Outstanding teaching and learning resources from a Lead Teacher in English specialising in:
* Transactional Writing, * Creative Prose,
* Using creative modalities for Reading,
* Most Able,
* Well Being through English,
* Whole School Advocacy Days for Poetry, Reading, Writing, Literacy and WEllbeing
* Numeracy in English
Outstanding teaching and learning resources from a Lead Teacher in English specialising in:
* Transactional Writing, * Creative Prose,
* Using creative modalities for Reading,
* Most Able,
* Well Being through English,
* Whole School Advocacy Days for Poetry, Reading, Writing, Literacy and WEllbeing
* Numeracy in English
Invaluable resource for teaching those more nebulous skills for Grades 8 and 9. A high level modelled or exemplar response to a task on ‘Love’s Philosophy’ and the theme of desire. Compared with ‘The Farmer’s Bride’ for AQA English Literature Paper 2 Love and Relationships poetry cluster. Plenty of high level ideas ready to be learned within the response 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.
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 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.
Need a scheme of over 65 slides that are differentiated for KS3 that introduces Shakespeare and avoids the tired old ‘research The Globe’ cliche? This is the unit of work for you. Easily several weeks of work, should you choose to teach the full sequence. Aimed at giving students a contextual grounding in Shakespearean love, looks, marriage, young people and parents, this scheme starts with Sonnet 130 and moves onto Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice and Much Ado About Nothing. Lively presentation and covering all Literature assessment objectives. Lots of range in tasks. Plenty of Most Able challenge as well as a good grounding in hitting KS3 levels for a solid trajectory into KS4 grades. More challenging tasks are supported with hints and tips to help students achieve.
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 from a character's inner and outer world even before they have even felt the effort! (This is a little more challenging in approach than my resource 'Really Creative Creative Prose' so great for Grade 5 and above but the resource is fully differentiated through choice and rising challenge tasks).
The learning sequence will take about two hours and is made up of a PPT of 27 slides that helps you run a creative prose workshop session using simple lists and everyday experiences students ahave (but disregard most of the time). They end the lesson with a section of creative prose that is focused on inner and outer worlds in a story that has more convincing, original and imaginative detail and avoids cliche 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.
Goes nicely with 'Really Creative Creative Prose'
A lovely accompanying resource is the Improving Creative Writing Grid which is a godsend learning mat that I've used across the secondary years for developing the evaluable skills in examined creative prose.
Available a a creative writing bundle alongside 'Really Creative Creative Prose'.
A mat for lamination that can be used to move writing from a first draft to a second or 'published' draft. Divided into the skills of adding, cutting, replacing and so on, the mat encourages students to ask questions about their work and make changes.
Helps students to understand the editing process (which they often confuse with a proof-reading process).
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.
For KS 2 and 3. Suitable for use alongside the teaching or reading of 'Harry Potter' or as a one off activity, for example end of term of days that you are celebrating and promoting reading.
Sold for the price of a single activity but is actually a whole lesson with all the resources (my charge is for the activities I have put together not the images or the sections of text that I do not have copyright of and only use as excerpts).
In this lesson students:
Learn about the sweets and foods on offer in J K Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter’ series
Explore how Rowling uses descriptive devices to bring her foods to life in the imaginations of her reader
Plan their own invented food
Name the food and invent a slogan
Write some owl post to describe the food they have invented/tried in 'Honeyduke's' or at a 'Hogwart's feast'
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!
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!
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.
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