Two lessons that teach students all about Shakespeare's sonnets, their structure, rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter. Packed with interactive activities, including lots of drumming with hands on the desk! The learning objectives are as follows: WALT: identify the structure and rhyme scheme of a sonnet. WALT: explore another of Shakespeare’s sonnets to take inspiration from to write my own. These two lessons lead students up to writing their own sonnet as a writing assessment.

Students to correct these commonly mixed-up idioms. This activity could lead into a lesson about the origin of idioms and why idioms are part of the English language.

Poetic devices glossary to assist with students' study of poetry.

This resource takes students through the process of reading and understanding an exam question. It encourages students to look closely at the wording and dissect the question before they even consider answering it. All too often students glance at the question and make a start on the answer. This resource helps students see why it's so important to really engage with the question. You can swap the questions on the PPT and activity with exam questions that are relevant to what your class is studying.

Do ‘Starter Activity for Descriptive Writing’; this should put students in the right mind-set for descriptive writing. This activity should encourage students to tune into their senses, which is an essential skill for writing descriptively. Ideally, students should use mini whiteboards, but if these are not available, then exercise books are satisfactory. Hand-out ‘An Example of Writing to Describe’ sheet. Ask students, in pairs, to read it through and highlight – in different colours – the words and sentences that relate to the five senses. Recap the five senses – sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. Feedback. Ask students why description is important. Hand-out ‘Planning Sheet for Descriptive Writing’. Explain that, as it is a planning sheet, it does not matter if they alter or change their ideas throughout. They are to write about a place or event, perhaps building on the ideas they established in the starter activity. Students could write up their piece of descriptive writing as a writing assessment.

Work through the PowerPoint for the lesson which includes a starter activity, contextual information, 'crunched poem' activity (creative, language analysis), annotated poem, exam question and comparison activity. This could cover 1-2 lessons.

Issue the worksheet to students and ask them to identify whether the line comes from Shakespeare or a contemporary singer. After 5-10 minutes, go through the answers using the soundtrack to show which lines are from contemporary singers. The exercise proves to students that contemporary singers use similes, metaphors and other poetic techniques in the same way Shakespeare did.

A fun, accessible resource for students to revise the key tips for questions 1-4 in Section A of the AQA Non-fiction Higher paper.

Ask students to create a social network for the characters using this user-friendly sheet. On the characters' connecting lines write how the characters are connected. Around each character's face write key quotes and characteristics. An example is shown.

This scheme of work contains 13 lessons with over 35 resources, taking students right through the play. It is a comprehensive scheme of work that was incredibly successful with Year 9 students of varying abilities. It includes a reading, writing and speaking & listening assessment. This SOW includes film clips and drama to really engage students with the play. Opportunities to differentiate tasks for higher or lower abilities are highlighted in green in the SOW. Whilst the scheme was put together by me, some resources are taken from the RSC Shakespeare Toolkit for Teachers. The SOW has the following reading, writing and speaking & listening assessments: READING - Starting with this speech (Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 2, Scene 1), explain how far you think Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a tragic hero. WRITING - Letter from Macbeth to Lady Macbeth arguing for or against her ideas. SPEAKING & LISTENING - Dramatic performance of Act 3, Scene 4 (the banquet scene with the ghost of Banquo) The SOW takes students through the following learning objectives: LESSON 1 To understand the characteristics of a tragedy and to understand the battle described at the opening of Macbeth LESSON 2 To explore the meeting between Macbeth, Banquo and the Witches and how to make interpretive choices about the stage of the scene. LESSON 3 To develop an understanding of characters’ thoughts and motives LESSON 4 To understand the persuasive tactics that Lady Macbeth uses to influence Macbeth. LESSON 4.5 To construct a letter that has a clear purpose. LESSON 5 To understand how Macbeth makes the decision to kill Duncan LESSON 6 To understand the Macbeths’ reactions to their murder of Duncan LESSON 7 To understand the motivations of Macbeth and Banquo in the aftermath of the murder of King Duncan. LESSON 8 To understand how Act 3, Scene 4 works dramatically. LESSON 9 To recap the plot and to develop an understanding of how Shakespeare has presented Macbeth as a `tragic hero. LESSON 10 To understand the rise and fall of Macbeth / To identify dramatic devices and to start planning your essay LESSON 11 To structure an essay response to Macbeth which analyses language and dramatic devices. LESSON 12 To see a performance of Macbeth LESSON 13 To see a performance of Macbeth

A printable classroom aid for students to use to remember the necessary language skills for writing to describe - SIMPLES, with each letter standing for a different language skill. I used this with my GCSE classes and it proved really helpful for the writing section of the AQA non-fiction exam - the meerkat helped!

GREAT 10-MINUTE STARTER TO CEMENT THE FOLLOWING KEY TERMS AND THEIR DEFINITIONS: Alliteration Emotive language Tag line Left side third Cover line Imperative Superlative Sky line Pun Masthead Second person pronoun Interrogative Hyperbole Central image Use of numbers Connotation 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.

Here's a fun plurals starter with a competitive element - bound to engage the boys! In 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' style, this activity asks students to pluralise different words. As the monetary amount increases, the words get more and more difficult. For example, the £100 word is 'face', the £16,000 is 'goose', the £125,000 word is 'quiz' and the £1,000,000 is 'ox'. There are two versions of the game to play on two separate occasions; the second round takes students from 'house' (£100) to 'stimulus' (£1,000,000). This is a fun, competitive starter that engages students in plurals - incredible!

This is a fun, dynamic lesson in which students are creative right from the start. They do a shared writing activity as a class before analysing an extract from John McGregor's If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. This is an exemplary piece of descriptive writing entirely based on sounds. Students then start to plan their own piece of descriptive writing about a most loved or hated placed based entirely on sound. This then leads into students writing a descriptive piece about three paragraphs long that could be used as a writing assessment.

Students get into pairs. One partner must face the board, the other partner must face the back wall. The partner facing the board must try to describe the poetic device without actually saying what it is. The partner must guess what that poetic device is before their facing partner can move onto the next word. Students then swap places to swap roles. This starter activity lasts approximately 10 minutes. Students, especially boys, enjoy the competitive element. I've also enclosed a poetic device glossary which you may wish to hand out to students before or after the activity, depending on your group's ability, to recap some of the poetic devices.

Issue Characteristics of a Shakespearean Hero to pairs. Read through. Students are to find evidence for the characteristics; some have been done for them. After this activity, ask students: What is your personal response to Macbeth? Is he a likeable character? Do you feel sorry for him? Or do you think he deserves everything he gets? This resource is taken from my KS3 Macbeth SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Explain to students that Macbeth is going to write a letter to Lady Macbeth explaining the decision he’s arrived at. He should either persuade Lady Macbeth to give up on her ideas, or concede that Lady Macbeth might have a point, and he wants to go through with it. This could be written up in full as a writing assessment. This resource is taken from my KS3 Macbeth SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Readers want to consume the news as quickly as possible; they don’t want to excavate nuggets of meaning from mountains of words. The news needs to be written clearly, concisely and correctly – THE 3 BIG C’s. Illustrate with the following: Write on the board ‘FRESH FISH SOLD HERE’ The fishmonger had a sign which said ‘FRESH FISH SOLD HERE’. The fishmonger had a friend who persuaded him to rub out the word FRESH – because naturally he wouldn’t expect to sell fish that wasn’t fresh; to rub out the word HERE – because naturally he’s selling it here, in the shop; to rub out the word SOLD – because naturally he isn’t giving it away. And finally to rub out the word FRESH – because you can smell it a mile off. Using the same principle, you can ask students which words they could remove and why. Explain that vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a machine has no unnecessary parts. This doesn’t mean that the writer should make every sentence short, or avoid all detail. It just means that every word should TELL. Issue Wasteful Words sheet. Discuss the example; check understanding. Students to complete the sheet by giving the sentences a good butchering. Students to to try to make the sentences crisper, shorter and more to the point. The underlined words indicate where wasteful words are being used. After activity, ask students to complete the following sentence in their book. Writers have to be economical with language when writing the news because… This resource is taken from my KS3 English Newspaper/Journalism SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Show the PPT and discuss students' responses to the three questions. Discuss Roald Dahl's quotation, and the short story features on slide 3. Show slide 4 and issue Baby Shoes handout. Explain to students that this is a short story, just one sentence. Students are to read the ‘short story’ and think about the story behind it, e.g. Has a married couple lost a baby? Encourage students to think a little more left-field, like is 'Baby Shoes, Never Worn' the name of a painting? Students should jot down their ideas around the ‘short story’. They may discuss their ideas with a partner. Introduce Ernest Hemingway. Students are to copy down notes into their exercise book. Ask students to think of a collective name they would give to stories that are six words long, e.g. ‘sentence stories’. Encourage students to be inventive. They may discuss in pairs. Show slide 4; these are different names given to the shortest of short stories - are the ones students suggested up there? Split students into seven groups. Give each group one piece of Flash Fiction stuck to a piece of A4 paper. As a group, they must decide the ‘story’ behind each piece of flash fiction. Model activity. Rotate the flash fiction allowing different groups to make notes on the same sheet of paper. Encourage students to think outside the box and not to go straight for the obvious. After 10-15 minutes, make sure each group has one piece of flash fiction. Each group should read their flash fiction aloud and explain their story behind it. Students who are not presenting should listen, as they will be randomly selected to pick and explain their favourite piece of flash fiction. (Optional) Issue question cards. Ask students to see whether the 'short story features' discussed earlier apply to the six-word stories. As a final activity, students should have a go at writing their own 6-word short story. Share with the class. Issue Question Cards