This SOW was created for Year 7 students of varying abilities. It contains 14 lessons with accompanying resources. The SOW has the following reading, writing and speaking & listening assessments: READING - Explore the relationship between one of the characters and the horse Joey. WRITING - Students are to describe a picture using the senses and one simile or metaphor. SPEAKING & LISTENING - Dramatic performance of a scene from War Horse. The SOW takes students through these learning objectives: LESSON 1 To be able to engage with the key theme of war in the novel To understand the main points about the historical context of the novel LESSON 2 To understand life on a farm in the early 1900s To develop inference skills LESSON 3 To be able to describe character To be able to make comparison To revise the use of connectives to compare LESSON 4 To understand the term ‘points of view’ To be able to compare points of view To be able to rewrite from an alternative point of view LESSON 5 To be able to analyse and describe a setting To develop descriptive writing skills LESSON 6 To develop inference skills LESSON 7 To be able to take different roles in speaking and listening tasks To develop drama skills LESSON 7.5 To be able to take different roles in speaking and listening tasks To develop drama skills LESSON 8 To be able to make links between objects, events and characters To be able to track themes and make logical links LESSON 9 To develop analysis skills To develop the ability to write about language To develop the ability to write about the words chosen by the writer LESSON 10 To be able to explain the relationships between characters LESSON 11 To be able to read independently To develop analysis skills LESSON 12 To assess students’ ability to make inferences about characters LESSON 13-14

Students need to be in two teams. A volunteer from each team must come to the front. Volunteers must answer a series of questions to try cross the square vertically or horizontally. They’re allowed to ask for help from their team twice. They’re only allowed to choose one person to answer the question. This resource includes a PowerPoint and a series of 18 questions with answers. Example of three questions below: F – How do you spell Frankenstein? C – Who is Frankenstein’s friend? Walton I – In which city does Frankenstein live? Ingolstadt

Using the PowerPoint, explain to students the three main types of newspaper writing – news stories, features and opinion pieces. Students should make notes in their books as you explain to them. Quick test (slide 6): Ask students to decide whether the headlines are for news, features or opinion pieces. They should explain what clues helped them, e.g. the use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ Issue the three Articles to pairs. Students are to decide which one is the news story, the feature article and the opinion piece. Students are to read the articles closely. Under the headings of ‘news stories’ ‘features’ and ‘opinion pieces’ in their book, students are to identify word level features in the different types of writing. Display slide 7 on the PowerPoint to assist students. But encourage students to be open-minded about what the find. Differentiation: some features will need explaining. For lower ability groups, delete tricky features as appropriate. After activity, ask students to explain what language features they're likely to find in a features article/news story/opinion piece? This resource is taken from my KS3 English Newspaper/Journalism SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Sheets for students to stick in their books or for teachers to display in their classrooms that describe requirements for levels and sub-levels in reading, writing and speaking and listening. An accessible resource that allows students to take responsibility for their own progress. It's also a helpful resource for teachers when setting targets. Students find their level on the sheet and they can then look to the next level where it says 'To get a level 5b, I need to...' Also included is a marking key sheet for students to stick in their books to enable teachers to state the particular markers they use to marks students' books. Also, a personal target sheet for students to self-assess their ability at the start of the year. Students may review this at different times of the year to assess their own progress. There's also a target record sheet for students to keep in the front of their exercise books to keep a record of their targets. The idea is that they start filling in their targets from the bottom of the sheet so they're effectively climbing "the ladder" and making progress. Students should regularly review the sheet with their teacher to assess whether they're meeting their targets and whether their NC level is improving over time.

Students work as detectives investigating a crime scene based on Roald Dahl's short story Lamb to the Slaughter. There are two lessons included with the learning objective 'To select, understand and describe evidence; To interpret information and develop explanations.' These lessons have proved hugely successful and fun for students. They absolutely love walking into the classroom to see a crime scene and it's amazing to see even the most disruptive of students get completely into character. There's a little preparation involved in these lessons, but you and your students will reap the benefits.

Set up a debate with your class as a speaking & listening assessment/activity to run alongside the reading of David Almond's Skellig. This debate springs from the character Mina, who is home schooled. Having done this debate several times with classes, it usually elicits some passionate opinions. Divide your class as necessary into two teams - 'for home schooling' and 'against home schooling' and then issue the cards to the opposing teams. The cards will give students starting points to develop their arguments further. This is a flexible activity to manage and adapt however you wish to suit the abilities of your students.

This SOW focuses on persuasive techniques, language techniques, non-language devices and presentational features used in advertising to have an effect on the reader. Students develop their analytical skills before creating their own advert with commentary for their assessment. Although this may sound dull, students had real fun with this scheme and found it genuinely interesting. They thoroughly enjoyed the 'speed dating' to learn about different advertising techniques. The SOW uses the following learning objectives in its lessons: LESSON 1 To understand how images are composed, and how to read figure signs. LESSON 2 To understand how images use colour, texture and viewpoint. LESSON 3 To understand how persuasive language techniques as used in adverts. LESSON 4: To describe the effect of persuasive (language) techniques used in adverts. LESSON 5 To analyse language techniques and presentational features in an advert. LESSON 6 To create own advert using knowledge and skills gained from analysis. LESSON 7 To create own advert using knowledge and skills gained from analysis. INDEPENDENT TASK TIME LESSON 8 To create own advert using knowledge and skills gained from analysis. INDEPENDENT TASK TIME

This lesson takes students through Vernon Scannell's poem A Case of Murder. First, students are presented with the First Two Lines from their poem. Place these are students desks before they enter. They're to think about the poem and what it could be about. Next, present students with Gap-fill Poem where they are urged to fill in the gaps in the poem. This helps them to engage with the content and really think about the language of the poem. Feedback. Issue the complete poem. Discuss initial thoughts. Go through the activities in the PPT, which includes quick questions, in-depth question, discussion on themes, emotional response and then a contextual-based homework.

Language devices to use when writing to argue and persuade, put helpfully into the mneumonic 'A RED FOREST'. When I was teaching students to write to argue, I display the language devices around the room to encourage students to look for them and use them.

11 examples of written reports for Year 9 English students. There are examples of reports for students making 'limited', 'adequate', 'good' and 'excellent' progress. Reports include targets for improvement.

Play ‘Halloween’ music as students walk in. Display ‘Urban Legends’ PowerPoint. Show students the definitions of ‘urban’ and ‘legend’. Students are to attempt to work out what an urban legend is with reference to the definitions. Pair-share. Introduce L.O. Ask students to write date, title and L.O. in their exercise books. Look at the conventions of an Urban Legend. Explain Def. – conventions - a rule, method or feature of a particular piece of writing) Establish what an urban legend is. Show students the short video of ‘Diet Coke and Mentos’. Switch off the lights and use torch to read the urban legend 'Killer on the Back Seat'. Students will find it pretty creepy! Split the class into groups. Distribute the Urban Legends and ask one member from each group to read an urban legend aloud. After groups have read an urban legend, request whole-class feedback. Ask students to state the common features of an urban legend. Display ‘How to write your own Urban Legend’ slide. Discuss the conventions of an urban legend in preparation for students to write their own. Ask students, in pairs, to discuss their initial ideas for two minutes. Using slide 6, students are to start writing their own Urban Legend. It should be no longer than 4 paragaphs and should take no longer than 3-4 minutes to read. Students to finish for homework.

This is a 6-7 week scheme of work that can be adapted to suit your needs, but it basically leads students up to pitching their idea for a new type of fast food restaurant. Essentially, it leads up to a very engaging speaking and listening assessment. Students must learn to work in a team with different roles. They must learn to delegate tasks based on students' differing abilities. The SOW involves mind mapping, problem-solving and decision-making. Having done this SOW with students before, it really does get their creative juices flowing. They end up taking it very seriously and really do think about their restaurant's brand name, slogan, logo, target audience, USP, appropriate location etc. The competitive element of the SOW really engages boys as well. Not only do students hone their speaking and listening skills, but they gain a basic understanding of how to create a business that will be successful when considering several different factors. The SOW is all included within the PowerPoint with 'notes' added to most slides to be completely self-explanatory. The PowerPoint contains 31 slides, which are very easy to follow and tell students exactly what they need to do.

This PPT offers students two activities to practise close reading and inference. The first activity gives students a scenario in which they have to consider whether the protagonist is guilty of theft. The answer isn't very obvious so students have to closely read the passage to make a considered decision. The second activity gives an RSPCA's description of a puppy for adoption. Students have to explain what they can infer from the passage based on evidence and reasoning.

The Laboratory by Robert Browning - Annotated Poem on PowerPoint

This lesson takes students through how to respond to an exam question. The question is: Starting with this speech, explain how far you think Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a powerful woman. Write about: • how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in this speech • how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in the play as a whole Students explore the play where Lady Macbeth is featured. They highlight/annotate the exam question and speech. They then read through other parts of the play and pick out important quotations for their 'quotations' bank. Students also complete a PEE-based essay plan throughout the lesson in preparation for writing a whole response. Students also consider the assessment objectives. On the PowerPoint there are 'notes' at the bottom of each slide for guidance on how to conduct the lesson.

GREAT 10-MINUTE STARTER TO CEMENT THE FOLLOWING KEY TERMS AND THEIR DEFINITIONS: Accent Adjacency pairs Back-channel features Blend word Contraction Deixis / deictics Dialect Discourse markers Elision Ellipsis False start Fillers Hedge Idiolect Interactional talk Initialism Jargon Micropause Non-fluency features Overt prestige Paralinguistic features Phatic talk Prosodic features Received Pronunciation Repairs Slang Sociolect Standard English Tag question Transactional talk Transcript Turn taking Utterance Vague language INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACTIVITY: Cut out these dominoes and laminate them (optional). Give individuals or pairs one domino, including you, the teacher. You begin by reading out the definition on the yellow side of your card. The student who has the term on the blue side of their card that matches with your definition then puts up their hand and says their term out loud. They then read aloud the definition on the yellow side of their card. All class members will have to listen carefully to see if their term matches with the definition they’ve just heard, and so the game continues until it goes full circle, every student has spoken, and you eventually hear the definition that matches with the term on the blue side of your card. Essentially, you’re playing a large game of dominoes, where students have to match key terms with definitions they hear. Depending on your group’s knowledge/ability, you may work altogether to match up the terms with definitions, or, alternatively, you may decide to play this as an actual dominoes game on the floor. This is a great 10-minute starter that really helps students to remember key terms and their definitions.

L.O. To identify and understand emotive language, and its effect on readers. The PowerPoint begins by asking students to look at two different headlines at a time and to decide which one is most emotive, and why. They then focus on two particular headlines and translate their ideas to paper by writing a PEE paragraph. In the next activity, they then have a go at editing a series of headlines by replacing words with more emotive words. Students should share ideas as an entire class. Students then look at a newspaper article and underline/highlight the emotive words. They then complete a table whereby they think about 'more emotive' and 'less emotive' words than the ones in the article. As a final activity, or as homework, students answer the following question about the newspaper article in PEE paragraphs: How does the writer’s choice of emotive language make us (the readers) feel about the dog and its previous owners?

This will ultimately be a revision aid for students studying texts through a narrative lense. They are asked to break a text down into its narrative building blocks and create a summary for each narrative block. On the actual resource there are prompts for each building block to help elicit a response. THE 7 NARRATIVE BUILDING BLOCKS: SCENES AND PLACES TIME AND SEQUENCE CHARACTERS VOICES IN THE STORY POINT OF VIEW DESTINATION

Students are issued with a scenario and asked to represent/show the story from the perspective of any of the people numbered 1-9. They must consider their perspective carefully. Ask themselves what can they see and hear? Write a short account; write in as much detail as your perspective allows. This activity is a hands-on way of finding out how narrative perspective can alter the narration of a story. This will lend itself well to leading into a discussion about a narrator's point of view and reliability of narrators.

As part of students' study of Anne Fine's play Flour Babies, they can adopt an egg to look after during the holidays. You will need as many hard boiled eggs as you have students in the class to do this activity. Students are talked through the adoption process before signing an official adoption certificate. Students are required to complete a 'baby book' to record their experiences. This obviously emulates what the characters have to do with a bag of flour in the play.