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.

The first sentence of an article (often printed in bold, or capitals, or a larger font) is called the topic sentence, as it introduces the main topic/subject of the article. It aims to give you the whole story in one go – who, what, where, why and when. Explain that it’s imperative that a writer is clear, concise and correct in their topic sentence. Issue Topic Sentences to pairs of students. Ask them to write down the five Ws and see how many their topic sentence answers. Students will see how concise the topic sentence is, and what questions have been left unanswered. After 5 minutes, ask students to swap their topic sentence with another pair and do the same. Discuss: How well were the topic sentences written? How could they have been improved? (PW) Display PowerPoint. Ask students to use the facts displayed to have a go at writing their own topic sentence. Show students the sentence written in the Daily Mail article (slide 3). Discuss how they’ve focused on the mother at the start of the sentence. Students to swap their topic sentences with a partner to see whether it answers the 5 Ws. This resource is taken from my KS3 English Newspaper/Journalism 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.

This resource offers a fun way of researching context. Before the lesson print of the questions and put them into colour-coded piles. You'll need as many questions are you have groups of students. For example, if you have 6 groups, you must of 6 print-outs of the questions. You'll need 6 x yellow questions, 6 x green questions, 6 x blue questions etc. Put students in teams of 3-4 students. Students must have immediate access to a laptop or computer to be able to find the answers to the questions. You need to put the piles of questions on your desk. Issue Q1 to all groups and 1 answer sheet to all groups. Groups must find the answer to Q1, write it down on their answer sheet and then bring their answer sheet to you. If the answer is correct, you issue them with Q2, and so on until groups have found all the answers to all the questions. It is basically a race to the finish, but the answers must be of quality because you have to 'okay' them before they're issued with the next question. Students enjoy the competitive element of this task. You may wish to give the winning group a small prize as an added incentive. Discuss the contextual research once the task is over and discuss its links with the play.

Go through the PowerPoint slide showing statements about Shakespeare. Students move to the left or right of the room depending on whether they think the statement is true or false. Once students have made their decision, click the mouse and show the answer. Use the Teacher's Notes to give students a little bit more information about the fact. This is an interactive starter activity that students really engage with.

Listen to Iron Maiden’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (8 minutes). This is an edited version of the original track as the original track has a lot of instrumentals! Issue lyrics. Students are to follow in order to gauge an understanding of the story. Issue the pictures on A4 paper to individual students. On a sticky note, they’re to describe what’s in the picture. They’re to then try and work out in what order the pictures go. They can refer to the lyrics to help them. It’s all speculation at the moment; try to work it out. This should help them to understand the narrative structure. Afterwards, students are to discuss what they think happens in the story from beginning to end. They should write their plot summary as a list on a piece of A3 paper as a pair and/or group. This should give them an understanding of the narrative structure.

Students complete two starter activities in the PPT that ask them to improve sentences to make them more dramatic and impactful. Students then look at Chapter 25 in which Michael's sister is described. Issue the Worksheet and two different coloured highlighters. Students are to highlight the important features of language and structure in the extract. Allow 10-15 minutes. Discuss students' findings. Ask students what impact the features have. Display slide 6 which explains how to write an effective PEE paragraph. Students are to write 3 PEE paragraphs about what they've found in Chapter 25 in their books. After 10-15 minutes, ask students to share their best PEE paragraphs.

This is a fantastic starter, guaranteed to engage the most disaffected students. Students look at images and decipher the message. For example, there is the letter 'X' made of cardboard boxes in one image, the message would be 'X-Box'. The practice image is 'hairspray'. The answers for each 'visual pun' are in the 'notes' box on PPT. This is a quick 5-10 minute starter that gets students thinking about more than what's at surface level. This activity could be a route into a lesson on looking for deeper meanings, inference and deduction.

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

Put students into 6 groups and issue each group one section of the Wife of Bath and one translation sheet. Students are spend 3 minutes with each section and write the modern translation on their translation sheet. IMPORTANT: Students must make sure they write their translation in the correctly numbered space on the sheet to ensure it's in order at the end of the task. They're to use the helpful hints to guide them. After students have had all 6 sections, they're to read out what they've translated. Discuss as a class.

A starter which explains the three different sentence types with examples, making reference to main clauses, subordinate clauses and embedded clauses. Ideal to use as an introduction to a piece of creative/descriptive writing where you'd expect students to use varied sentences.

Drama Assessment Use this grid to assess students in drama. Simply write the student’s name in the left-hand column and put a tick or ‘T’ in some of the boxes on the right to indicate whether the drama skill is something they do really well, or something they need to work on. You can write additional comments if you wish. The idea is that after the drama assessment you can give students praise, their level and their target in an efficient way. All students then need to do is write down their level and target on the blue sheet at the front of their small yellow exercise books. This grid focuses on nine key skills in drama, including facial expressions, spatial awareness, voice projection etc.

These are two little sheets to stick in the front of students' books. The 'marking key' is a simple guideline for students to understand your own little codes and markers that you use when marking their books. You would fill this in together at the start if the year by writing your own symbols on the board. The 'personal targets' sheet is for students to self-assess themselves at the start of the year. This allows you as a teacher to gauge an understanding of how the students self-assess. It is useful to look back on this at different points during the year to see whether students think they've made progress in certain areas.

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.

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.

How to use resources: Ask students: What do you already know about the structure of newspaper stories? You may need to establish the term ‘structure’ – I find asking them how a Big Mac burger is structured helps (two bread buns, burger, relish etc.) Display PowerPoint. Discuss with students. Issue Article students. Read through and discuss the structure. Go to slide 2 on PowerPoint. Students are to answer the questions in their books. Issue the Card Sort to pairs of students. Display slide 3 on PowerPoint to assist students. Ask students to write a short paragraph in their books explaining how they approached the task. What did they find easy or difficult? What language clues helped them to unscramble the text? Remind students that they were presented with a pyramid diagram at the start of the lesson to illustrate a news story structure. Ask students to draw a new diagram in their books which will help them remember the structure of a news story. Compare with a partner. This resource is taken from my KS3 English Newspaper/Journalism SOW which you can buy from my shop.

Revision booklet full of activities for students to do at home, lasting 10 weeks. It gives clear activities and reading for students to do each week. There are practice exam questions throughout the booklet. The booklet functions as a workbook that students can hand in once they've finished. It's proved incredibly successful with GCSE students.

GREAT 10-MINUTE STARTER TO CEMENT THE FOLLOWING KEY TERMS AND THEIR DEFINITIONS: Narrative stance Semantic field Prosodic features Syntax Paralinguistic features Idiolect Figurative language Imperative Graphology End-stopped line Interrogative Enjambment Phonology Pun Colloquialism Connotation Dialect Discourse structure Genre Lexis Idiom 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.

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.

Print off enough of these sheets to ensure you have one skill per student or group. When students are rehearing for a performance, hand students or groups one skill each. They have to focus on improving that skill in their rehearsals. You may swap the skills to ensure students are focusing on more than one skill.