GREAT 10-MINUTE STARTER TO CEMENT THE FOLLOWING KEY TERMS AND THEIR DEFINITIONS: Alliteration Assonance Enjambment Content Emotive language Form/ Structure Imagery Metaphor Onomatopoeia End-stopped line Rhyme Simile Stanza Tone Voice Symbol Rhythm Personification Mood 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.

This resource offers a comprehensive list of techniques used by the media to influence consumers. This list can be used in a variety of ways. Students could use it to identify techniques used in adverts or they could use it to create their own advert. There are 15 different techniques listed: Association Bandwagon Beautiful People Bribery Celebrities Experts Explicit Claims Fear Humour Intensity Maybe Plain Folks Repetition Testimonials Warm & Fuzzy

Students need to be in two teams. A volunteer from each team must come to the front. Volunteers must answer a series of questions to try cross the square vertically or horizontally. They’re allowed to ask for help from their team twice. They’re only allowed to choose one person to answer the question. This resource includes a PowerPoint and a series of 18 questions with answers. Example of three questions below: F – How do you spell Frankenstein? C – Who is Frankenstein’s friend? Walton I – In which city does Frankenstein live? Ingolstadt

Students are asked to write a short paragraph about their weekend using three connectives from the list displayed in the PPT. Students are then asked to share their paragraph before reflecting on how connectives help to improve their writing.

Place these facts around the room. Students have five minutes to search for the facts in the room and write them down. Allow time to feed back and discuss afterwards. This resource is taken from my KS3 Macbeth SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Students are to review the play and consider reasons, with supportive quotations, as to whether or not Macbeth should kill King Duncan. This resource is taken from my KS3 Macbeth SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Using the PowerPoint, explain to students the three main types of newspaper writing – news stories, features and opinion pieces. Students should make notes in their books as you explain to them. Quick test (slide 6): Ask students to decide whether the headlines are for news, features or opinion pieces. They should explain what clues helped them, e.g. the use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ Issue the three Articles to pairs. Students are to decide which one is the news story, the feature article and the opinion piece. Students are to read the articles closely. Under the headings of ‘news stories’ ‘features’ and ‘opinion pieces’ in their book, students are to identify word level features in the different types of writing. Display slide 7 on the PowerPoint to assist students. But encourage students to be open-minded about what the find. Differentiation: some features will need explaining. For lower ability groups, delete tricky features as appropriate. After activity, ask students to explain what language features they're likely to find in a features article/news story/opinion piece? This resource is taken from my KS3 English Newspaper/Journalism SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Starter: Be active, not passive! Display PowerPoint. Go through slides 1-3. Explain to students the difference between active and passive voice. Teach students the idea of bringing the subject to the front of the sentence in order to transmit meaning more clearly, directly and succinctly. In this lesson students are going to put together a whole article individually or in pairs (depending on your group’s ability). Ideally, this should be done on laptops, but it’s possible to do on paper. You are going to feed students pieces of information via the PPT. Students will use the information to put their article together. Laptops are better for this activity as they are able to edit previously written paragraphs more efficiently. For lower ability students, it’s probably best to print off the slides. Explain task using slide 4. Show students slide 5-11, leaving about 5 minutes between each slide. For slide 10, you’ll need to print copies of the Article for pairs. In the last five minutes, instruct students to check through their work using slide 12. Students to swap their laptop with another pair and compare articles. Show students Original Article. This is the actual article based on the same information published in 2008. This resource is taken from my KS3 English Newspaper/Journalism SOW which you can buy from my shop.

This resource contains two documents: the student version is a blank table for students to complete; the teacher version is already filled in using Bridget Jones's Diary and When Harry Met Sally as examples. Students are to attempt to identify the features of a romantic comedy in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and complete the table using modern romantic comedies to assist their understanding.

This is a comprehensive literacy starter activity covering several homophones. This resource contains an informative PPT followed by three engaging and challenging activities. This activity should last about 20-25 minutes.

In this PPT are seven fantastic brain teasers. These will definitely get your tutees' brains whirring away. For example: What is light as a feather, but even the strongest man cannot hold it more than a few minutes? Answer: His breath.

Two lessons based on Simon Armitage's poem November. The learning objective for both lessons is to understand the subject matter of November, and identify/interpret the feelings and attitudes. These two lessons contain varied and exciting activities including sequencing activities, labelling the poem with pictures and relating the subject matter of the poem to themselves. There's a strong focus on the language of the poem and the different metaphors used.

An informative PPT explaining how to use speech marks correctly.

A simple straight-forward starter for capital letters. Students learn where to use capital letters before correcting sentences where capital letters have not been used.

L.O.: To understand the content and context of Elvis’s Twin Sister. Assess: Students’ ability to: listen carefully to factual information about Elvis’s life; understand how humour is used to achieve particular effects. This resource includes a comprehensive lesson plan and PowerPoint to successfully teach students the poem Elvis's Twin Sister.

This lesson takes students through how to respond to an exam question. The question is: Starting with this speech, explain how far you think Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a powerful woman. Write about: • how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in this speech • how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in the play as a whole Students explore the play where Lady Macbeth is featured. They highlight/annotate the exam question and speech. They then read through other parts of the play and pick out important quotations for their 'quotations' bank. Students also complete a PEE-based essay plan throughout the lesson in preparation for writing a whole response. Students also consider the assessment objectives. On the PowerPoint there are 'notes' at the bottom of each slide for guidance on how to conduct the lesson.

This exam question PEE plan is applicable to all questions on AQA's English Literature Paper 1. It allows a space for the question, and then separates it off into the two bullet points, then allowing students space to plan their PEE paragaphs. Students find this plan very clear and simple to use. It allows them to organise their thoughts and plan a coherent exam response.

Ask your students to graph the build-up of tension in each act. Differentiation would include asking students to add quotes to their graph or illustrate pictures to help their understanding.

Two lessons that teach students all about Shakespeare's sonnets, their structure, rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter. Packed with interactive activities, including lots of drumming with hands on the desk! The learning objectives are as follows: WALT: identify the structure and rhyme scheme of a sonnet. WALT: explore another of Shakespeare’s sonnets to take inspiration from to write my own. These two lessons lead students up to writing their own sonnet as a writing assessment.

Students to correct these commonly mixed-up idioms. This activity could lead into a lesson about the origin of idioms and why idioms are part of the English language.