A study vlog looking at the moral of Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ which students may be studying for GCSE English Literature.

Study vlogs looking at different aspects of GCSE English Language, helping students to revise. Can also support remote learning.

This study vlog models how to annotate a poem, using Owen Sheers ‘Y Gaer’ and ‘The Hill Fort’

A Powerpoint to give tools for students to revise for an extract response in any novel or text. Suits GCSE/ AS Level English Lit. I have also made a Study Vlog video to go with this.

This study vlog works through how to compare two poems, using William Blake’s ‘The Tyger’ and ‘The Lamb’

These are resources I created for my Year7 class to teach them how to summarise and then give them a scaffolded persuasive ‘real life’ writing task of writing a letter to a soft drink company to persuade them to support the Deposit Return Scheme of plastic bottles. There is an article about companies lobbying the Government to delay the DRS which students summarise in sections.

When I was teaching the WJEC Larkin/Duffy AS poetry unit, I bought a number of critical texts on Larkin and these are my typed up notes with extracts from a range of critics. Ideal if you don’t want to purchase critical books which can be expensive and time consuming to work through.

The Powerpoint identifies six key features of Austen’s style for pupils to look for in an extract question. The whole of Chapter 1 is included on a handout. Then there is an extract booklet which can be used in class or set as homework with extracts from the first eight chapters of the novel, with practice extract questions.

This PowerPoint contains extracts from websites with details of contextual significance to To Kill a Mockingbird, explaining why lynch mobs were common in relation to sexual crimes in the South. It also contains extracts from the text and Chapter 15, where the potential lynch mob arrive at Maycomb jail, for analysis of the Gothic parody and the increase in tension.

A revision guide focusing on social and historical context, key quotes, and critics.

This bundle contains a Powerpoint with key terminology, a Powerpoint with slides on chapters 1-8 with focus on identifying character flaws, a notes handout to help students prepare to write an essay on Austen’s social values in Chapters 1-8, and a handout with some critical extracts from Helena Kelly’s very accessible ‘Jane Austen the Secret Radical’.

This lesson asks students to use verbal reasoning to clarify unknown vocabulary, then gives three ‘explain’ GCSE reading style questions. There is also an accompanying writing task ‘is Britain a class-divided society?’.

This is a short unit of work aimed at Year 7 (Level 4-5). There is a bank of proofreading tasks which work as starters, and a Powerpoint which goes through reading and annotating the article before students write about how the text makes cadets attractive to young people using a P.E.E. grid, paragraph scaffold and then independently. There is also a short version of the article for those working at Level 3. I have also included in the Powerpoint some DIRT work, a differentiated spelling list, and a vocabulary extension task.

This was written as a model essay for WJEC ‘Lord of the Flies’ paper, where context is heavily weighted as 67% Ao4. I wanted to show the pupils how to look at historical and social context but in a way that is specific and relevant to the question.

This is designed for Year 7 students reading ‘When Secrets Set Sail’ by Sita Brahmachari. There are comprehension questions, homework research tasks, and an extended reading response task looking at the relationship between Usha and Imtiaz. There is also a class discussion on the idea of reparations. This was written for Black History Month and can be used to help improve diversity in the curriculum.

This PPT gives information on Ballantyne’s novel ‘The Coral Island’ which ‘Lord of the Flies’ was based on. The PPT also uses information from Wikipedia on ‘social Darwinism’ to explore the historical context and influences of Darwin’s ideology and imperialism on both texts, and how both texts respond to these ideas, particularly in Golding’s context post WWII with Nazi eugenics.

Based on WJEC style questions, this mock Language paper uses four texts on the theme of Child Soldiers and gives low-tariff and high-tariff questions such as text purpose, summary and synthesis.

I created practice GCSE reading and writing tasks using two contrasting articles: the Coddling of the American Dog and a web page from Dogs Trust. The article is funny and looks at how much money is in the pet industry in America today, and there are retrieval questions, vocabulary development, explain questions and a ‘how’ question. Includes mark scheme with specific answers from the text, but also marking bands from WJEC. There is a compare question and also a writing task to advise a friend who is considering buying a dog.

This resource is a ‘how’ question for GCSE students and I actually used it with a class who were only sitting Language, but reading one of the Literature texts alongside the course. The Powerpoint breaks down how to annotate and then use P.E.E to build an answer, and includes self assessment.

An article about the ‘Critics’ Club’ with a summarise and explain question, then a choice of three writing tasks. Suits candidates aiming for A-A*. Accompanying PPT to help.