This unit of work is designed to guide Year 8/Grade 7 students through Gillian Cross' The Demon Headmaster. While Teachit resources are referenced (and are available for free download via that website), many other resources and activities are also included, which are designed to stretch students in this age bracket given the text involved. Ultimately, however, it is accessible to all, including ESL, with various differentiation suggestions included (e.g. vocabulary-based activities).

This Powerpoint introduces the etymology of ‘anthropomorphism’ and explains the differences between personification and anthropomorphism. The PPT then showcases examples of texts which use these, before setting students a task to anthropomorphise a classroom object and write a monologue ‘in character’ (students should be familiar with monologue-writing). There is still scope to add additional imagery/animations to the PPT if desired, as well as film clips (e.g. Fantastic Mr Fox, Toy Story, Cars).

This 16-lesson (4-week) unit plan for Henrik Ibsen's play, Hedda Gabler, explores characterisation, setting, themes, techniques, and text-to-self connections, as well as theatrical movements and practitioners and the influence of these on the play, and is enhanced by the contrasting cultures of production and reception via study of historical context. Pupils consider the links between style, context, content and purpose. They devise their own adaptation of the play to form a 1-hour staged reading of the production.

This resource collates multiple WW1 letters from an American soldier, deployed in France, to his father back home in the US. The ensuing activities check on students’ comprehension of vocabulary and ask them to analyse the context, audience, purpose, and stylistic elements of the text. Best for students with some confidence at doing this already but could be adapted for weaker students or students who are only just starting to develop these skills. If using the final analysis-writing activity this could easily stretch to 2-3 lessons depending on the amount of groundwork you need to lay with your students beforehand. An alternative approach could be, for instance, to carousel the reading and analysis of letters so that e.g. a small group just works with one letter.

These Persepolis resources focus on Criterion A of the IB English A: Language and Literature courses, deepening students’ ability to understand and interpret texts through the use of Persepolis 1: p146-147. The Powerpoint is based on a template from SlidesGo, so there are some extra/superfluous generic slide templates included that haven’t been used, but the presentation makes the aims of the lesson clear for students and includes cutt.ly links to Quizlets and a digital version of the attached worksheet of comprehension tasks (which students can view, download and make copies of). The Powerpoint includes differentiated ways in which students can share their responses (Twitter, write on the whiteboard, or tell you in person). The comprehension tasks worksheet is also differentiated, offering 4 levels of tasks that encourage students to explore both explicit and implicit meanings inherent within the text. This allows students choices as to which tasks to complete. Finally, the answer grid enables them to type their responses rapidly alongside each question.

This Powerpoint is most suitable for IB Diploma (Language A) or A Level language and literature students looking to revise text types. The Powerpoint covers the features of the following text types, as well as things that students can look for/consider when analysing an unseen text of this type: News article Editorial Blog or diary entry Political cartoons Graphic novels Brochures and leaflets Forum posts Academic journal articles Reviews Speeches and talks Tweets Letters and emails Interviews Advertisements Infographics The resource also covers reminders of the purposes of writing, the differences between literary and linguistic features, and further tips to enhance performance in analytical tasks of this nature (e.g. commenting on context, planning skills). This is not intended to serve as a full lesson in itself but could potentially be developed by teachers to create one according to the needs of their class. It’s perhaps more appropriate as a revision resource to be distributed for students’ own independent learning.

This handout is designed to provide students with background information regarding Machiavelli. Presented as a list of bullet points for easier absorption of information, the text is also printed three times on one page for ease of photocopying/printing and distribution. Useful for the study of both English and History.

This resource consists of 7 comprehension questions (printed on the page three times for ease of printing/distribution) based on the Moniza Alvi poem ‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’. The questions help students to interpret the use of techniques including juxtaposition, metaphor, and imagery, and to better understand the effects of these on the reader.

These two pages of comprehension questions are divided by stanza, enabling students to work on these as they progress through the poem and allowing teachers to use them as a carousel or jigsaw activity if preferred. The questions cover comprehension of techniques (e.g. imagery, symbolism, allusion) as well as ideas.

This activity has 3 separate parts. After eliciting a class definition of idioms from students, the worksheet requires them to match idioms with their true meanings. Interesting discussion could follow, not just to correct the answers, but to explain how they knew/guessed if they were unsure. Students can then write sentences using the idioms before developing their ideas into a story (more than one idiom could be used in the story - e.g. through dialogue - or one idiom could be developed more thoroughly into a narrative). This was originally made to use with KS3 but could also be used with able KS2s.

This worksheet was designed for use with KS4 but could also be used with KS3. It is designed to help students differentiate between key factors that may change when delivering a speech for 2 different audiences on the same topic, such as duration and tone. The two audiences in question in this case are Grade 9/Year 10 students and senior staff/headteacher, but could of course be changed.

These notes on The Sound of Waves list potentially useful quotations from each chapter through the themes of innocence and experience (I have taught this text once privately and my student’s essay was based on this idea, so I read and made notes on the text with a view to helping her with this). Using the prism of these universal themes enables connections to be made between other curriculum texts, such as the poetry of William Blake and the plays of William Shakespeare. The notes are aimed at teachers (rather than students) and do not constitute full lesson plans in themselves but serve to provide inspiration for lessons depending on what skills and topics you hope to teach when instructing students on the novel. They provide opportunities to help students understand the effects of techniques such as simile and metaphor, foreshadowing, personification, pathetic fallacy, and symbolism. The notes also make links to critical thinking courses such as TOK (Theory of Knowledge) so can also be used by IB teachers to facilitate links to the Diploma core. Obviously all ideas presented in the notes are interpretations which you may agree or disagree with. Nonetheless, I hope they help!

PLEASE NOTE: These lesson plans pertain to the ‘old’, outgoing Lang/Lit course (final exams in 2020). While a lot of the material will still be usable in the new course (first exams 2021), please bear this in mind when purchasing and, subsequently, using the plans yourself (whether as written or to make your own). Thanks for your understanding! This file contains at least 50 hours of lessons pertaining to Part 1 (Language and Cultural Context) of the English A: Language and Literature IB program. This would normally last you at least one academic year when taught alongside a minimum of 2 IB set texts (based on a schedule of 4 hours a week at standard level, with a supplementary hour per week at higher level). Topics include spoken language, censorship, translation, metalanguage, and historical and geographical contexts. Texts used include Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue, Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, and Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. Tasks are differentiated and activities are suggested to support students in TOK and with their extended essay, as well as to support you in the event of your absence from school. Extra resources can be supplied upon request at no extra charge to support you as far as possible. Created by an experienced IB teacher and examiner.

This information sheet can be used by secondary students of all ages who need guidance on how to write a feature article. It encourages the use of statistics, illustrations and vox pops for the more mathematically and artistically minded English and media students.

This character impressions grid scaffolds student note-taking on the characters in Christopher Marlowe’s play ‘The Jew of Malta’. Topics include appearance and attitudes. These notes can be subsequently used for revision purposes or to help structure an essay on a topic from the grid. Printing on A3 is recommended so as to maximise the space that students have for note-taking.

This resource consists of two files bundled together: one file containing a quotes quiz, the other file containing the answers. Students are asked to identify who said a particular quotation, roughly where in the play it took place, and about any techniques used in the quotation, as well as its possible significance. This can take a whole hour’s lesson if completed in traditional silent quiz/exam style, or the questions could be completed in teams and made more competitive (particularly if you only go for the summative aspect asking students to name who says it and where it happens, and possibly naming techniques, leaving out the interpretive aspect). Note that the answers only indicate the name of the character who said the line and where in the play this occurs, as well as some possible techniques that students may identify; any valid explanation of the quotation’s possible significance should be accepted.

This resource helps students to take notes on the theme of abandonment in Bao Ninh’s novel ‘The Sorrow of War’. Contains page numbers to assist, for both Vintage and Minerva editions, as well as an extension task for early finishers. The scaffolded notes can then be used to construct an essay on abandonment in the novel.

This quiz was designed to be used in an English lesson to reinforce student knowledge of Irish history in relation to Brian Friel’s play “Translations”. However, it could of course also be used by history teachers! The quiz could be done traditionally, whereby students revise in advance and then sit the quiz on their own. However, I used it as a team game, whereby at around Easter time, the slips were cut up and hidden around the classroom treasure hunt-style. Students had to work in teams to find the slips and fill in the answers where they thought they went on the answer sheet. The first team to get a full sheet of correct answers - or the highest number of correct answers - by the end of the given time - won an Easter egg (I appreciate that edible prizes and/or the religious aspect won’t work in all schools so obviously feel free to substitute this with a reward of your choosing if needed). Ground rules worth setting include: no hoarding of slips in your team (they should be put back where you have found them so other teams can also find them…) and no using chairs/tables etc as weaponry to guard the slips you have found (yes, really!!).

This text can be used by secondary students of all ages to understand how humour is created and used in writing. Comprehension questions are included. This is designed for use by English students, but could also be used in French classes for some tongue-in-cheek insight into French culture.

This column by Dave Barry can be used by secondary English students to understand cultural context, as well as how humour is created and used in writing. It can also be used by French classes for a tongue-in-cheek insight into French culture. The comprehension questions are as follows: How far does Dave Barry exaggerate? Is some of what he says true? Explain your answer. Give an example of how Dave Barry uses language in a humorous way. EXTENSION: What technique(s) does he use and why? Dave Barry also makes fun of Americans. How?