A Powerpoint in Spanish introducing the characters and plots of some of Shakespeare's major plays, very briefly and in very simple Spanish.

A puppet lobster explains the bizarre imagery that Dickens uses to influence our feelings throughout ‘A Christmas Carol’. ‘Like a bad lobster in a dark cellar,’ for example. This five-minute film engages pupils in finding their own examples of Dickens’ figurative language. It emphasies how important it is not just to label them ‘simile’, ‘personification’ and so on, but also to feel their emotional power. This in turn helps pupils to remember them and to write more perceptively about them.

This song is a ballad which tells a story through dialogue & third-person description. As well as performing it, pupils can write their own ballads é learn a lot about rhythm é rhyme. Other creative tasks: diaries, letters, posters éc. In literature lessons, the song can introduce ballad form to pupils. Then, when they study ballads in various GCSE Eng Lit anthologies, quatrains, dialogue, imagery and rhymes will make more sense. Enjoy using this song as a resource for lessons é concerts! This is my own song é recording so I own the copyright. See base of lyric sheet for details.

Resources and a lesson idea for introducing this wonderful character to children and older pupils, too. Children in particular can find it absolutely hilarious when adults do ridiculous things. Don Quixote can really provide some funny and stimulating lessons if you let him ride into the classroom!Lesson plan contains ideas on how pupils can create and act out stories about a modern Don Quixote. Perhaps this person has watched too many Batman films and thinks the world needs someone to fly around in a bat costume trying to solve the world's problems...in Spanish, of course!Have fun! }:o)

The pupils’ activity is simply the lyrics for the song ‘When This Lousy War Is Over’, with guitar chords. The MP3 is a recording of a female voice. Also find the song on YouTube from the film, ‘Oh What A Lovely War’, with male voice choir. The other website has lyrics for the same song and a few others.

A Powerpoint about Pindar's Victory Odes at the Greek Olympics, prepared by Professor Edith Hall, Kings College London, for a Poet in the City event: Poetry and the Greek Olympics. Teacher can tell the class how the athlete's training was military, the victory odes were performed for the victors in front of thousands and some of the games were very violent!

This song suits a final assembly for a year group that is leaving, and end-of-year song for the whole school. When under pressure we tend to look forward, anxious about what is yet to be tackled. This song is about fortifying yourself with a look back at what you have achieved: 'look back and see how far you&'ve come&';. I wrote it for a class of Matric students in South Africa for their Matric Dance (like the School Prom). So I own the copyright. You can use this song and the recording in lessons, assemblies & school events!

‘I Shop Smartly’ presents the main advertising techniques as a mnemonic that can be learnt. ‘If Seal Puppies Shop Smartly, Do You?’ is more detailed, and you might just want to select from this sheet in your own way. Pupils could pick the techniques they tend to forget & make up their own mnemonic! The last page of this has ideas for written work. One way to teach the idea of target audience is to get pupils to design adverts for different year groups. They are so close to the distinctions between Years 7, 8 and 9 that their observations on concerns and language can be very sharp and funny!

Click on the links in this Word Document to websites which advise advertisers about how to use language and images to sell products. Stimulating and thought-provoking for discussion, e.g. if you copy and paste selections from the advice and give it to a class when they have begun their study of advertising and already gained some confidence in using the terms. Reading about advertising from the advertising copywriters' viewpoint is quite revealing! The list of techniques with their effects shows how adverts carefully group consumers, then make them feel like special individuals.