I created this activity with my friend and former pupil Albert Nyathi, the Zimbabwean poet, musician and performer. This short unit of work focuses on the task of translating a Zimbabwean praise poem from Ndebele, and the creative task of making an successful version in English. (NB no knowledge of Ndebele is necessary!) Literary translation is a high end yet accessible activity, blending language awareness, cultural exploration and creative / poetic skills. All these elements feature in this resource. There are two versions - one which I have used with year 9 students (teacher and student version) as a fun end of term activity, and one which I have used with visiting year 5 students.

Two documents with very basic summary/ theme/ character activities on these two plays by Wole Soyinka. They were prepared for a class that struggled with the nuts and bolts and the document was designed to help them bring the key elements of tyhe plays together in the final build up towards CIEA A Level.

This set of worksheets on the poetry of Carlos Drummond de Andrade is designed as a complete unit of study of this fascinating but accessible modernist Brazilian writer. I’ve used these resources with great success with a series of classes, and the text is a good choice which reflects the thematic areas of ‘Readers, Writers and Texts’ and ‘Time and Place’. Carlos Drummond is a Portuguese language writer who appears on the prescribed lists of authors. The course materials (designed to be taught in 3-4 weeks) reflect a standard IB selection of 15-20 poems chosen from across the poet’s output. As well as teaching the specifics of this compelling author the course also covers essential skills for critical commentary and extension/ TOK concepts. The documents (which are presented as worksheets but can easily be adapted into powerpoints) are ready for use in class and are comprised of the following: 0 a pdf of the poems covered in the course (supplied for reference) 1 Biographical focus, including contextual exercise and prompts for an interactive oral task 2 Seven Sided Poem and Multitudinous Heart - with extension work on poetry translation 3 Childhood and Confessions of a Man - creative and analytical exercise 4 Journey Through The Family including an exercise on writing introductions for critical commentary 5 Family Portrait - a full Critical Commentary exercise 6 Sonnets - an exploration of form 7 End of unit exercises including supervised writing prompts and homework essay titles, with critical materials for ambitious students

A short activity pack for revising this brilliant text for CIEA A Level 9695, including 4 activities: -refamiliarising contexts with an NPR interview -individual poem activity (for single poem passage questions) -themes and topics list for multiple poem answers -set of short critical quotations for AO5. This pack should be used in collaboration with my very much longer full unit of work on this text - this is an addendum really, though useful for the final stages of study.

This is a comprehensive pack of 10 activities which, taken together, add up to a substantial revision process for this paper 1 text. The pack includes a pdf of the text for self printing and annotation. Activities are as follows: 1 self reading summary - Act I 2 self reading summary - Act II 3 self reading summary - Act III 4 themes worksheet 5 characters worksheet and resources 6 revision pack - short summaries, posters exercise, theme work, worksheet on versions (Kazan/ movie), extension work on critics for G&T 7 Pack of 7 original passages for practice 8 Pack of (original) whole text questions, grouped by theme 9 Cat Full Practice Paper 1 10 Cat Full Practice Paper 2 As ever my resources are high quality but are designed to be adapted into your own handouts and powerpoints in your own style.

This is a single word document containing a succinct set of five activities to help revision of this text for CIEA A LEVEL 9695. The pack can usefully be used in collaboration with the much longer unit of study available in my TES resources shop. This document has five useful sections to focus a revision programme and is designed for post study synthesis. As ever with my resources the material can easily be adapted to the style of your own powerpoints. Activity 1 Generalities - thoughts on contexts etc for introductions Activity 2 Themes and Dramatic Concepts - a succinct list to explore Activity 3 Plot Summaries to develop detail and comparisons between the plays Activity 4 Past paper pack (in separate pdf) - reviewing whole text questions to guide creation of loose plans Activity 5 A set of critical resources, helpfully summarised and emboldened, to help students memorise some quotations for AO5.

**A complete unit of work on Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks suitable for IB Literature or Language and Literature courses. ** Bob Dylan appears on the most recent Prescribed Authors’ list under ‘poetry’ and the approach to Dylan taken here is to focus on theme, language and form. Consideration of the musical element is constant but incidental. This course is also distinguished by the fact that I approach a single album as a text rather than taking a playlist/ Greatest Hits approach. This allows for an integrated approach to the ‘work’ and a satisfying experience for students brought up on Spotify. The contents of the pack features a series of worksheets and resources easily adaptable into your own powerpoints or documents. Tasks are clearly defined and delineated. Documents are as follows: 0 Outline course plan and copy of my article in NATE magazine describing the course 1 Biographical document and exercise 2 Introduction to Bob Dylan and portfolio/ TOK questions 3 Documents - lyrics. cover art, track lists, background 4 Worksheet 1 - Tangled Up in Blue - song as poem 5 Worksheet 2 - shorter songs - focus on stanza shapes plus additional exercise with You’re a Big Girl Now set up as an unseen literary commentary exercise 6 Worksheet 3 Idiot Wind - first listening and draft/ redraft comparison exercise 7 Worksheet 4 Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts - fractured narrative plus interpretations sheet 8 Worksheet 5 Two Love Songs 9 A portfolio of critical resources and extracts including original sleeve notes and a piece about Dylan’s intertextuality 10 An end of unit essay with a scaffolded structure.

NATIVE GUARD - Natasha Trethewey - Teacher Pack A complete pack of work for study of this compelling but challenging poetry text which appears on the syllabus for paper 4 of the Cambridge International A Level . There are 12 units in the pack, each with multiple activities. All poems in the collection are covered at some stage; there is a wealth of links to contextual and other materials; and there is a discrete pack of critical resources for use in delivering AO5 ‘other views’. Each of these 12 units has several elements, clearly divided and delineated. I have not converted the materials into powerpoints but this can be done very straightforwardly as questions and materials are clearly laid out. The text is in three distinct phases and I have structured the pack in line with this - considering each section holistically before constructing worksheets on individual poems. Contents is as follows: 1 Critical appreciation of Genus Narcissus 2 Considering part 1 as a whole 3 Worksheets on individual poems in part 1 4 Considering part 2 as a whole 5 The context of the part 2 poems - worksheet 6 Worksheets on individual poems in part 2 7 Considering part 3 as a whole 8 Worksheets on individual poems in part 3 9 The whole text: exploration of titles, epigraphs and poem order 10 The whole text: critical extracts for AO5 11 The whole text: end of reading discussion questions 12 Appendix - further interview transcript

This is a package of 15 resources designed to support study of the Train Driver and Other Plays for Cambridge international A level. The following items are included: 1 an exercise on the background to the plays - an IB style interactive context exercise 2 an original exercise in predictive ‘pitching’ - students use the notebooks to anticipate the dramatic direction of The Train Driver 3 a visually rich handout on staging the first play with exercises on theatrical styles 4 an introduction to critical perspectives (crucial for a paper 3 text) 5 and 5b - a whole text essay exercise on The Train Driver with follow up note on methods of integrating critical quotation 6 Exercise in comparison: openings of Train Driver and Coming Home 7 Coming Home - staging and setting exercises 8 Coming Home - Acts 1 and 2 9 and 9b - Character Development in Coming Home - grid and completed grid with notes 10 COMING HOME critical debate exercise 11 COMPARATIVE essay task with notes on writing comparatively 12 HAVE YOU SEEN US - production stills and compare/ contrast exercise 13 and 13b mock up exam style passage questions 14 mock up exam style whole text question with accompanying critical quotations

Manuel Rivas’s The Carpenter’s Pencil is a wonderful novel of the Spanish Civil War, originally written in Galician. It’s a great novel for IB being translated from an author on the prescribed author list and focusing on an obvious global issue, civil war. This is a basic workbook featuring an introduction to Rivas and his work, a section by section set of activities, and a series of critical essays which can be used as the stimulus for a LP activity or even (for HL essays) as secondary reading. Also included are instructions for the old syllabus interactive oral - I have retained this even though it is no longer necessary. It can be a useful cultural understanding exercise.

A basic, chapter by chapter workbook for the novel useful for IB Literature study. Introductory material - suggested questions and activities on each chapter - some critical essays - and a reflection activity suitable for the Learner Portfolio. This text is a great choice - it’s a short novel, a translated text, the author is on the prescribed authors list, the novel deals with the aftermath of slavery and so offers plenty of insight into global issues.

A worksheet for every poem in the IGCSE 0990/ 0992 selection for 2021 and 2022 - poems as follows: Maya Angelou, ‘Caged Bird’ Elizabeth Barret Browning, ‘Sonnet 43’ Sujata Bhatt, ‘Muliebrity’ Boey King Cheng, ‘The Planners’ Isobel Dixon, ‘Plenty’ Rosemary Dobson, ‘The Three Fates’ Robert Hayden, ‘Those Winter Sundays’ Seamus Heaney, ‘Mid-Term Break’ Mervyn Morris, ‘Little Boy Crying’ Norman Nicholson, ‘Rising Five’ Adrienne Rich, ‘Amends’ Edna St. Vincent Millay, ‘Sonnet 29’ Dennis Scott, ‘Marrysong’ Stevie Smith, ‘Not Waving But Drowning’ William Wordsworth, ‘She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways’ Suitable for classwork or private study. Each worksheet has a text of the poem, a short biography, and a series of questions approaching the text through important concepts - content, language/ lexis/ diction, imagery, sound, rhythm, rhyme and other formal elements. Some have starter and extension activities. These are ‘no fuss’ worksheets - ready to be handed out, and easily convertible into fancy slides etc for class use.

A full scheme of work for the Gillian Clarke selection currently on the CIEA International A Level (9695). The resource includes: Phase 1: Poems from The Sundial Introductory exercise with biography and links on Journey and Blaen Cwrt Worksheet on Baby-sitting and Catrin Worksheet on Death of a Young Woman and Lunchtime Lecture Writing exercise sheet on Burning Nettles End of Phase 1 exercise Phase 2: Poems from Letters from a Far Country Introductory exercise focusing on stanza shapes Worksheet on Lineation: Miracle on St David’s Day Worksheet on content and form: Scything and White Roses Worksheet on Poetic Thought: Ram and Death of a Cat Exam style writing exercise: Sunday End of Phase 2 exercise - Cader Idris Phase 3: Poems from Letting In The Rumour Introductory exercise, reading poems in thematic groups Worksheet and links: Cold Knap Lake Worksheet: Neighbours and Times Like These Worksheet on Imagery: Apples, February, Ichthyosaur Worksheet on Animal Poems - Seal, Pipistrelle and Hare Choice of Creative/ Recreative responses: Hearthstone, My Box, Postscript Phase 4 Final phase - a group activity - presenting on final four poems and connecting to Clarke’s wider themes.