In Act 2, Scene 1 Macbeth is deciding whether to kill Duncan or not. Read Macbeth’s soliloquy to students from ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me?’ Ask students to listen carefully as you read aloud to them – try to be quite dramatic and theatrical! Instruct students to jot down any words or phrases that they think are especially important. Ask students to feedback. Also, ask them about their first impressions of the speech. Issue Lesson 5 – Macbeth’s Soliloquy (High Ability Students) or Lesson 5 – Macbeth’s Soliloquy (Low Ability Students). Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pusU90ov8pQ This will aid understanding. With Lesson 5 – Macbeth’s Soliloquy, give pairs three highlighters to share. They must identify how Macbeth is feeling at the prospect of murdering King Duncan, exploring three possible choices: 1) Macbeth is intent on the murder. 2) Macbeth is undecided. 3) Macbeth is horrified by the prospect of murder. They’re to use 3 different colours to represent each of the three choices. They should try to highlight each line in a colour. Issue Lesson 5 – Macbeth Chart to students. They’re to create a line graph which illustrates Macbeth’s decision making. (20 mins) Students are to answer the following question: Why does Macbeth decide to kill King Duncan? Students should refer to the soliloquy, but also what’s happened in other scenes from the play. They should use the PEE format in their response. You may decide to make this form the basis for an extended piece of writing. Select quotations for low ability students to work with, rather than them trying to find their own. (Macbeth's Soliloquy - with helpful definitions - was taken from The RSC Shakespeare Toolkit for Teachers.)

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

Do ‘Starter Activity for Descriptive Writing’; this should put students in the right mind-set for descriptive writing. This activity should encourage students to tune into their senses, which is an essential skill for writing descriptively. Ideally, students should use mini whiteboards, but if these are not available, then exercise books are satisfactory. Hand-out ‘An Example of Writing to Describe’ sheet. Ask students, in pairs, to read it through and highlight – in different colours – the words and sentences that relate to the five senses. Recap the five senses – sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. Feedback. Ask students why description is important. Hand-out ‘Planning Sheet for Descriptive Writing’. Explain that, as it is a planning sheet, it does not matter if they alter or change their ideas throughout. They are to write about a place or event, perhaps building on the ideas they established in the starter activity. Students could write up their piece of descriptive writing as a writing assessment.

This is a fantastic starter, guaranteed to engage the most disaffected students. Students look at images and decipher the message. For example, there is the letter 'X' made of cardboard boxes in one image, the message would be 'X-Box'. The practice image is 'hairspray'. The answers for each 'visual pun' are in the 'notes' box on PPT. This is a quick 5-10 minute starter that gets students thinking about more than what's at surface level. This activity could be a route into a lesson on looking for deeper meanings, inference and deduction.

A 30-minute activity for students to understand what makes a great story opening. Students analyse some of the world's most renown story openings, they identify what's effective about them and then they use their new-found knowledge to craft their own enticing story opening. There are 13 story openings including The Lovely Bones, Orwell's 1984, Jane Eyre and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - a real mix for students to get their teeth into. I dare say this activity may encourage some students to read the books after being drawn in by some of the openings.

L.O. To identify and understand emotive language, and its effect on readers. The PowerPoint begins by asking students to look at two different headlines at a time and to decide which one is most emotive, and why. They then focus on two particular headlines and translate their ideas to paper by writing a PEE paragraph. In the next activity, they then have a go at editing a series of headlines by replacing words with more emotive words. Students should share ideas as an entire class. Students then look at a newspaper article and underline/highlight the emotive words. They then complete a table whereby they think about 'more emotive' and 'less emotive' words than the ones in the article. As a final activity, or as homework, students answer the following question about the newspaper article in PEE paragraphs: How does the writer’s choice of emotive language make us (the readers) feel about the dog and its previous owners?

Show the PPT and discuss students' responses to the three questions. Discuss Roald Dahl's quotation, and the short story features on slide 3. Show slide 4 and issue Baby Shoes handout. Explain to students that this is a short story, just one sentence. Students are to read the ‘short story’ and think about the story behind it, e.g. Has a married couple lost a baby? Encourage students to think a little more left-field, like is 'Baby Shoes, Never Worn' the name of a painting? Students should jot down their ideas around the ‘short story’. They may discuss their ideas with a partner. Introduce Ernest Hemingway. Students are to copy down notes into their exercise book. Ask students to think of a collective name they would give to stories that are six words long, e.g. ‘sentence stories’. Encourage students to be inventive. They may discuss in pairs. Show slide 4; these are different names given to the shortest of short stories - are the ones students suggested up there? Split students into seven groups. Give each group one piece of Flash Fiction stuck to a piece of A4 paper. As a group, they must decide the ‘story’ behind each piece of flash fiction. Model activity. Rotate the flash fiction allowing different groups to make notes on the same sheet of paper. Encourage students to think outside the box and not to go straight for the obvious. After 10-15 minutes, make sure each group has one piece of flash fiction. Each group should read their flash fiction aloud and explain their story behind it. Students who are not presenting should listen, as they will be randomly selected to pick and explain their favourite piece of flash fiction. (Optional) Issue question cards. Ask students to see whether the 'short story features' discussed earlier apply to the six-word stories. As a final activity, students should have a go at writing their own 6-word short story. Share with the class. Issue Question Cards

A starter which explains the three different sentence types with examples, making reference to main clauses, subordinate clauses and embedded clauses. Ideal to use as an introduction to a piece of creative/descriptive writing where you'd expect students to use varied sentences.

This PPT offers students two activities to practise close reading and inference. The first activity gives students a scenario in which they have to consider whether the protagonist is guilty of theft. The answer isn't very obvious so students have to closely read the passage to make a considered decision. The second activity gives an RSPCA's description of a puppy for adoption. Students have to explain what they can infer from the passage based on evidence and reasoning.

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: Accent Adjacency pairs Back-channel features Blend word Contraction Deixis / deictics Dialect Discourse markers Elision Ellipsis False start Fillers Hedge Idiolect Interactional talk Initialism Jargon Micropause Non-fluency features Overt prestige Paralinguistic features Phatic talk Prosodic features Received Pronunciation Repairs Slang Sociolect Standard English Tag question Transactional talk Transcript Turn taking Utterance Vague language 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.

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.

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

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.

GREAT 10-MINUTE STARTER TO CEMENT THE FOLLOWING KEY TERMS AND THEIR DEFINITIONS: Narrative stance Semantic field Prosodic features Syntax Paralinguistic features Idiolect Figurative language Imperative Graphology End-stopped line Interrogative Enjambment Phonology Pun Colloquialism Connotation Dialect Discourse structure Genre Lexis Idiom 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.

How to use resources: Ask students: What do you already know about the structure of newspaper stories? You may need to establish the term ‘structure’ – I find asking them how a Big Mac burger is structured helps (two bread buns, burger, relish etc.) Display PowerPoint. Discuss with students. Issue Article students. Read through and discuss the structure. Go to slide 2 on PowerPoint. Students are to answer the questions in their books. Issue the Card Sort to pairs of students. Display slide 3 on PowerPoint to assist students. Ask students to write a short paragraph in their books explaining how they approached the task. What did they find easy or difficult? What language clues helped them to unscramble the text? Remind students that they were presented with a pyramid diagram at the start of the lesson to illustrate a news story structure. Ask students to draw a new diagram in their books which will help them remember the structure of a news story. Compare with a partner. This resource is taken from my KS3 English Newspaper/Journalism SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Using this sheet, students map the rise and fall of Macbeth. They look at phrases used to describe Macbeth in the play. They must find evidence for each phrase. Once finished, this worksheet will illustrate - using quotations - the tragic downfall of Macbeth throughout the play.

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.

This resource contains a PPT and a selection of poems for students to practise approaching unseen poetry. The PPT guides students through the following: 1. Title 2. Shape/form 3. Personal response 4. Voice 5. Vocabulary 6. Imagery 7. Structure 8. Interpretation Encouraging students to look at these aspects of a poem will enable them to engage and understand the unseen poem.

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.