A study aid to help pupils connect a poem's techniques to its overall impact and meaning. Helps them to see how techniques work together, e.g. a metaphor may change the tone. By connecting the petals (techniques) to the centre (overall impact/meaning), pupils write more than just 'Look! A simile.' What is it doing? How does it relate to the rest of the poem? Pupils learn to move between the overall force of a poem and its details. They just need to think: 'I'm a bee. I can fly where I like!' To compare poems, fly between two flowers. Blank version is for your use or for their own notes. See also my 'HOW TO STUDY A NOVEL'.

'Punctuation Marks Are People, Too' explains the main punctuation marks as characters. This clarifies the job that each one of them does. This sheet can be used to introduce a whole series of punctuation worksheets that will be uploaded here soon. Alternatively, this sheet can be used for revision. Capital letters, full stops, commas, semi colons, colons and the apostrophe are all in this cast of characters!

This uses cartoon people to explain the job of the semi colon. It’s like a door ajar between two sentences! Check out my HANDWRITING PEOPLE too! That resource is called HANDWRITING: A CLASS OF 26 LITTLE PEOPLE. I teach grammar, punctuation this way. Imagining the letters and punctuation marks as little people draws learners into the detail by bringing them to life. Each time you explain a rule and/or examine an example, it’s like telling a little story. This is easier to picture, easier to remember, and can be quite funny at times.

This is longer than most glossaries, because I have included examples of each term. The title is just my opinion, of course! For homework, you could choose five terms and tell pupils to find their own examples of each. These could be from songs as well as poems. It is often examples we like that fix in the mind what a technique is, and even more importantly, what it can do. You could then use this Amazing Glossary in conjunction with my POETRY FLOWER. This would help pupils to keep the bigger picture in mind and not get swamped in detail.

This uses cartoon people to explain the job of the colon in a sentence. Check out my HANDWRITING PEOPLE too! That resource is called HANDWRITING: A CLASS OF 26 LITTLE PEOPLE.

This is written directly for students, so you can give out the whole thing or pages from it as you wish, at any stage of GCSE English. Getting pupils to write their own examples of techniques listed in these pages is a nice quick homework for you to mark and a great way to check that they have grasped something. It helps their knowledge about language to 'stick&': they are more likely to notice techniques in others&'; writing when they have used the techniques - and named them - themselves. Hope it helps!

This works as an introduction to Shakespeare’s characters and stories for young children. It also gives older pupils the experience of working with Shakespeare&'s raw materials of character, motive and props. This makes them think about how he wrote for the stage: crucial for gaining marks in Shakespeare exams! Please read Lesson Notes to understand how it works. I have provided two of the sheets in a version with cartoons: Characters and Props. Useful if you are doing this in an MFL. The other sheets would probably need a translation on the back. Have fun! - Also, check out my YouTube Channel, “pavertutor”, for my Shakespeare Puppet videos!

This sheet uses cartoon people to explain what a sentence is and how to punctuate it with capital letters and full stops. The companion worksheet to this is ‘PUNCTUATION DRAGONS - Practise Capitals & Full Stops’. I teach grammar, punctuation this way. Imagining the letters and punctuation marks as little people draws learners into the detail by bringing them to life. Each time you explain a rule and/or examine an example, it’s like telling a little story. This is easier to picture, easier to remember, and can be quite funny at times. Check out my HANDWRITING PEOPLE too! That resource is called HANDWRITING: A CLASS OF 26 LITTLE PEOPLE.

This worksheet goes with 'PUNCTUATION PEOPLE - Capital Letters & Full Stops'.

You can give this sheet to pupils to introduce them to grammar. Thinking of grammar as an octopus, with all his tentacles working together, is a way into thinking of a sentence as a group of words working together, each with its own job to do. Pupils can talk in pairs about how they would describe the job that each word does in the sentence on the sheet. In plenary, you could get pupils' own descriptions of each &'word job&';. Then, when they’ve understood the concepts, you can ‘drop in’ the correct terms. See LESSON PLAN for more ideas!

You can print this sheet straight off and give it to students. You know your class, so you will know if the older ones are likely to feel that a dragon's cave is a bit too Year 8 for them! You can add your own titles in that &'The Someone&';s Something' format to suit any subject area or literary text that you have studied or are going to study. &'The Sorcerer&';s Cave' for &'The Tempest&'; could ignite interest in how Shakespeare paints Prospero for us. Have fun!

This uses cartoon people to explain how the apostrophe is used to show possession. Always ask yourself: what does this apostrophe know? Check out my HANDWRITING PEOPLE too! That resource is called HANDWRITING: A CLASS OF 26 LITTLE PEOPLE.

This detailed cartoon explains three stages of creating a play: 1. The playwright choosing lines and stage directions 2. The characters onstage with various props and effects of lighting and sound 3. The audience reaction with emotions ranging from tension to anger, sadness to disgust. You can print this off and give it to pupils and then get them to practise that three-stage analysis themselves. It can apply to any play. In essays, get them to include points & even start sentences with 'Priestley', 'The stage directions' and 'The audience' to help nudge dramatic insights.

This uses cartoon people to explain how the apostrophe is used to show that a letter has been omitted. The apostrophe is a spy who knows exactly which letter has escaped from a word! Check out my HANDWRITING PEOPLE too! That resource is called HANDWRITING: A CLASS OF 26 LITTLE PEOPLE.

This sheet helps pupils to visualise the different parts of an essay. The head is the introduction etc. The essay dinosaur keeps its mind on the question. It only starts moving when it knows where it's going. You can use it in your marking, eg: ‘Good bones, needs more flesh’ or ‘Why no tail?’ You can answer the question, &'How much should we write?&'; by saying how many bones you want. You could tell younger classes to start with three bones, working up to five for older pupils. The Essay Dinosaur can help you to start an essay and write a good conclusion, too. See Lesson Plan for more details

A song about a puffer fish who has a terrible social life. Can his only friend, Jeremy the octopus, help him to solve his problems? A funny children's song or a study of friendship between very different sea creatures? You decide. For a follow-up piece in a creative writing class, pupils could write Henry&'s diary and Jeremy&';s diary at various points in the story. I wrote, performed & recorded the song myself, so the copyright is mine, but you can use it in lessons é school concerts however you wish!

A step-by-step study guide for GCSE and A Level students to help them study any novel for exams or coursework. It helps to give pupils the pdf first: this cartoon will help them to visualise the learning process. Then you can give pages 1-3 of the notes, 'How To Study A Novel'. You can add more topics to the final section on technique, e.g. present tense, flashbacks, fallible narrator, to suit the novel studied. By going up and down the pyramid, pupils build for themselves a sense of how form, structure and language shape meanings. They learn how to move between the big picture and the details when using quotes and references in essays. They produce their own set of notes, helping them become independent learners. This is particularly valuable in helping GCSE students prepare for A Level, and A Level students prepare for university. Above all, they won’t keep asking you for examples – they will have their own! See also 'HOW TO READ OLD BOOKS', 'MORE TIPS ON READING OLD BOOKS' and my poetry sheet, 'THE POETRY FLOWER'.

You can give this sheet to pupils and let them read all the words on the witch's cloak. They can then draw or write in words around her, to give her some things to fly over. Or give them the Page of Nouns, too, for lots suggestions! Finally, they can take one word on her cloak and partner it with one word that names a thing, eg &'The Ancient Tree&';, 'The Empty House&', &';The Secret Road' Later, use this in a grammar lesson (see my GRAMMAR OCTOPUS) - all the words on the witch&'s cloak are adjectives.

This song is a ballad which tells a story through dialogue & third-person description. As well as performing it, pupils can write their own ballads é learn a lot about rhythm é rhyme. Other creative tasks: diaries, letters, posters éc. In literature lessons, the song can introduce ballad form to pupils. Then, when they study ballads in various GCSE Eng Lit anthologies, quatrains, dialogue, imagery and rhymes will make more sense. Enjoy using this song as a resource for lessons é concerts! This is my own song é recording so I own the copyright. See base of lyric sheet for details.

A practical, hands-on way to get pupils to understand that Shakespeare wrote for the stage. You can print this out and give it to pupils as an introduction to speaking Shakespeare themselves - there are examples and things to listen out for, as well as connections made with how song lyrics use imagery to convey emotion. The idea is simple: these aren't books: they&'re plays - so play with them! You may want to give this sheet out one page at a time - it&';s up to you!