These odd one out activities are great ways to open up lessons and get the students focussed and on task. The resources is flexible and so handy as students can start working on it while the latecomers are arriving. Just project it up in the whiteboard. You can slot one into the middle or end of a lesson too. They differentiate well because all kids can respond in some way to an image. Often the weaker essay writers produce superb oral responses to this task. The students look at images from the play and have to link them in some way, arguing their case for which is the oddball. Some of the best discussions and genuine learning can come from this simple activity. The slides show suggested answers and the images are well chosen. Please see my other odd one outs in my shop.

Henry V is such a great play to teach students. This worksheet enables them to get a grip on the many ideas about loyalty, patriotism and honour which dominate the first Act. Aimed at GCSe students but could work well with able KS3 learners or even with A level students studying the play for coursework.

A lot of younger students are interested in the horror genre and want to know more about its generic features and how to write a scary story. This PowerPoint is informative, asks them lots of challenging questions and entertains them with numerous gif files and imagery. This leads up to their own creative writing task. Ani deal slideshow to help kids transition from studying horror to writing their own creative pieces.

1)This flexible pack consists of a six slide PowerPoint with clear wording and attractive graphics. It explains what the hallmarks of descriptive and narrative writing are and suggests ten key features that students might include. It also works well for teaching descriptive writing…the slideshow covers core shared key areas for both writing style and makes it clear that narratives develop plot and character a bit more, whereas descriptions focus on zooming in on details and have simpler plots. The slideshow has a heavy emphasis on the common core of descriptive techniques ideal for all types of composition. This ‘slide of key techniques’ can be printed out and given to students as a reference reminder sheet as they write their stories. 2) The second file consists of an ‘image grid’ of various scenes from a horror tale…approaching the house, entering, what’s inside, what is encountered and so on. This could easily work as a descriptive writing activity as well. The image grids work on A4 or A3 Students are set a task to write their own pieces, choosing from option she in the image grid to encourage them to create detailed and developed paragraphed prose. The images are great differentiators as the weaker kids can scaffold their answers with them whilst more able students can use more images and develop them into more detailed narrations with developed narrative voice and description. Also fun to use!

A very impressive and detailed student response to 'Macbeth', revealing a detailed understanding of the key AOs, particularly contextual factors. The essay structure is good and hones in on the question's focus words. A wide range of terminology is applied and analysed in depth, grading this a secure level 6. Completed during timed conditions Ideal as a student revision aid and to extend any complacent students!

Very thorough and detailed focus questions on the early sections of the novel. Tests students of all abilities and encourages them to select quoted details, then comment on them with follow up questions. Covers first two chapters.

Students of all ages love these, so, as term approaches, treat yourself to my fairground- themed story grid! It works so well and you will be amazed at how much writing previously reluctant scribes can produce.. You need to colour print out the boards then, to recycle them, do get them laminated. Game rules: Split students up into pairs or no more than three. Brighter students can do this independently, but it's more fun in pairs. You need two dice per card. Ebay sell really good cheap foam ones. All the squares show close up details of aspects of a fairground. One child is on the red numbers side and the other one the green. They throw dice to get two numbers, such as 1, 6. Look up 1 and 6 on the board. Where the numbers coincide is your 'focus square'. They then have to write between 3-4 descriptive sentences for that square. They have to link , so they produce, between them, a single continuous piece of paragraphed description. between each other's squares. They will need about 6 focus squares, which means three paragraphs each. Boys get really competitive over besting each other, and soon a really good bit of writing emerges. The aim of the game is that they help each other come up with good words and imagery for each square, but, together, on a single page of paper, they co-author theor masterpiece. They are not allowed to swap squares. Some are harder than others - for example, the text squares ask students to incorporate that phrase into their paragraph. Others are abstract, such as a black hole - good for forcing unimaginative kids to think in abstract and symbolic ways! This works well with my slideshow tips for good narrative writing, also available in my shop. Once the students have done their timed mini descriptive pieces, get them t read out their work to each other. You will see a huge differentiated range. It teaches students loads of skills, from improving their grammar and vocabulary to teamwork, from speaking and listening skills and boosting confidence to creating textual cohesion and good links between paragraphs. It's also lots of fun to play!

A useful list of approximately twenty key quotations for the novel, ideal for last minute revision and consolidation. Please see my LOTF bundles for more useful resources.

This 16 slide presentation was originally created for a comparative essay task and is an ideal way of introducing the genre, introducing new focus texts and covering comparative skills. It goes through the key terms, starting with ‘Utopias’ and defining what they are, with examples and quotations, then moving onto their flipside, the dystopian vision. I used it with my A level students who were studying ‘1984’ and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ for coursework, but it would easily transfer across to the other texts such as ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and ‘Frankenstein’. This resource explores the same over-arching ideas behind the exam topic and explains a lot of the tricky contextual references and theories.

Shakespeare Week is on the way! This pack contains a great set of A4 display pages. Each has a different quotation to make your students think. Under each quotation, which should be big enough for classroom displays, I’ve put a concise summary of what the quotation is about, who said it, and the scene reference. Teaching: you could quickly insert the ‘animation’ function into my PowerPoint to turn this int a great classroom quiz, as the coloured explanatory text is essentially the ‘answer’ -so you get a display and a quiz in on e! The quotations cover the Histories, Tragedies, Comedies and Late Plays. I have chosen more for ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to help our GCSE students! Teaching: you could quickly insert the ‘animation’ function into my PowerPoint to turn this int a great classroom quiz. Happy Shakespeare Week, gentles all. Please browse my shop (search under ‘Shakespeare’) for other resources, including a Shakespearean insults tournament lesson and lots of revision packs.

This is so useful. I teach with it several times a week and the students love its simplicity. 40 highly relevant, clearly defined and fully exemplified poetic terms. The technical terminology to enable your students to spot less obvious features in the exam anthologies, or, for younger students, their focus poems. ideal for extending your most able students whilst reassuring the majority with a go-to guide they can glue in and refer back to. Please see my other AQA and CIE IGCSE poetry bundles and resources.