Developed in creative writing workshops from my professional creative writing life and transferred to outstanding classroom practice, this learning sequence helps students broaden descriptive writing skills beyond the use of ‘regular’ linguistic and structural devices to lift their achievement through the GCSE grades. Plenty of quick delivery and small practice to build a piece of descriptive writing. All new techniques are easily memorable and fully transferable across any piece of descriptive writing. Learning mat embedded into the powerpoint, Hugely methodical in delivery. Students will have a developed piece of writing with opportunities to consolidate learning through a homework.

Three homeworks or classroom activities that help lower grading students 1-4 revise or establish straightforward ways to regard Carla Carter in the beginning, middle and end of the story. Contains key quotes and key informed personal responses. Also a sheet on Dunmore’s writing style. Low price reflects the ‘no frills’ worksheets which are clearly presented by have no graphics to anchor learning.

A lesson aimed at getting borderline students up to Grade 5 from the get go of the novella by exploring how the Preface to the novella primes the reader for writer’s purpose and gives the modern reader an opportunity to explore Victorian class contexts.

A full fiction reading exam practice paper with Eduqas style English Language Paper 1 Section A questions. Extract from ‘The Great Gatsby’. Fully line referenced. Follows question pattern: list five impressions how does the writer (craft language) …? how does the writer (mood and atmosphere) …? build argument/evaluate Indicative content included to support marking.

A short anthology and workbook of 19th Century non-fiction with accompanying practice questions from the locate and retrieve, thoughts and feelings, how does the writer (writer's craft) style questions with quick and easy to understand tips for students on how to achieve. The workbook would suit a series of twenty minute slots in lessons or a set of homework. Helps build confidence in reading 19th Century non-fiction and exam style questions on the single texts set for the Eduqas English GCSE Component 2 Section A.

Predict, Experience, Question, Vocabulary, Visualisation, Chunk. Six reading strategies that students can use independently when they are asked to read that are out of their reading age comfort zone. Designed for use at KS2 (Years 5 and 6), KS3 and KS4. Gives students suggestions on how they can use each strategy to work out meanings of texts independently or get the most out of texts to broaden and deepen understanding. Designed for student use but also useful for teachers who are less familiar with the ins and outs of reading strategies or just a brush up of your own excellence. Great for persuading and supporting the more reluctant reader to pay more attention to the clues in a text or the ways they can push themselves forward. Use as a mat on desks for students or create a resource that is bound by a key ring. Senior Leadership will be glad you are tackling this! They might even insist you roll it out school wide. In which case, you’ll need a school license. Contact me on Twitter @alisonshuttlew1

A set of response notes on themes of isolation and belonging in ‘My Polish Teacher’s Tie’ with tasks for students to complete to braoden the notes e.g. adding short quotations and blending context with personal informed response. Useful for initial learning and revision and independent work or homework.

Aimed at boosting your lower graders up to Grades 4 and 5, this essential Toolkit Word resource that reminds students of some of the subject terminology they can use in Component One Section A of the English Language examination. Divided into three sections as differentiation, the resource reminds students of the things that literary writers do to craft their work. Designed to build confidence in relevant subject terminology they can mention and discuss the effects of.

Five ideas to help poetry writing to celebrate poetry on your school’s Poetry Day, Poetry Week or to supplement a unit of work on poetry. Suited to KS2 students. I have also used this early KS3 for lower ability learners as a celebration of poetry. Also works well for transition days. Why not make a five poem anthology? Ideas include: soundscapes blackout poetry haiku question and answer poems scaffolded poems Students encounter three poems from Robert Louis Stevenson, Shakespeare and Walter De La Mare and use them as springboards into their own creativity. I also include here two FREE resources for advocating any school Poetry Day - a quiz on a dozen famous characters in children’s poetry and the chance to write a nonsense poem.

Dice or no dice, this six by six grid helps students quickly zhoosh-up their descriptive pieces beyond the mythical power of yet another simile! Lots of quick to apply professional writer's tips and tricks gleaned from my work tutoring undergraduate writing workshops! Don't be fooled - it's much easier to get them to go up two grades in an edit with this than you think. I use it as an original mat during practice pieces and as an editing tool if they writing has become rather prosaic. Easy to remember a few for the examination itself. Little bit of numeracy thrown in with the old 'along the corridor, up the stairs' style of grid reading thrown in as an outstanding bonus to your lesson.

Over 30 PPT slides, students gain an introduction to, review or renew knowledge of Macbeth as a tragic hero following tragic form. General resource for all GCSE study and a great quick look at tragedy for the start of A Level. For the AQA English Literature GCSE, discussion of tragic form can gain marks for AO1, 2 and 3 (tragic form is regarded as a context or perspective with which to consider the text). Memorable 'anchoring' images that support concepts in the PPT as well as 30 second think tasks to keep students engaged. Also considers the role other characters and imagery play in the tragic form. Concludes by asking the question 'Why is the play not called The Tragedy of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth'?

Invaluable resource for teaching those more nebulous skills for Grades 8 and 9. A high level modelled or exemplar response to a task on 'Follower' and attitudes to parents. Compared with 'Mother, any distance' for the AQA English Literature Paper 2. Plenty of high level ideas ready to be learned and also a good range of activities provided to encourage students to interact with the essay response, pick it apart, learn it, borrow the style and to encourage wider research. Rich in applied contexts and perspectives and full use of those aspects of poems students often neglect - structure and form - the response looks at sounds (because poetry is an aural form) and both big (journey structures) and smaller structures.

Homeworks but nothing to stop the tasks being adapted for cover lessons or into classroom activities. It's a smorgasbord of activity! Full set of homeworks differentiated for Grades 1-9 to accompany teaching of Macbeth. Designed to consolidate and extend learning and encourage students to use a range of learning modalities. The original word document is 18 pages long and you can make it into bespoke take away sheets for your students. Divided into Acts so that you can team up with your teaching. At least 100 tasks to choose from and very quick to edit - e.g. choose the grades 6-7 column for the term. Plenty to please parents who want their child to be busy and engage in homework and revision. Tasks encourage independence. Use alongside my free download to track the completion of homework alongside parents and students.

This resource provides a full-length high grade response (Grade 9) to a typical task set for AQA English Literature Paper 2 Section A Love and Relationships anthology. Plenty of further activities provided to stimulate good use of the essay and further response practice and research. High graders lap this one up!

Most creative prose resources rely on inserting more similes and adjectives into a poorly thought out story. This resource is different because it allows students to create imaginative characterisation before they have even felt the effort! The PPT helps you run a creative prose workshop session using simple lists and knowledge students already have (but disregard most of the time). They end the lesson with a section of creative prose that is focussed on inner and outer worlds in a story, convincing and specific details that avoid cliche and original and imaginative characterisation without the sweat, seemingly. Based on my work as a professional creative writing tutor and short story writer, this method is probably something you haven't come across before. I developed this as a lesson observation that was graded outstanding. A lovely accompanying resource is the Improving Creative Writing Grid which is a godsend learning mat that I've used across the secondary years. Available a a creative writing bundle soon.

Students at KS 3 or KS4 if you are exploring Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Dracula or another Gothic novel, get to learn the wider contexts of the Gothic Genre from its beginnings in the late 1700s. The PPT lasts a whole lesson and uses skim and scan reading, note making and colour-coding as a mnemonic for learning and revision. The main event is a 'Running Research' task in which students work in pairs (would work individually as well as in groups up to four) to go on a quest throughout the classroom to find research to fill in understanding under various headings that cover the Gothic genre. Pesky boys tend to love this one as they are up and about.

Over three A3 pages, the master resource gives you the option of tailor- making homework for a full half term for classes studying Gothic Literature at KS3. Three tasks levels that are differentiated within each level with students choosing the level they wish to work at. There are at least 21 different tasks and with differentiated options - you can actually have about 50 tasks to choose from. Range of creative approaches that you might not dare take in class to encourage students to use a fuller range of modalities with which to explore Gothic Literature. There's even a Beat the Teacher task so that they can show you what they would prefer to be doing!

I’m sharing this freely for subscribers to my YouTube channel as the workpack that is referred to in the support video. How to write a review of a website/websites for GCSE transactional writing. Please download if you think it will be useful but it will need adapting to suit your students.

Serves as a simple but effective communication tool between you, your students and their parents. A table tracks a half term's worth of homework (designed for two set homeworks a week). Helps parents, students and the class teacher track the completion of homework - one of the things parents love to track! Parents have the opportunity to sign to say they've seen the homework completed and the class teacher can sign or use one of three simple codes to let parents know whether students did their homework fully, partially, late or not at all (oops!). For secondary teachers - couple with the KS3 homework record which is available as a free download in The Emporium of Excellence too.

Designed on PPT with any print offs on the slides, this resource takes students through a professional creative writer’s workshop to find a range of characters and potential problems to give them. Small activities so that it is pacy and none of the tasks ever seem too ‘taxing’ for students. This works as a discrete lesson from which they could go on to create a narrative. The extended version of this sequence that takes students through the full version of plot planning is availabe for purchase here: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/planning-effective-short-stories-and-narratives-11846098