This is based on Alfred Noyes’ poem ‘The Highwayman’.
This can be used for online lessons or in class. This is a 8 lesson unit which has some Close Reading, discussion of techniques used in the poem and some fun tasks of Wanted Posters and Leaflet creation.
This is a critical essay guide for Theme and Character for Robin Jenkins’ short story ‘Flowers’.
This takes pupils through a PEAR structure essay (easily adapted to PEER or similar) and gives some example PEAR paragraphs.
This is a media unit for Spiderman 2. It takes your through a couple of techniques, getting the class to analyse the film as they go. There’s a Create your own Superhero task, and a critical essay at the end. Suitable for S1-S3
This unit introduces the WW1 background and focuses on the poem “Dulce et decourum est”. Tasks include:
Basic poetic technique revision
Basic war background
A propaganda poster tasks
Analysis of symbolism used in Kasabian’s music video “Empire”
Introduction to the poem (analysis not included)
Critical essay on theme of war
This is a film creation task based on the short story Voodoo (included). It is a one off lesson (more than likely 2-3 periods of work) in which pupils read the story and create a filmed retelling of the story. I suggest several different ways of doing this: Tiktok, Instagram reels, photo montage, Google photos, or even simply just a series of photos on the phone/ ipads.
Group tasks will include storyboarding the lesson and planning it out, then filming.
Could be English work/ Drama/ Media.
This powerpoint includes lots of different ideas for your bookclub. I ran this for several years and although we had the usual bookclub tasks- discussion of favourite books, author visits, staff members visiting to discuss books etc, I also needed a couple of filler ideas for when we didn’t have something going on.
We never had the money to purchase groups sets for the club, and if I’m honest, a lot of the children who came voluntarily to the lunchtime club tended to really just want a safe space, so tasks had to be inclusive and non threatening.
These are ideas I have used throughout the year - some word games, some imaginative writing, some discussions. Hopefully it’ll help your bookclub get started too!
This is a critical essay using the PEAR structure (easily adapted) to answer on how Felix changes as a character.
It includes page suggestions for quotes and takes pupils through each step of writing an essay.
I’ve also included a differentiated worksheet for anyone struggling.
This is my lower school unit of work for the play Frankenstein, using guided reading of the play with the end result being a critical essay.
The Gothic writing takes you through the elements of the Gothic genre and the final outcome is an imaginative spooky story.
These pair nicely together.
This is a small unit on preparing pupils for their National 5 Set Text exam on Sailmaker. It includes several practice papers and a powerpoint on how to do the 8 marker, plus Key Quotes and analysis. This also includes a revision powerpoint on key images and quotes. There is also a dual coding powerpoint.
UPDATED- I have added a Kahoot quiz for revision of the 2022 Nat 5 Exam Extract.
This is a small unit taking you through writing a critical essay on Desiree’s Baby. It has an introduction to the story, some notes and then introduces writing the essay with an example paragraph.