'Pass the Buck' Students explore Belfast Confetti in a fun and engaging way by working in small groups and answering questions about the poem. The questions encourage students to analyse the poem from a different angle and consider small details in the poem. Divide students into six groups. Give each group a question on a piece of sugar paper. They will have 2 minutes with each question. They are to jot down as many ideas as possible in response to the question, but they can’t repeat what has already been written. Allow 8 minutes at the end of the task for students to present their sugar paper. Other groups must annotate their poem with the key ideas they hear. Explain that they don’t have to write everything down, but they should write down relevant points that help their own understanding.

Assign different foci to pairs or groups either before reading or as a separate task for them to explore the play. Students are to find quotations relevant to their theme/symbol. After the task, students may teach other pairs/groups about their theme or symbol.

Issue 'Shakespeare Prologue' to pairs. Students work through the prologue as if they are detectives deciphering a piece of evidence. They must 'zoom in' on individual words, decipher their meaning and try piece together what the entire prologue actually means and what is going to happen in the play. Allow students 20 minutes to do this before discussing the prologue and finally handing them 'Prologue Explained' which is the prologue translated into modern English. Albeit simple, students love the detective element to this activity. It really helps to engage them.

Students use this sheet to chart their sympathy for Candy throughout the novel. This sheet could be blown up to A3 to allow students lots of room to annotate the chart with key quotations from the text.

Ask students to close their eyes and put their heads on the table. Play Thomas Newman track and read the second-person edit of Chapter Two's description of the garage. Read the description slowly to allow students to imagine how Michael would feel entering the garage. After you've read the description, allow students 1-2 minutes to reflect with their eyes closed. Explain that once they open their eyes, they're to write down how they felt in the given situation. Ask students to share with a partner. De-brief post-activity; ask students: ‘How did it feel to do that?’ This activity should help students to engage with Michael's character and how he feels when entering the garage where Skellig resides.

Students will need access to a computer to complete this activity. Put students into small groups and issue A4 paper one of the questions from the Questions Pack.. Students are to create an attractive poster which provides the answers to the question(s) they've been given. After 30 minutes, students are to 'present' their poster to the rest of the group. Students are to make notes in their books so that they have a record of the contextual information about Skellig. Display students' posters in your classroom as a point of reference throughout the study of Skellig.

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.

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.

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.

In this lesson students revisit the features of gothic stories before identifying them in an extract from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Students are then told that they'll be re-telling a popular nursery rhyme in the gothic genre. They are shown examples of Jack and Jill in the 'romance' genre and then the 'gothic' genre to give them an idea of how a nursery rhyme can be adapted. Students then choose and nursery rhyme and have a go themselves. From personal experience, students absolutely love this activity and it really gets their creative juices flowing. It allows for very rich, high quality descriptive writing. This lesson is compatible with all abilities, but very successful with high ability KS3 students.

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

In this lesson students will develop skills in writing to argue, and structuring an argument. This is a fun and engaging approach to writing to argue. This lessons involves debate to get students actively arguing, but it also encourages students to articulate their arguments on paper, not just vocally. Two videos are also included in this lesson to encourage engagement in the central argument of: Is the internet a good thing or a bad thing? Instructions for the lesson are written on the PPT in the 'notes' section at the bottom of each slide.

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 is a fun way of offering further exploration of Bayonet Charge by appealing to students' different strengths and skills, e.g. artistic, creative, visual, mathematical or social. This is an engaging, outstanding lesson, and was designed with Garner's Multiple Intelligences in mind. You will need to prepare for this lesson beforehand by creating the 'resource stations': Resource Station 1: Visual – Saving Private Ryan Clip, available on YouTube, lined paper (x5), instructions Resource Station 2: Creative – activity (x5), lined paper (x5), instructions Resource Station 3: Social – activity, instructions Resource Station 4: Artistic – plain A4 paper, activity, instructions Resource Station 5: Mathematical – activity (x5), instructions Lesson Plan: Ensure that students are sat in groups of five. Tell them that the group they’re sat with is their ‘home group’. Show students the ‘resource stations’ slide. Explain to students that they’ll see five different resource stations around the room. Explain the activity at each resource station. Explain that each group will send one group member to each resource station to complete the activity. After 20 minutes, all group members will return to their home group and feedback what they’ve learnt. Give groups one minute to decide which group member will go to each resource station. If they cannot decide, then they’ll be randomly numbered one-five and will go to the corresponding station. Check students’ understanding by using ‘thumbs-up’. Ask a student to re-explain if there’s misunderstanding. Allow students to move to their designated resource station to start their activity. Instructions and resources will be ready at each station. Teacher facilitates, circulates, ask students questions to deepen their learning. After 20 minutes, students are to return to their ‘home groups’ to feedback. Tell them that they have 10 minutes and they should hear from everybody. Ask students in their books to write down three things they feel they’ve learnt from other people about Bayonet Charge.

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.

Revision booklet full of activities for students to do at home, lasting 10 weeks. It gives clear activities and reading for students to do each week. There are practice exam questions throughout the booklet. The booklet functions as a workbook that students can hand in once they've finished. It's proved incredibly successful with GCSE students.

Set up a debate with your class as a speaking & listening assessment/activity to run alongside the reading of David Almond's Skellig. This debate springs from the character Mina, who is home schooled. Having done this debate several times with classes, it usually elicits some passionate opinions. Divide your class as necessary into two teams - 'for home schooling' and 'against home schooling' and then issue the cards to the opposing teams. The cards will give students starting points to develop their arguments further. This is a flexible activity to manage and adapt however you wish to suit the abilities of your students.

This lesson takes students through Vernon Scannell's poem A Case of Murder. First, students are presented with the First Two Lines from their poem. Place these are students desks before they enter. They're to think about the poem and what it could be about. Next, present students with Gap-fill Poem where they are urged to fill in the gaps in the poem. This helps them to engage with the content and really think about the language of the poem. Feedback. Issue the complete poem. Discuss initial thoughts. Go through the activities in the PPT, which includes quick questions, in-depth question, discussion on themes, emotional response and then a contextual-based homework.

This resource offers a reading question, an essay plan and key word definitions. This essay was used as the reading assessment for a high ability Year 9 group studying Shakespeare's Macbeth. Essay Question: Starting with this speech, explain how far you think Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a tragic hero. Assessment Objectives A01 – Maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response, and use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations. A02 – Analyse language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate A03 – Show understanding of the contexts in which texts were written A04 – Use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation.

10 examples of written reports for Year 10 students studying for their GCSEs. There are examples of reports for students making 'adequate', 'good' and 'excellent' progress. Reports include targets for improvement.