This powerpoint introduces students to key terms which are necessary for a study of documentaries e.g. intertitle, masked interview etc. After these terms the lesson introduces students to audio and visual devices which are used to position audiences in documentaries e.g. narration / voice over, music, sound effects, slow motion and other visual editing effects. After copying these notes students view a small clip about climate change from a biased documentary and have to practice identifying these features.

The PowerPoint includes definitions and examples of poetic devices including rhyme, repetition, simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, assonance, symbolism etc. There are also slides with famous examples from songs (some oldies but mostly contemporary). The homework sheet is a match the terms handout to consolidate learning.

1) A fun an engaging PPT designed to build up students' reading comprehension abilities. It includes a definition of war, a series of questions for classroom discussion (drawing on prior knowledge), a small clip from Forrest Gump for students to watch and discuss (questions included), info about who writes war poetry and the various reasons they have for doing so, an answer to the question 'why read poetry?' Following this the PPT encourages students to engage with three poetic texts and learn to read for meaning and to appreciate the emotions created by the author and how they achieve this. Each poem comes with questions to check for student comprehension and to begin scaffoldin their ability to analyse. 2) A handout with the words to each poem: Grandpa what did you do in the war?, Gaps in the ranks & And the band played Waltzing Matilda 3) A Poetry retrieval chart (homework) for students to complete to revise after the lesson -- I would send these out via email to be completed electronically.

1) An exemplar feature article 2) A PowerPoint designed to teach students about the genre they need to write for their assessment. It includes tips for the exam and the criteria students have to demonstrate. It specifies the codes and conventions of a feature article (in terms of structure, visuals, paragraph length, cohesive ties, vocabulary etc.) It includes a suggested structure followed by a student's example. Afterwards there are questions about the article's intended reading, tone, use of language features etc. Examples of types of statements they may come across in their exam. If time there is another feature article example (resource 1) also copied into the final few slides.

1) A PowerPoint for an introductory lesson to a year 12 Authority English unit in Australia. Overview of school rules, my rules and expectations for Authority English. A term overview, a list of spelling words, goal setting prompts, an introduction to poetry and why it matters, & a brief writing activity. 2) A handout with the questions for the student self-reflection.

Prior to students learning about moral issues in The Hunger Games, they must first learn what morals are and have a chance to identify them in other texts. This PowerPoint teaches students what terms including moral, morality and immoral mean. Students are also introduced to the news genre and its purpose. They learn about how regular news stories are structured and their common language before reading a news story with a moral issue in it. After reading the article there are a series of comprehension questions which could be answered individually or as a class depending on the abilities of your learners. These questions increase in difficulty and were written using verbs from Bloom's taxonomy. Resource 2: A copy of the newspaper article students explored in this lesson (taken from an Australian newspaper in 2017).

This booklet has been designed as part of a unit of work on Catching Fire (the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy). It includes activities about characters, the setting and language features which students are to complete as they read the novel. There are also questions about the events/themes/character's perspectives et cetera for each chapter. This is all in preparation for a creative writing assessment where students take what they have learned to create two or three diary entries which provide insight into a minor character from the novel. In doing so they must reveal the personality of their character through what they see, think, feel, hope for and fear. Students were assessed on how purposefully they shaped their representations of people, places, events and concepts in the novel.

Two PowerPoints: Explaining the assessment task (Create an informative multimodal presentation that discusses how bias may be present in documentaries and written articles) and the criteria. Learning about the features of a multimodal to prepare you for this task and looking at an example introduction written by a past student. Some example quotes from Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine to use as an example (and practice analysing). Advice on where to find further quotes. A PowerPoint for the following lesson teaching students how to analyse bias in media articles. Going through the 2 types of bias in texts (over exaggeration and under exaggeration). A quick practice of analysing bias in particular examples from Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine. Afterward the PPT looks at three articles about Chernobyl and students are encouraged to determine whether we believe their portrayal was: Balanced (correct), Bias through minor under-emphasis, Bias through extreme under-emphasis, Bias through over emphasis or Bias through extreme over emphasis. Prior to this, there is a brief explanation of what happened and some images and videos. It includes some questions for students to consider as they read the article. Finally, it includes copies of a PPT made by a past student for their multimodal for students to look at and draw inspiration from. One Word Document (A task scaffold) which contains planning steps for the assignment and a suggested structure. Other resources which can be given to students during in class drafting lessons or for homework.

Hunger Games 1 Student Work Booklet. This booklet has been designed as part of a unit of work on moral issues. It includes activities about characters, the setting and language features which students are to complete as they read the novel. There are also questions about the events/themes/character's perspectives et cetera for each chapter. This is all in preparation for a feature article assessment where students respond to the following statement:‘In times of conflict people disregard the social and moral norms of the time. This has been reflected in various fictional texts.’ Students must form and argument and persuade their audience to accept your viewpoint. They also had to analyse quotes and examples from the novel and use them to justify their argument. Within their feature article they had to:  Use specific examples of moral issues from The Hunger Games.  Focus on one or two characters in the novel (and their perspective of the moral issue).  Quote from the novel and identify language features which help position readers to view the moral issue in a particular way. You must explain the effect of these language features  Include genre features such as a headline, by-line, two columns, images and captions  Write in 3rd person and use a range of language features to engage your readers (e.g. similes, metaphors, rhetorical questions etc.).

This lesson is designed as part of an Australian year 9 English unit. The first assessment for this unit is a persuasive essay. This PowerPoint first explains the assessment and the criteria students will be marked against. Subsequently, it goes through essay genre conventions (defining terms like thesis statement, explaining what should go in an intro, body and conclusion, explaining how texts should be referenced in text and in a bibliography). This PowerPoint also includes example paragraphs from a range of texts which show Australian stereotypes including The Simpsons Australia episode, Crocodile Dundee and men of the open spaces. Handout - planning steps to be completed prior to writing Handout - scaffolding for essay which tells students what they must write for each paragraph.

3 resources for a year 12 English unit. 1) A PPT for a mini lesson on nouns, verbs and adjectives + another mini lesson on adverbs. 2) A PowerPoint engaging with 2 WW1 poems: ‘I have a rendezvous with death’ and ‘In Flanders Fields. After reading the first poem there are discussion questions. I have also included some of my observations about each of the poem (modelling analysis), some info about the author, activities encouraging the students to consider how langauge features have been used in the text. Following this, students read the second poem on their own and complete the comparison activity (3rd resource). 3) A handout with the table for the comparison activity (for students to complete electronically)

A resource taken from an Australian 10 English Unit entitled 'Contemporary literature.' In this unit students compare and contrast the social, moral and ethical themes in a range of contemporary literature texts, including films and the close study of a novel. Students evaluate how text structures, language and visual features can be used to influence audience response. This PowerPoint provides a dot point summary of these chapters and is followed by chapter questions which could have been set for homework or could be used within the lesson to check for student understanding. I have added one YouTube clip showing a relevant scene but you could add more if your learners prefer the broadcast strategy.

Anyone who thinks that slavery went the way of the nineteenth century will be disabused of that belief when reading “Slave: My True Story”  written by Mende Nazer, a Sudanese Nuba, along with Damien Lewis, a British journalist. This book gives a chilling overview of the modern slave trade from the perspective of one who was victimized by it. Human trafficking, unfortunately, is alive and well as a weapon of war in the late twentieth and twenty-first century. This resource is a PowerPoint presentation designed for use in a 12 English Authority class in Queensland Australia. It introduces students to the concepts of cultural context and social situations and how both can influence the author. This lesson prepares students to answer the following question: What is the social impact of the text? i.e. is it recycling or reinforcing cultural assumptions? Within this lesson students will learn about the Nuba people – cultural practices e.g. scarification, beads, wrestling, religious beliefs, dwellings, diet, languages & female genital mutilation. In addition to information, images and videos of some of these are provided. It also includes some information about save trading in Sudan. At the end of the PowerPoint are some sample answers to the chapter questions for chapters 1-8.

Resource 1: PowerPoint This lesson introduces the concept of lying broadly before zooming in to focus on how the moral issue is shown in the novel. Students are introduced to the types of lie (white lie, fabrication, bold faced lies). Discussion questions are posed on the PowerPoint to encourage students to share their views on the issue. There is a short clip from the film Liar Liar to provide a humorous stimulus for discussion. Following this students will read the feature article 'Are white lies dead in the age of social media?' As they read the various language and visual features will be pointed out to them (as they will be writing a feature article for their mid term assessment). After reading the article there are activities for students to complete including defining some terms from the article and answering literal, inferred and applied level comprehension questions. Subsequently, the lesson introduces the various types of lies in the novel. The PPT includes extracts from the text where people are shown discussing lying or telling a lie. These extracts are followed by discussion/comprehension questions. Resource 2: a feature article taken from 'The Australian' (newspaper) in 2017 about white lies which students will explore in this lesson.

1) PowerPoint: The construction of characterization, plot and setting in Slave. This PowerPoint was designed to help prepare students for a short story assessment where they were to write from a marginalized character's perspective in the autobiography Slave. Within the lesson students will explore how Mende and her journalist co-write established characters and setting within the novel through the use of various writing techniques. 2) Document for students to take their notes into with extracts from the text for students to analyse.

A task sheet for a year 10 English assessment (Australian curriculum). Also provided is the planning and writing steps in a scaffolding document. The scaffolding is invaluable as it helps students to plan to address the key criteria prior to writing the task. In particular they evaluate how text structures and language features can be used to influence audience response.

6 resources utilised in a 12 English Authority unit in Queensland Australia. 1) A PowerPoint taking students through the history of Sudan. It begins by introducing students to key terms including: coup, constitution, fundamentalist, Islam, junta and secession. These terms are integral to understanding the events in Slave as the author's life was influenced by the political events occurring in society at the time. After a brief overview of the early history, it delves into the civil war (1980s-1990s). Lastly it looks at contemporary politics (since 2002). 2) A handout of the notes about the history of Sudan (which were taken from the Oxford dictionary of contemporary world history). This can be given to students who struggle to summarise or used for purposes of revision. 3) Further research about Slave and the Nuba culture. 4) A handout to be given to students at the beginning of the term explaining the purpose of the unit and outlining what the two items of assessment are. 5) A diagram which shows the various influences on the author as she wrote her autobiography.

Do you have students who don't know when to use a comma? Do you want a resource that looks at the rules around when to, and when not to, utilise a comma in your writing? If so, this may be the resource for you. This worksheet can be used as a one on one tutoring resource. Alternatively, you can take activities from here to use as fast finishers or homework activities. You could even put this into a PowerPoint for a NAPLAN preparation lesson. This worksheet includes explanations and examples. It also features a lot of activities to test students understanding of what they have learned. Suitable for upper primary and high school students.

Do you have students who constantly use fragments (incomplete sentences) in their writing? Do you want a resource that will teach students about clauses, sentences, and fragments so that you have a shared language when it comes to providing feedback at drafting time? If so, this may be the resource for you. This worksheet can be used as a one on one tutoring resource. Alternatively, you can take activities from here to use as fast finishers or homework activities. You could even put this into a PowerPoint for a NAPLAN preparation lesson. The first section of this worksheet includes explanations and examples of: independent, co-ordinant and dependent clauses. It also has a section about embedded clauses and how they can be an effective tool for writers. It also features a lot of activities to test students understanding of what they have learned. The second section of the worksheet looks at the requirements of sentences. It includes examples of the following types of sentence: simple, compound and complex. The information is interspersed with activities to check for understanding. The final section of the worksheet introduces students to fragments and why they are nonsensical and detrimental to your writing. This is followed by a writing activity (students are given a list of key points to turn into a newspaper article). It also includes editing prompts at the end which helps students to refine their initial story.

A free resource which I created to give to all senior English students at the beginning of grade 11. If you use it, and like it, please come and give me a positive star rating / review . Constructive criticism is also appreciated. It is a handy ‘survival guide’ which includes: • definitions of cognitive verbs which students will encounter e.g. evaluate, explain, infer, justify etc. • text connectives (aka cohesive links / linking words) • what makes a good paragraph (and the PEEL structure) • tips for research tasks (using BOOLEAN search operators) • quoting, summarising and paraphrasing – what these are + when it is best to use each of these in their assessment writing • a checklist for editing their work • tips for when an in text reference is needed in their assessment work