A glossary of useful terms for English and English literature - good for years 9, 10 and 11. perhaps even y12/13. Students to fill in throughout year or a good hmwk task.

A set of short extracts on the topic of feminism from a wide variety of sources (e.g. Mary Wollstonecraft, Helene Cixous, Naomi Woolf, Lady Gaga...) Suggestions for use included inside. Creates an interesting discussion/ thinking points before starting the study of a female writer (in this case, it was Sylvia Plath)

Essay instruction sheet for essay on To Kill A Mockingbird with hints and tips - good half term hmwk or could be prepared in class as an exercise in essay planning.Question is: 'Explore the ways in which Harper Lee presents the development of Scout and Jem in the first section of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’.'

Simple powerpoint with questions and thinking points for act 3 of The Crucible. Good for first reading in class and discussion - could be used as a starting point for a more extended piece of writing or a debate/discussion for speaking and listening.

A detailed revision powerpoint, outlining the AQA modern texts exam (although this could be removed/ changed to fit your board) and lots of slides on context, complete with questions encouraging students to make links to the novel. Final slide suggests they get into groups and come up with essay plans to past exam questions.

I am doing Wilfred Owen's war poetry with my AS English lit group and this is something I am going to use with them as an introduction to the topic in order to get them thinking about war. It contains two sets of extracts, war themed. The class will be split into two groups and each has to present what they have found out from the extracts ALONE. Could also use extracts for lots of other purposes…

Powerpoint should be explanatory but: a starter activity on semiotics to get them thinking about signification (interesting links can be drawn between boom of advertising in 1920s). Then group work focusing on the opening description of The Valley of Ashes and first intro to Myrtle and Wilson. Plenary activity on magical realism of Fitzgerald (taken from EMC guide) and then a homework essay, closely analysing this passage.(with OCR objectives but could be adapted for other boards)

A range of worksheets/activities for some of the texts in the EdExcel English iGCSE anthology for the exam. Texts include Chinese Cinderalla, Climate Change, Explorers or Boys Messing About, and A Passage to Africa. There are also two film articles to discuss compare for unseen non fiction. Fairly straightforward but hopefully useful stuff.

Lesson (fully explained in powerpoint) on Anglo Saxon poetry more generally (linked into Beowulf), with a focus on kennings. Homework activity uses modern kennings poem as a model and lets them have a go at writing their own. I used with year 7 but could be extended to year 8. Lots of fun!

A number of resources created for 'The Ruby in the Smoke'. Includes an essay plan for writing about character, synonym and antonym starter with words taken from book, a list of items to research for homework linked to b/ground of book and short descriptions of character from book, which could be used for analysis or to inspire own writing.

As with the others the powerpoint is pretty self-explanatory, but the aim of this lesson is to help students understand how meaning is made and be able to write succesfully about it in exams. Overarching objective is to explore techniques used to analyse the way in which writers create particular effects. The extract used is a James Lee Burke one, so quite exciting :) in an englishy way!

Full lesson plan and activity, leading to an essay

A good way of practising close reading skills.. these resources are: 1. a selection of openings to novels; can be used in a number of ways.. with frameworks to develop close reading skills, dicussion, when beginning a novel with a particular effective opening. 2. powerpoint for reading lesson; memory game starter included and circuit training activity complete with self timer built in- open it to see! 3. extracts to be used in activity explained in powerpoint… works a treat, i promise!

For new iGCSE anthology, nothing existed on this poem so I created it. Copy of poem attached.

This resource was developed when I was teaching 'The Handmaid's Tale' in Year 12 on the OCR spec for comparative c/work but could be used/adapated for any study of a prose text. The idea is to get the students 'asking the right questions' of texts, with a solid focus on assessment objectives (in this case A03/4). Hopefully the powerpoint explains it but essentially, each student (or in pairs) is a that allow the best possible answer. . . The 'steps' outlined in the powerpoint give them guidance.

Two introductory resources I used for a y12 group about to start studying Austen's 'Persuasion' for c/work/ Pre-reading activity gets them thinking about openings to a selection of Austen novels (so could be used for any Austen novel). We focused on style and applied critical ideas about entry strategies. Then there is a female character adjective match focusing on chapters 1-3. They have to find supporting quote/evidence to justify their ideas.

Students have to find the titles of Shakespeare's plays hidden inside the wordsearch...

I created a learning objectives sheet/ key vocab and stretch/challenge targets for each act of 'An Inspector Calls'. Good sheets to give students at the beginning of each act- you can return to these as much as you like throughout study...simple...but work well!

Inspired by the fab tension chart on Teachit for 'An Inspector Calls', I created one for the novel 'Jekyll and Hyde'. Helps students to consider structure/ pace/ ordering of events/ linear v actual etc etc.

Printable handouts for Macbeth: decision tree and conversation analysis. First on is a checklist of conversation techniques (eg turn taking/ adjacency pairs), which you can use to analyse the Lady M and Macbeth scenes pre the murder of Duncan. Gets them thinking about the language of power, as well as the nature of spoken language. Resource two is a decision tree for students to fill in, exploring all the possibities and consequences facing Macbeth at the end of Act 1.