I ran this session with a year 12/13 group who were writing their personal statements. It goes through the steps to writing a great personal statement and helps students to avoid any cliches.
This was a great resource and took a couple of hours. There is a lengthy PowerPoint which goes through a step-by-step guide to the personal statement and a couple of worksheets for students so they can do research on their chosen subjects/universities.
A UCAS personal statement worksheet to prompt students to consider the course they want to study and how to prove their eligibility on their personal statement.
See my other resource which contains a fab PowerPoint to accompany!
A quick three-step guide to restorative justice conversations with students that asks them to reflect on their behaviour and plan for subsequent positive behaviour in the classroom.
A second sheet allows either them or the teacher/mentor to make notes.
Perfect for GCSE English Language (any of the specs!) and incredibly engaging. My students thought it was great!
A thorough analysis of two speeches by each party leader.
Depending on whether you want to walk the students through the annotations (teacher model included) or whether you want to let them work independently, there is probably about three hours’ work here.
The lesson starts by reviewing features of persuasive writing, followed by reading two speeches and annotating them. I have created a teacher model for each.
Finally, the lesson finishes with students writing a comparative essay (success criteria/model paragraph included).
Extremely topical and relevant around the time of an election and beyond!
Resources included:
-Comprehensive PowerPoint with lots of resources (just print the individual slides)
- May Speech annotated
- May speech blank
- Corbyn speech annotated
- Corbyn speech blank
If you’re like me, you’ve already used all of the previous and specimen papers!
I decided to create these resources as I wanted to give my students something they’d never seen before and wouldn’t have been able to access online.
They look a long time to put together and make identical to the AQA papers!
Hopefully you find them as useful as I did.
(You will also get the template so can make your own exam papers in the future!)
Here is a Paper 2 mock I put together as my class have done all the specimen papers available!
Feel free to adapt and change; I have included the original exam paper file so you can make your own after you've used this one.
Two hours’ work here at the very least. An analysis of Trump’s language (with teacher annotation for ease). Guide your students through this analysis with clear examples (included) of language analysis, lots of techniques for writing to argue/persuade, a model paragraph and a framework for a final essay. A clear and easy-to-follow lesson with everything required to download and go!
My GCSE/Higher ability KS3 students love doing this kind of analysis and it’s a fab way to get into political rhetoric analysis.
This is a resource that I put on a whole-school display for students to reflect on their revision. I also asked form tutors to discuss revision strategies with their students in order to ensure students were not wasting their time making lots of notes that didn’t really help them.
This resource is perfect for students to stick in their books, discuss with their form tutors, include on a whole-school display or simply give to students to get them thinking about how they revise.
Now with an automatic PowerPoint that loops continuously - ideal to prompt students during assessments and writing!
9 Posters that I made for my students to encourage them to consider the effect of language; they helped students to consider language rather than simply writing things like 'it makes me want to read on...'
Happy to adjust and adapt on demand but these are a really great way to encourage students to analyse language and work independently.
Techniques/Features:
Anecdote
Alliteration
Facts
Opinions
Repetition
Rhetorical Questions
Emotive Language
Statistics
Triplication
Other features mentioned on one slide: first person, second person, hyperbole, expert opinion, conditional tense.
This is a language analysis of Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish Independence speech that she gave in March 2017. It is a really engaging lesson and comes with the following:
- Overview of features to argue/persuade
- A debate on the topic of independence with reasons for and against (meant as a quick speaking and listening activity)
- A model annotation for students
- Features of language associated with Sturgeon’s rhetoric
- A model essay paragraph
- An essay question
- A fully annotated extract from the speech itself
Loads of resources and enough work for a week or more. Great for English language or even a lesson on British Values if you want a cross-curricular link.
If you like my resource, please review it! Also, take a look at my Trump or Emma Watson speech resources too.
Thanks!
* 30% off *
Two engaging sessions on Growth Mindset and a professionally created display poster that will blow up to A1 size if required.
Both sessions explore the term 'Growth Mindset' and look at the principles of the theory. Students investigate how they can be more resilient through developing their own Growth Mindset.
A bonus British Values SMSC/PSHE lesson has been thrown in too - as have some great additional posters.
These are student-friendly resources that are intended as a revision helper. There are instructions on the first slides that let students know they need to be proactively analysing these poems in their own time. The resources are intended as an aide memoir for students to simply sort the poems into categories and verbalise how they will compare in the exam.
There are several points for AO1 and AO2 to help students compare the poems (aimed at a middle-ability group). Having said that, you are free to adapt as I am including the template. My aim when creating this resource was to give some good prompts for AO1 topic sentences.
Enjoy!
Printing tip: Look great on A5 but if you can’t print to A5, simply select ‘Print’ in PowerPoint and choose the ‘2 slides per page’ option. Or just print them on A4.
Students present the stave themselves using this prompt sheet. They use the middle of the page to plan and the questions on the outside as prompts.
You can either allow them to make notes in their books or simply make a few notes on the page itself before presenting.
A lovely visual worksheet.
An absolute bargain! Save 32%!
A half term's worth of lessons for a two/three hour-per-week class. Three sets of PowerPoints, annotated examples, models and success criteria.
My suggested route through teaching:
- Trump on immigration
(Lesson 1 - Annotate, Lesson 2 - Essay plan, Lesson 3/4 - Essay)
- Nicola Sturgeon on the referendum
(Lesson 1 - Annotate, Lesson 2 - Essay plan, Lesson 3/4 - Essay)
- Emma Watson on gender equality
(Lesson 1 - Annotate, Lesson 2 - Essay plan, Lesson 3/4 - Essay)
Bonus Lesson: Trump's plans to leave the Paris agreement (climate change).
Bonus Lesson: Hung Parliament!
Once those 12 lessons are over, students can be assessed on their writing by creating a speech using some of the language techniques they have studied. Options I gave:
- Feminism/Gender Equality
- In/Out Europe
- Referendum
- Banning Trump from the UK
All four lessons are really well themed and some include video resources too! They look at a whole range of language features, techniques and stylistic devices that are unique to each speaker.
All come with fully annotated speeches, examples of essay paragraphs and clear success criteria for students to follow.
A quick reference list of features to persuade:
- Anecdote
- Alliteration
- Facts
- Opinions
- Repetition
- Rhetorical Questions
- Emotive Language
- Statistics
- Triplication
- Hyperbole
- Direct Address
- Conditional Tense
See my Trump analysis which has this resource thrown in for free!
This resource was designed for my GCSE class but I've used it with a number of groups. It's been absolutely fab! If you've seen my Donald Trump lesson, it takes a similar route through the lesson:
- First of all, features of persuade and argue are outlined
- A couple of quick leaflets/posters are discussed (from dog charities) in order to allow some Q+A on students' understanding of the techniques
- Students watch the Emma Watson video along with the transcript (attached)
- The teacher has the annotated copy (attached) and can either keep stopping the video or allow students to annotate it themselves depending on students' proficiency
- A model annotation is on the following slide so students can see an example of what a good one looks like
- Students are introduced to the essay. A model paragraph is displayed
- Students reflect using a peer marking/self assessment grid (attached)
This took my class two hours but if you make the dog charity activities written, there is a week's work here.
The poster outlines the importance of skills in:
- Listening
- Communicating
- Organising
- Investigating
- Mastering
- Being resilient
- Being co-operative
- Being respectful
- Being creative
