A full, differentiated poetry scheme of work for year 7. Covers 18 lessons.
Includes:
Two differentiated PowerPoints for ‘more able’ (MA) and ‘less able’ (LA) with prompts and answers in the ‘Notes’ section
Brief context and history of poetry focusing on earliest poems and purpose/context of nursery rhymes
Introduction to key forms (haiku, free-verse, lyric and narrative)
Introduction to poetic devices
Introduction to key conventions of poetry (form, mood, language and structure)
Application of poetic conventions and analysis to key poems centered around the theme of ‘Growing Up’ (‘Mrs Tilscher’s Class’, ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’, ‘Nettles’ and ‘Riding Downhill on a Bicycle’)
Worksheets and planning sheets to prepare for an analytical assessment on ‘Riding Downhill on a Bicycle’
Planning sheets for writing their own poem
A medium term plan document
A complete poetry unit for KS3 (recommended year 8 but can be adapted for years 7 and 9).
This scheme of work includes 18 fully planned and resourced lessons covering both classic and contemporary poetry spanning the 19th to 21st centuries. The scheme explores cultures from each continent with a focus on British culture.
Resources included:
226 slide PPT with teacher notes, guidance and options for adaptive teaching (more challenging/accessible slide options)
Poetry booklet with full text of 15 poems
Poems included:
‘The British’ by Benjamin Zephaniah
‘God Save the King’ (English National Anthem)
‘Black’ by Dave (song - excerpt used)
‘Checking Out Me History’ by John Agard
‘The New Colossus’ by Emma Lazarus
‘The Hill We Climb’ by Amanda Gorman
‘Night of the Scorpion’ by Nissim Ezekiel
‘Haiku’ by Matsuo Basho (titles vary from translation)
‘Ballad of the Totems’ by Oodgeroo Noonuccal/Kath Walker
‘Africa My Africa’ by David Diop
‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ by William Wordsworth
‘Welcome to Tottenham’ by Giovanni Rose
‘Island Man’ by Grace Nichols
‘Refugees’ by Brian Bilston
‘Game Changer’ by Solli Raphael
Medium term plan:
Week 1: Introduction and critical analysis of British culture
Week 2: Close analysis of ‘Checking Out Me History’ and introduction to American culture
Week 3: Exploration of American, Indian, and Japanese poetry
Week 4: Exploration of Australian and African poetry, then back to British poetry (19th century poem)
Week 5: Assessment Preparation: Comparison of 19th century and modern British poem (plus alternate assessment task for struggling students)
Week 6: Reading Assessment and creative writing/spoken language tasks
A fully resourced scheme of work for AQA GCSE English Language Paper 2, aimed at the most able students (grades 7-9). I created this unit based on my experience as both a teacher and a Paper 2 examiner, focusing on those higher level skills required to achieve a level 9.
PPTs have additional guidance/notes in the ‘notes’ section of key slides for the teacher’s benefit.
The scheme includes:
Reading Section
1 x 82 slide PPT for the Reading section focusing on the Aberfan question paper (AQA specimen)
1 x download of the AQA specimen question paper, mark scheme and inserts referenced in the PPT.
Content includes:
Grammar based starters (to link in to the writing section)
Introduction to the unit, assessment objectives, and purpose/audience/form
Question by question breakdown: how to tackle it, model responses, and opportunities to ‘mark’ lower quality responses to help them identify how to improve
Explanation of what ‘perspective’ means and how perspective impacts writing
Exploration of what ‘perceptive’ means in comparison to clear, and success criteria for how to achieve perceptive responses (based on my experience as an examiner for this paper)
Writing Section
1 x 155 slide PPT for the Writing section
1 x crafted handout for a lesson referenced in the PPT focusing on one of Malala’s UN speeches.
Content includes:
Grammar based starters (to link in to the writing section: includes more advanced grammar for grade 9)
Distinctions between the forms and purposes with examples
Focus on how to craft and structure an argument using the analogy of a tree (the roots, leaf, branch, tree, sunlight)
Discourse markers and how to connect ideas relevantly
Encouragement to focus on unique ideas/larger concepts
Focus on advanced, believable persuasive devices (beyond AFOREST)
Practice/Revision lesson
This complete scheme of work is designed to challenge the most able groups to engage critically with ‘A Christmas Carol’ (AQA KS4 specification).
This scheme of work takes inspiration from Pryke’s ‘Ready to Teach: A Christmas Carol: A compendium of subject knowledge, resources and pedagogy’ as well as my own teaching experience and research.
The scheme includes:
148 slide PowerPoint, broken down lesson-by-lesson to suit a long half-term.
Recap of exam skills as well as entire novella content including context
Lessons designed around how to craft an argument and how to plan and structure the essay response
A document designed to help students plan their essays
A fully annotated model essay based on Stave V
An assessment feedback lesson to encourage metacognitive reflection
Comments, guidance and support in the ‘Notes’ section of key PowerPoint slides to help guide new teachers.
Please leave a review as I hope to design year 11 revision lessons in future, so your feedback would be greatly appreciated to guide the revision resource.
A 1-2 lesson PowerPoint that revises the creative writing section of Paper 1. Includes examples of how to use a range of language and structural features to improve writing, including semantic fields, vocabulary, discourse markers, starting/closing lines.
A set of lessons based on gothic short stories. Targeted for a higher set year 8 that can be easily differentiated.
Includes:
Intro to short stories
Intro to the gothic genre
Analysis around ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ and ‘The Landlady’ (full text for each available free online)
Creative writing tasks geared towards creating their own gothic atmosphere or short story
A single page of A4 (2 sided) that summarises all of the poems from the AQA GCSE ‘Love & Relationships’ cluster and includes two key quotations from each poem. There are also key images included that all refer to particular quotations/parts of the poems.
Serves as a useful revision resource to help students revise poetry in a condensed manner.
An AQA style GCSE English Language Paper 2 mock question paper, sources and mark scheme based around the theme of murder. Compares an article about Jack the Ripper and coverage around the arrest of Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr.
Sources are slightly shorter than a usual AQA paper, so may be a good introduction/help for students who struggle.
A series of Top Trumps cards I made for AQA GCSE Love & Relationships anthology poems. Resource includes an individual A5 size trump card for all 15 poems.
Can use as a game for students or display them in the classroom as a revision resource. Can also use for students to compare poems and see which ones compare/contrast best, or debate the trump scores to see if they would change them and why.
Each Trump card includes:
A summary of the poem
Images that indicate key quotations/imagery in the poems
A set of themes that are ‘ranked’ out of 10 for relevance in the poem. The themes are passion, obsession, family bonds, nature, loss, and control.
A model response for ‘A Christmas Carol’ that I typed out for students. Aimed at students who want to achieve a level 5+, this essay is around a level 6 quality.
The extract is from Stave III and focuses on the theme of family.
I would have awarded it 21/30 (~ level 6).
A model response for ‘A Christmas Carol’ that targets the most able students that I wrote. The question uses an extract from Stave II and is based on the theme of family.
This is a PPT made on Canva that includes two lessons walking students through how to craft a literature essay response, aiming for level 9.
Please note that as the resource was originally made on Canva, you might need to format the PPT a little bit e.g. certain images/fonts
This resource includes:
A recap of the assessment objectives (match up task)
What a good argument includes (ranking activity)
An example exam question I created (Explore how Dickens presents redemption, using an extract from Stave V). Aiming to use a question that hasn’t been used before in the exam with the hope that it comes up this year (2022)!
An argument template that walks through the step-by-step process of planning a response, with examples of what to include (sorting task)
A full model essay response based on that plan for students to read and annotate with the assessment objectives/reflect on what makes it a model response (level 9)
A second lesson with another sample exam question I created (Explore how Dickens presents the meaning of Christmas, using an extract from Stave III). Again, hoping this question comes up in the exam as good prep.
The argument template for students to fill in to consolidate/apply their knowledge and skills from the previous lesson. Students can then practice writing their response either together, as a class or individually.