UPDATED! Low prep and high engagement!
Boost interest before you even introduce the text of Romeo and Juliet by presenting students with a crime scene and asking them to solve the crime. Students take on the following roles, each taking turns to lead the investigation:
CSI Team Leader
Coroner
Toxicologist
Detective (witness statements)
Detective (evidence locker)
Investigator (suspects)
Students work through crime scene maps, toxicology reports, coroner’s reports, witness and suspect information, and cross-reference it all before feeding their conclusions back to the class.
Can be completed with groups of six or four students, and as many groups in a class as you need. Works with lessons as short as 50 minutes and as long as 100.
This resource is provided in both US letter and UK A4 document size.
20 weeks of literacy slides! 20 slides with 100 activities - five per slide. Use as bellringers, exit tickets, brain breaks or for whole school home room tasks. The slides feature a combination of turn and talk, close reading, proofreading, sentence development, mime, quick writing and vocabulary tasks.
You could use one slide once a week for a set of activities together, or complete one of the five tasks on the slide each day of the week. Could also be used to support ESL.
This product includes…
UK and US versions of the above
Fully editable Google Slides versions of the above
Answer key for all proofreading tasks
Push your students to be accountable for their progress with these print and go accountable feedback sheets!
Stick or staple them to the student work, or hand them out before submission. Students select an improvement area from the checklist, decide a course of action and provide a demonstration sample.
Are they on the right track? You let them know in your response, and they have done most of the work!
Includes…
Worksheets for comprehension, creative writing, essays, and the basic mechanics of writing
Full size, half size and quarter size sheets of all of the above
Full red, full black and mixed color versions of all of the above
…that’s 36 PDF worksheets!
If you love succulents and cacti, this set of 15 posters is perfect for your themed learning environment! The posters have five background designs and explain 15 different punctuation and grammar rules - perfect for your middle or high school ELA classroom.
The posters are US letter size document and are provided as a high quality PDF file.
28 printable activity bookmarks for frontloading and exploring new unit or topic vocabulary. A perfect addition to any study unit!
The differentiated bookmark faces range from simple responses to critical and evaluative responses. The formats are inspired by models and theories such as Bloom, Frayer and Stahl/Nagy.
The bookmarks are formatted so two styles can be printed back to back - mix and match the differentiated versions for double sided bookmarks!
Challenge your high school students to draft more vivid creative writing with these 20 printable Row of 4 grids, each featuring 49 winter image prompts! Complete with explanation slideshow, modelling and examples, this pack ends the needs for spoon-feeding vocabulary and sets expectations of independence… with a competitive twist!
TOTALLY INCLUSIVE: No mention of seasonal celebrations such as Christmas!
Want more? Check out my Winter ELA BUNDLE | Inclusive Tasks and Activities | Non-Christmas
This winter description game is designed to encourage middle and high school students to step out of their comfort zones. Many rely on simply using teacher or class-provided word banks and vocabulary lists to write creatively - visual prompts allow students to create their own!
This pack includes the following printables:
Three examples of writing on a printable modelling sheet
Instructions and examples slideshow
10 giant Row of 4 sheets for students to use in pairs
10 giant Row of 4 sheets for students to use in teams of up to four
Overview:
Students must write a winter description or narrative piece. The challenge is to use the ideas on the grid in some way, either as part of the plot or the description, marking the images off with counters or in pen and trying to mark off four ideas in a row – vertically, horizontally or diagonally.
Students CANNOT mark off ideas before they are down in writing, nor can they use an idea already marked off by another student. They can only claim the idea on the grid once it is down in ink or pencil in their draft.
Once a student has achieved four in a row, they gain a point which they can mark on their scoresheet as a tally
The student with the most tallies at the end of the writing session is the winner!
Deconstruct and conduct a pre-reading study of My Mother’s Perfume by Pascale Petit… without the poem! This pre-reading pack of 11 mini-lessons will guide your students as they consider the settings, concepts, colors, emotions, movement, people and imagery in the poem they are about to study, before creating a hexagonal thinking map of their expectations.
Need the lesson plans too? Check out my FREE Lesson Plans for Poetry Deconstruction!
Deconstructing the poem means to pull it apart and and study the broken segments before putting it back together. Your students’ depth of understanding when you finally read the poem together may surprise you!
Includes…
Deconstruction of Setting worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Color worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Visuals worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Smell and Taste worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Concept worksheet and slides
Deconstruction of Emotions worksheet and slides
Deconstruction of Movement worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Objects worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of People worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Imagery worksheets and slides
Instructions for Hexagonal Thinking handout and slides
Printable pre-populated hexagons
Digital hexagon map with moveable elements
The full poem can be found online.
Deconstruct and conduct a pre-reading study of Goodbye by Alun Lewis… without the poem! This pre-reading pack of 11 mini-lessons will guide your students as they consider the settings, concepts, colors, emotions, movement, people and imagery in the poem they are about to study, before creating a hexagonal thinking map of their expectations.
Need the lesson plans too? Check out my FREE Lesson Plans for Poetry Deconstruction.
Deconstructing the poem means to pull it apart and and study the broken segments before putting it back together. Your students’ depth of understanding when you finally read the poem together may surprise you!
Includes…
Deconstruction of Setting worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Color worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Visuals worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Sound worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Concept worksheet and slides
Deconstruction of Emotions worksheet and slides
Deconstruction of Movement worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Objects worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of People worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Imagery worksheets and slides
Instructions for Hexagonal Thinking handout and slides
Printable pre-populated hexagons
Digital hexagon map with moveable elements
The full poem can be found online.
Deconstruct and conduct a pre-reading study of Blackberrying by Sylvia Plath… without the poem! This pre-reading pack of ten mini-lessons will guide your students as they consider the settings, concepts, colors, emotions, movement and imagery in the poem they are about to study, before creating a hexagonal thinking map of their expectations.
Need the lesson plans too? Check out my FREE Lesson Plans for Poetry Deconstruction!
Deconstructing the poem means to pull it apart and and study the broken segments before putting it back together. Your students’ depth of understanding when you finally read the poem together may surprise you!
Includes…
Deconstruction of Setting worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Color worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Visuals worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Sound worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Concept worksheet and slides
Deconstruction of Emotions worksheet and slides
Deconstruction of Movement worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Objects worksheets and slides
Deconstruction of Imagery worksheets and slides
Instructions for Hexagonal Thinking handout and slides
Printable pre-populated hexagons
Digital hexagon map with moveable elements
The full poem can be found online.
This booklet of 12 Christmas-themed extracts from classic fiction is a great flexible resource for festive or winter units.
Wide-spaced for easy annotation and an editable Google Apps version of the extracts included, you can adapt the pack to your high school students’ needs.
Each extract is heavy in sense of place, figurative language, and genre. Suitable for Gifted and Talented students or Honors classes.
The pack also includes activity sheets for single extracts, paired extracts and multiple extracts. Check out the preview!
Excerpts have been selected from:
The Christmas Tree and the Wedding, Fiodor M. Dostoyevsky (1917)
The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1905)
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (1843)
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., Washington Irving (1819)
Twas the Night Before Christmas, Clement C Moore (1912)
At the North of Bearcamp Water, Frank Bolles (1893)
All Things Considered, G. K. Chesterton (1915)
Where the Christmas Tree Grew, Mary E. Wilkins (1892)
Bertie’s Christmas Eve, Saki (1919)
10.A Kidnapped Santa Claus, L. Frank Baum (1904)
11.The Lay of the Land, Dallas Lore Sharp (1908)
12.A Traveler at Forty, Theodore Dreiser (1913)
40 printable book report templates in the style of a bento box!
Student can either write, draw, or glue information or images into the sections to represent their book. Fantastic for creating visual summaries with appealing results!
Four designs each differentiated to multiple levels - with prompts, with four or five sections, with flaps to lift, and totally blank for student organization or for you to instruct on specific content requirements… that’s 48 pages!
This set of 66 worksheet activities explores Jaques’ speech from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, also known as the monologue All the World’s a Stage or the Seven Ages of Man.
Includes…
How to Use guide
Printable sheet of the full speech from As You Like It
27 Line by line sheets for individual students to translate and illustrate in both a fun font and plain font
Full page of selected lines for students to translate and illustrate in small bubbles
Double-sided page of the same selected lines for students to translate and illustrate in slightly larger bubbles
4 differentiated versions of modernized Seven Ages of Man worksheet in both a fun font and plain font
You can also use classroom discussion, group discussion, Turn and Talk and other collaborative methods to build and bank ideas before completing the activities.
Writing frames for descriptive, exposition, persuasive, narrative and review written pieces. Each resource is a single page writing frame or scaffold to guide pupils through writing a five-paragraph piece, plus matching themed writing paper.
The scaffold page features five sections for planning five paragraphs, and there are three columns for each paragraph: what to include, useful sentence starters, and space to plan or make notes for the written content.
There are prompts for appropriate punctuation at the bottom of the page, and this can be used as a worksheet, handout or poster.
This resource comes in both UK A4 and US letter document sizes.
Close-reading, creative character tasks for GCSE study. Students use quotations about George, Lennie, Slim, Crooks, Carlson and Curley’s Wife from the novel* Of Mice and Men*, building a picture of the character with these references.
This product includes…
‘Blank canvas’ sheet with 16 quotations
‘Gingerbread man’ sheet with 16 quotations provided
Realistic man outline sheet with 16 quotations provided
…for all characters. That’s 18 sheets!
You might like…
Character Revision Placemats | Of Mice & Men
Theme Revision Placemats | Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men | Context Workshops | Group Work
Of Mice and Men | Light Symbolism | Post-Reading | GCSE Close Study
This booklet of 18 activities for Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a great flexible resource for festive or winter units, and includes an editable Google Docs version. Select differentiated activities as necessary for your students!
Includes:
Character Sketches
Scrooge
Marley’s Ghost
Scroogify Christmas Carols
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Christmas Tree
The Twelve Days of Christmas
Diaries of the Ghosts
Marley’s Ghost
The Ghost of Christmas Past
The Ghost of Christmas Present
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
Close reading - Sense of Place
Annotation of three extracts
Comparison of three extracts
Differentiated Comprehension Question Worksheets
Character
Setting
Mood
Theme
Language
Comprehension Question List (simplified version of above)
Differentiated Close Analysis Essay – Impressions of Scrooge
Extract for annotation
Differentiated planning sheet with model row
Differentiated planning sheet with model row and supplied quotations
Additional reverse side of sheet
Gamify proofreading and editing work with these 60 pages of printable Bingo grids! Task students with finding these errors in their own work, or during peer assessment. Give prizes for the most errors found and corrected - make mistake discovery a positive activity!
Aimed at secondary school students, this pack includes…
40 different printable grids of common spelling, punctuation and grammar errors
20 sheets of the above as half-page printables
Blank PPT versions to create your own with editable text boxes
Log sheet for students to write quotes as proof of errors found and corrected
That’s 64 pages and slides - enough for every student in the class, and for every student to get a different card each time you play proofreading bingo!
Learn, analyze and use persuasive devices in speech with this packet of resources with cheat sheets, models, transcripts, writing frames and speech topic suggestions.
Includes:
Teacher notes for use of resources
Two differentiated cheat sheets of persuasive devices in mnemonic format
Directions to Will Stephens’ TedX Talk: How to Sound Smart in your TedX Talk
Graphic organizers for use during or immediately after viewing the talk
Transcript model of the talk for annotation
Instructive slideshow for Silent Discussion annotation activity
Talk scaffold based on the model
Talk planning frame based on the model
List of talk topic suggestions for student choice
Perfect for those studying Foster by Claire Keegan as part of the revised WJEC Literature specification.
37 pages of close analysis and thoughtful discussion prompts in quick-print format. More activities to come, and although this pack does NOT currently include an answer key, this will be added in the future and previous buyers will have free access to all updates.
This set of worksheet activities introduces your students to the basics of Early Modern English in preparation for any Shakespeare unit.
Includes…
Introduction to Shakespearean vocabulary
Outline of Early Modern English pronouns
Outline of Early Modern English verbs
Five levels of differentiation for each of the above
Two Shakespearean vocabulary extension tasks
Early Modern Insult Creator
Each worksheet has a difficulty level indicated by a star rating. You can assign the activities in different ways:
Teacher determines the difficulty level for individual students and distributes tasks accordingly
Student treats the five task options as a choice and selects own difficulty level
You can also use classroom discussion, group discussion, Turn and Talk and other collaborative methods to build and bank ideas before completing the activities.