8 clips of characters from Fantasy and Sci-fi films speaking. The students are asked to write down the names of the characters and the films in the first round. In Seychelles we had watched clips from several of these beforehand, but in England I think it would work from general knowledge. In the second round, students are asked 4 questions about genre and comparing sci-fi to fantasy. The whole quiz is out of 20 and should challenge everyone from my EAL lower ability kids to the top set ones. The first time they are shown, the video effect should mean they cannot see the characters clearly. If your students really struggle, the videos play through without a filter at the end and the answers come up after each clip. With some of my less confident classes, I would only play this part and ask students to hold up answers on a whiteboard after each clip. I would also pause between each clip to allow writing time. I created this for my Fantasy scheme of work, but it would work well as an introduction to character building in any story writing. These particular characters were all selected because they have unusual character voices which would be written down in a way which is outside of the norm, i.e.: Hagrid's elision of h sounds; Gollum's additional s's, etc. My students went on to try to write the speech for each character phonetically, compare them to the scripts/books and then to write phonetic speech for one of the minor characters in their stories. Bonus idea! I showed my top set a clip of all the times Hodor says "Hodor" and then played them the "Hold the door" video too, to illustrate character arcs shown through speech. I'd recommend it! Please rate and review if you use it. This is my first video, so I'd happily make more if it's enjoyed. I hope it's as useful to you as it has been to me.

I wrote this modern-day version of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice which became the school's secondary performance. Like The Merchant of Venice, it has a range of parts for all abilities (we had students from 12 to 18 taking part) and some more adult themes and references. It was designed to be performed in the round with various scenes filmed in advance and played on a screen for the audience. We ended up filming the entire production and selling DVDs to raise money for the school. I have aimed to be as true to Shakespeare's version as possible and it was interesting to see the humour coming through the somewhat grim situations. The prologue was rapped by one of our students while a pre-recorded video (detailed in the comments) played in the background. This was created by a small group of students in Media and Visual Arts Club after school, but there would be enough pre-recorded scenes for an entire Media Studies group to storyboard, film and edit in advance.

An introduction to a SOW on podcasting and radio for KS3 students. Designed for students in groups of 4 - 6. The final game could also be played in groups with a mini-whiteboard or as a whole class. There are two articles on podcasting and radio with a reading race (or just standard questions if you prefer), activities and worksheets to help with new vocabulary (three versions for different ability groups) and a brainstorm to help students KWL their learning. The homework structures their research of podcasts. A selection of recommended and student-friendly podcasts are given. These are differentiated (green for my EAL students, blue for more able or native speakers). I would suggest downloading a select few from some of the blue list as certain episodes can have more adult themes than others. Questions to structure each week's homework are included. There is an overview on the first slide which explains what will be covered in the unit for students. This can be adapted as you need, of course.

Welcome. This PPT has a range of guided listening activities to help students engage with the script and ideas before writing their own satirical podcast scripts on their home towns. WTNV is a highly celebrated podcast for its representative cast and amusing events. This particular PPT is based around episode 28: The Summer Reading Programme where children are captured by the evil librarians and eventually escape after beheading them. This exciting event is broken up with a range of government approved messages and advertisement parodies. My students really enjoyed creating their own podcasts and we put them up on the school website for everyone to listen to. They really threw themselves into it far more successfully than any previous work on script writing. This could also make a nice G&T after-school project.