Help more able students develop their powers of description with this exercise; although it uses colour to create mood and atmosphere, the technique can be transferred to sustaining metaphors or similes, skills top marks are made of. The PP begins with a hyperlink[click on ‘colours’] to a song, Donovan’s ‘Colours’ [you may want to move to slide 2 on the musical interlude, as by then the link between colours and mood has been made] and takes students through the steps of choosing a colour while also making useful notes on the technique by looking at quotes and extracts. In the end, their task is to describe something, weaving colour imagery and mood words through the description. This could be set as a homework – or a next lesson. Linking this task to the opening lines descriptive writing task as a follow up lesson works well.

The first Power Point gives contextual information about the Great Exhibition and a visual impression of the Crystal Palace. The handout consists of two 19th century non-fiction articles: an extract from a letter writer by Charlotte Brontë to her father about her visit to the exhibition and then extracts from Queen Victoria’s diary about her visits. There are simple questions on each passage reflecting the type of question that may be asked at GCSE: retrieval and inference. Then there are questions comparing the texts. Once students have answered the questions, they can self- or peer assess work as the answers are on a Power Point slide that can guide feedback. These extracts can also be used in conjunction with ‘The Diamond Necklace’ by Guy de Maupassant. For a modern writer’s version of the Great Exhibition, you could read Queenie’s description of her visit in Andrea Levey’s Small Island.

Here the focus is on crafting paragraphs for effect, as part of improving the quality of creative writing at both KS3- particularly in preparation for the new spec. English exam - and KS4, enabling students ‘to demonstrate their narrative and descriptive skills in response to a written prompt, scenario or visual image’... For more able students the lesson ends with a challenge to change the mood between the opening paragraphs and the one students go on to write.

Use Halloween as an excuse to focus on close-up description to cut out the waffle, create atmosphere and promote concise writing. This resource offers a lesson on how to make monsters seem scary using extracts from 19th century novels, on PP with the text extracts available as a handout. The cre-ATE PP hyperlinks you via pictures to vocabulary that can help get the description started - great for letting students refer to when they're stuck. The 'you try' worksheet suggests a step-by-step structure illustrated with quotes from 'Game of Thrones' that can be used as a model.

241- Keep this resource in store for those times when you’re overloaded and need to let the students do a bit of the work. Begin with homework – 1 or 2 depending on amount and complexity - that don’t require marking. The first task will be the ‘flipped learning’ or revision content you want students to research, the second checks they’ve done it. Although these are designed for revision, set in advance of a new topic and you’ve got students engaged already. These tasks lend themselves to any topic or content subject and all you have to do by way of preparation is apply the tasks to the specifics of your subject and provide some guidance as to where students can find information, whether that’s in the text book, online or reference books. Slide one has 6 images – choose any icon to click on in a way that engages the class [throw a di, ask a question, choose a quiet student to make the choice]. A hyperlink will take you straight to the relevant slide, where the tasks will come up in steps on your click [adapt the wording of these to suit your specifics if you wish]. Once homework is set, ‘end show’ to get back to slide 1 and store for the next session. Each task is explained in your ‘recipe for success’ word document and alternatives or ways to differentiate suggested. The central idea is to get students helping each other while you facilitate only when required.

Everything you need for exploring the short story 'Subha' by Rabindranath Tagore. [Multiculturalism in the context of Empire has a firm place in 19th century writing ; this is a good place to ensure it's not lost with the new syllabus]. The lesson begins with prediction, requiring students to infer and deduce, then looks at 3 extracts with imagery that suggests things about the character while describing something else. The focus then moves on to how language is used to present the character, while the plenary asks students to consider other ways in which the character is presented. The extracts to be annotated are given on a handout, with key phrases to be noticed in bold. The teacher's note also has links to the text, a reading and information about Rabindranath Tagore, along with the outline of the lesson and possible homework or extension tasks.

Designed as a way of preparing y9s for the new GCSE, these resources may also suit some exam GCSE boards. Here 'The Diamond Necklace' by Guy de Maupassant introduces students to the concepts they will be studying at GCSE: context & structure. The 'Recipe for success' gives links to the text as well as a reading of the story and has various teaching suggestions. The Power Points outline whole lessons with handouts that allow for differentiation. The 'extend' PP introduces more able students to the idea of a 'context of production' and a 'context of reception' in a simple way.

Students draw a postcard, with a given scenario, and write a message in the voice of the given writer to the given recipient - here they practice writing succinctly in a voice they take on. As an extra challenge, to practise tone, students can draw an emoticon to include that emotion in their message. The second phase of the task is to swap the postcards and then for students to write a reply to the postcard they receive in the voice of the given recipient, in either the tone appropriate to the postcard, or using an emoticon to suggest another tone. Lastly, both the sent and received postcards could be used to stimulate a longer piece of either narrative or descriptive writing. To make the teacher's life easier, the PP provides step by step instructions, the recipe for success gives the teacher tips and the tasks come either on the postcards or as strips. The emoticons can be printed in colour, laminated and used again to add extra challenge to several other tasks.

This series is a question by question guide to the non-fiction paper, starting with reading. Each question begins with a ‘quick-fire starter’ when the technique required by the question is practised in its simplest form, usually a very visual text. This gives students confidence. It also keeps the time pressure on so that working quickly becomes a habit. Then the question requirements are explored through the exam board’s directives and again quick and easy examples with answers build up to more demanding practise through the series. Visual texts and Extracts of both 19th century and 21st century texts are used in the series to ensure students are undaunted by older texts. In all cases answers and a simplified mark scheme are provided. Although this series is preparing students for the Eduqas Component two English paper, it can easily be adapted to suit the question style of other exam boards: all have retrieval questions, inference questions etc. The focus of this resource is A1, so time has been taken to explain how the whole CP2 paper works. The starter introduces retrieval type questions, the main lesson looks at the overview of the exam, then moves on to a closer focus on retrieval, before the text becomes more demanding as students work independently. A hwk sheet is introduced and then assessed via a third PP. Because work has been simplified to ensure a firm foundation, this task is also suitable for y9s beginning their GCSE work early.

This series is a question by question guide to the non-fiction paper, starting with reading. Each question begins with a ‘quick-fire starter’ PP when the technique required by the question is practised in its simplest form, usually a very visual text. This gives students confidence. It also keeps the time pressure on so that working quickly becomes a habit. Then the question requirements are explored through the exam board’s directives in the lesson PP and again quick and easy examples with answers build up to more demanding practise through the series. Visual texts and Extracts of both 19th century and 21st century texts are used in the series to ensure students are undaunted by older texts. In all cases answers and a simplified mark scheme are provided. This series is preparing students for the Eduqas Component two English paper and the focus of this particular resource is question A5. Here two text are given for work in class and two more homework texts are given. All these texts will be used in the A6 lesson, but re-issued to make that a stand-alone resource too. Hwk can always be done as an extra lesson, if students are struggling particularly. Because work has been simplified to ensure a firm foundation, this task is also suitable for y9s beginning their GCSE work early.

With more and more pressure on teachers to ignore Christmas and keep working till the last day, we need something subject related to lighten the mood. All the activities are easily adaptable, you just have to fill in your subject and maybe change the examples to suit. Have some subject related topics in mind for those who need extra guidance. There are 6 tasks to choose from, suiting certain classes and subjects slightly better, some more homework oriented, others will cover several lessons, some make a perfect starter or plenary, depending on ability and age- but the task sheet explains the essence of the task, what you might need to tweak and how to make each task educational. The icons on the first slide of the PP are hyperlinked to the relevant activity, so you can guide the class into choosing which one they’d like to do [please prepare beforehand though, there are places to insert your subject etc.]. There are templates for the games and a fill-in letter to Santa for classes that need guidance. And if you really haven’t got time this Christmas, you can still use the activities later in the year, just change the icons if you want to use the PP. So, an ultra versatile, fun-learning resource adaptable to most subjects AND 6 activities for the price of 1: its a gift!

Gathering a wide vocabulary is a matter of regular exposure over time. This resource offers exposure, engagement and, hopefully, enjoyment of the words. Encourage students to say the words, be silly with them, learn to spell them. The PP hyperlinks each of 6 icons to a different vocabulary activity; synonyms, antonyms, odd one out, T&F, choose the correct word and find the word. The first slide of each activity sets out the task, the second the answers for easy self checking [a good habit to instil is to write in correct answers ] and the third slide suggests an extra challenge which could be set as homework, given as a task to early finishers in the main lesson or to add differentiation. Each task has a paper version to aid differentiation, accommodate slow workers or to be set as homework. I call vocabulary a ‘word-hoard’ to impress on students that words are treasured currency - all our thoughts, experiences and feelings are known to ourselves and others through our words ; if we get our words wrong we miscommunicate; if we have no apt words we’re impoverished.

This revision lesson is aimed at encouraging students to notice what they're looking at. As they come into the lesson, a PP with two word-clouds should alert them to their topic and they have 5 minutes to brush up on the information. Thereafter they look at slides of coastlines and jot down what they notice. Annotated slides follow, offering opportunity for discussion and then a question is set on each slide. Posters of the coastal features are included as separate poster, printed A4 and enlarged or A3 or used as A4 handouts. For differentiation of the lesson, weaker students can be given the A4 printouts to annotate.

‘Practise makes perfect’ is the idea behind this resource: I believe in the ‘drip-feed’ approach because it is important to keep doing something until it becomes second nature. These starters cover all types of reading: poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, modern and 19th century. Essentially students should pick out what they see as key features to write about - you can decide whether their annotations should be formulated into paragraphs as a plenary or homework. The two opening slides on the PP bear repeating a few times to remind students what to do and get a strategy to become second nature. Each quote slide is followed by a ‘possible ideas’ answer slide and supported by a handout of the quote which can be annotated, either as differentiation for slow writers, or generally to speed the process. If speed and cost is an issue, the task can be done as a ‘whole class’ exercise, especially if you have an IWB or a way of annotating the projected text.

Using AQA's 'Love through the Ages' poetry anthology, these resources aim to distinguish as far as one can, between Metaphysical poetry and Cavalier poetry, but also to show how blurred the line between them sometimes is: this is the focus of the first Power Point . The quiz quotes lines of poetry and asks students to decide whether the extract represents Cavalier or Metaphysical poetry to enable them to discuss how to recognise each school. Focus turns to 'The Scrutiny' in the work sheet and then there's a revision sheet that focuses on the AOs to ensure that they are met.

Drip-feed language analysis while familiarising students with unseen poetry… once a month, once a week or even one a lesson, this is not something to rush through. While it is a good idea to ask students to copy the text with an open line between line of the poem for annotations, the texts are also supplied as a worksheet to allow you the flexibility of setting the task for homework or differentiating by giving weaker students a printed version. As a quick revision exercise groups could work on separate extracts. Though ‘answers’ are given on the PP it is important to stress that these are only possible things to notice and any reasonable interpretation is worth considering. Another thing worth pointing out is that merely naming a technique like alliteration is not enough, the effect the poet creates should also be discussed and evaluated.

Rather than a series of lessons, this is a 'drop-feed' of tasks to improve older students' writing. The first step is to make them aware of how important accurate expression is. Great ideas are corroded by error-filled writing. The proof reading Power Point looks at two samples of students' writing that need to be improved - on the Word document these are written out to facilitate this process. In each case the next slide presents the corrected sample,so that students can peer mark or check their own. Each sample could be done in a different lesson: I'd recommend that for classes that are easily board by focused work. Likewise the two starters can be spread out. They focus on spelling, particularly the difference between sound and spelling, helping students notice pitfalls like ite/ight/ee/ea as well as the 'c' that sounds like 's'. Awareness leads to focus and on to improvement. That's the aim!

Section B is often just left to students to manage as teachers focus on the reading component. But being well prepared for writing tasks can win students time and if they follow the 5 golden rules given here they can boost their scores. A starter PP shows students how important accuracy is, then the ‘how to’ lesson takes them step-by-step through from decoding the task to proof-reading. Along the way they have ‘you try’ opportunities and homework under timed conditions, which will be checked in the following lesson. There is a paper version of the starter to allow for differentiation. Although designed particularly for the Eduqas exam, the skills taught in this resource suit all exam boards.

Being able to summarise is a vital skill. It is a particularly good way of checking understanding of what has been read and the ability to foreground the most important information when writing. It impacts other subject areas as summarising aids revision. The PP begins with a few guidelines and a starter exercise, models how to summarise and then gives an independent summary task using an extract from 'Out of Africa'. This task is also on the worksheet, which should be handed out at that point. There are two to a page to save printing costs. Students can check their own from the penultimate slide. The last slide plenary challenges students to think of other ways in which we summarise information, as in mind-maps & lists...

The focus of this second lesson is writing in a way appropriate for the form, audience and purpose of the task. In the process, students are introduced to the mark scheme, do peer assessment of last lesson’s homework and get a note on strategy. Their plenary is to match extracts to text types, but as these text types are written by the same author, their challenge is to see how one person adapts their writing to the required TAP. The quick fire starter focuses on TAP appropriate openings; the lesson PP then focuses on assessment criteria angled towards TAP, giving students a checklist and a strategy as handouts; and the plenary asks students to TAP three extract. Answers will be checked in the next lesson. Although designed for the Eduquas exam, these skills are relevant for all exam boards.