I am passionate about making the teaching of some challenging texts accessible and fun for both staff and students, particularly in the wake of the new English specification. My desire is to share practical ideas and resources (from powerpoints and handouts to classroom displays) to make teaching an engaging but also straightforward and purposeful process!
I am passionate about making the teaching of some challenging texts accessible and fun for both staff and students, particularly in the wake of the new English specification. My desire is to share practical ideas and resources (from powerpoints and handouts to classroom displays) to make teaching an engaging but also straightforward and purposeful process!
This has proved to be an incredibly useful resource; every one of our year 11 students are required to bring their copy of this pack to every English lesson and intervention class to use as a point of reference.
It contains two thorough ten page documents including the following:
A title page with an inspiration quote (always nice).
Data tracking sheets for English Language and Literature, in which students or staff can log student progress using question-level analysis.
Space for students to identify their area(s) of progress and to create a progress plan.
A bank of independent study tasks for students to choose from (this is useful when setting homework). *
Prompting questions to help students to think carefully about their own progress and the circumstances surrounding it.
A breakdown of each exam, including AOs, percentages, marks, etc.
Advice for how to structure responses to every question in the Language and Literature qualification.*
Planning tips for reading and writing.
Four tables (one per paper), listing the relevant subject terminology for every paper and examples of how to use them in practice.*
Example extracts and questions (attached separately).
English Language and Literature PLCs, adapted from PiXL, as I considered these too vague.*
Pages with asterisks next to them differ slightly across both packs, as one is tailored towards students in high sets, and the other for students in low sets. I have provided word documents as these are lengthy, so you may find it useful to condense the documents for lower sets and use the document attached for students in middle sets.
This SOL includes 26 lessons, exploring Reading Paper 2: Section B Writing Skills through the Shakespeare text 'Much Ado About Noting' . Each lesson is detailed and fully differentiated using a 3 tier (challenge, stretch and super stretch) system for starter activities and main tasks. All accompanying resources, including relevant extracts from the play and thematic articles, are included in this SOL; they are all ready for printing.
This SOL contains a range of writing tasks which are linked thematically to Much Ado About Nothing and stand-alone lessons which can be used to teach writing skills to meet AO5 and AO6 criteria.
This was made with the purpose of supporting our department (of mainly new staff and trainee teachers) by having lessons that we only needed to tweak for the needs of our students, instead of spending hours struggling to invent the same wheel individually.
This SOL can be used for higher ability students in years 9-11.
The accompanying SOL, focusing on Section A, can be found here:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/new-2015-spec-aqa-sol-much-ado-about-nothing-with-reading-paper-2-section-a-skills-11468354
*NB: Slides 98-113 have been taken/adapted from a PPT from the following free resources:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/writing-to-explain-revision-map-and-powerpoint-6040531
This resource has been improved for teaching in the year 2018-19
This SOL was highly successful last year (2017-18); the feedback from my team was that it was easy to follow by all, useful for teaching trainees how to plan/structure their lessons and enjoyable for students.
This resource contains 26 fully planned and differentiated lessons (in one continuous PPT format), designed to teach poetry analysis skills to top set year 8 and middle-top ability year 9 students. It incorporates the teaching both Literature reading skills (AO1, AO2 & AO3) and descriptive and narrative writing skills (AO5 and AO6); the writing tasks are thematically linked to poems studied in this unit. I have also snuck in some Language AO4 questions to further stretch students.
In this SOL, monsters are explored as being mythical creatures, wild animals and human beings. Students are also encouraged to think critically about the subjects of these poems (are they truly monstrous or a product of their environment? Should we feel resentment and fear or sympathy in part?). A range of stimuli, including still and moving image (fiction and non-fiction), newspaper extracts, wordalls and audio clips have been used throughout this SOL to help students to engage creatively, personally and at times critically with the scheme’s topic.
The SOL covers the teaching of the following poems:
The Jabberwocky
Medusa
Education for Leisure
Caliban’s Dream (The Tempest)
Paradise Lost
The Kraken
The Villain
Six homework tasks (which have been adapted from various online sources) can be found by following the link below:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/monsters-poetry-sol-homework-11697376
Enjoy and please do rate it/contact me with any feedback that I can use to benefit the rest of us relentlessly hard-working professionals. :)