Designed as a way of preparing y9s for the new GCSE, these resources may also suit some exam GCSE boards. Here 'The Diamond Necklace' by Guy de Maupassant introduces students to the concepts they will be studying at GCSE: context & structure. The 'Recipe for success' gives links to the text as well as a reading of the story and has various teaching suggestions. The Power Points outline whole lessons with handouts that allow for differentiation. The 'extend' PP introduces more able students to the idea of a 'context of production' and a 'context of reception' in a simple way.

Designed to suit AQA, KS5 Lit B, this task makes an ideal homework task or lends itself to group work, where there can be more discussion. The idea is to use the given 'possible content' from the mark scheme to prompt students to find evidence that could be used in a coherent response to the question. While it would be limiting to over-do this approach, it is an excellent way of getting students to think about ways of approaching a question, especially creating an element of debate. In a lesson after, the PP is a useful way fo turning the ideas into an essay that could be peer assessed using the exam board's memo [download from their site - it is a generic one, so any Q1 will do] Stronger classes can watch & discuss, then write the essay, weaker students may need to take it paragraph by paragraph - for them a handout of the PP might be a good way to proceed if the class is very mixed in ability.

Here the focus is on crafting paragraphs for effect, as part of improving the quality of creative writing at both KS3- particularly in preparation for the new spec. English exam - and KS4, enabling students ‘to demonstrate their narrative and descriptive skills in response to a written prompt, scenario or visual image’... For more able students the lesson ends with a challenge to change the mood between the opening paragraphs and the one students go on to write.

Whether revising unseen poetry or honing reading skills, focusing on a few lines of poetry as a starter enables students to practise picking out key words and commenting on them, as well as noting structural and literary devices. You could also use these as prompts for descriptive writing with a brigh KS3 group, or the new creative writing A-Level.

PP with note to teacher and 'brain gym' slide; starter looks at how the word Biography is built up; main section is defining the word and writing a brief biography and plenary is reporting back - a very simple introduction to the topic

Prepare your A-level students for AQA’s Section B unseen poetry question with this trial assessment, including an instruction PP with a link to an outstanding reading of the Keats; student friendly band descriptors; possible content with AOs and, of course, the question, based on both the 2017 and 2018 formulations. Ideal for use in a mock exam or test along with the feedback discussion of how to improve afterwards.

Descriptive writing is soon to be a major part of the English exam [from 2015 for 2017 exam], so it is a good idea to start 'drip feeding' techniques for top grades to more able KS3s as well as KS4s still doing course-work or just aiming to write more effectively. Each of these lessons uses short reading extracts too, to help students recognise techniques they could use, thus providing some preparation for the fiction reading portion of Paper 1 [new AQA English spec]. The PP outlines the lesson plan and the handout gives students a copy of the text extracts looked at. Notes on the relevant slides prompt less experienced teachers to notice relevant techniques. Peer marking ends the session. Photographs are once again used by kind permission of Graham Hobbs.

It is best to print this on A3. The point is for students to be able to choose which stories to write about quickly as soon as they see the question, so they map out which stories cover which aspects of gothic writing and list a key quote from each story that supports several points. The PP begins by explaining how the grid works. Then students fill in the grid - set the time in the space provided. The next two activities are covered over - the text is revealed on the click- if you want to edit this, just pull the blackened text box to one side and replace after. Using the grid as a help, students then decide which texts would be suitable for each past/ possible question. This should lead to discussion of several possibilities and reasons given...revision by stealth!

Help more able students develop their powers of description with this exercise; although it uses colour to create mood and atmosphere, the technique can be transferred to sustaining metaphors or similes, skills top marks are made of. The PP begins with a hyperlink[click on ‘colours’] to a song, Donovan’s ‘Colours’ [you may want to move to slide 2 on the musical interlude, as by then the link between colours and mood has been made] and takes students through the steps of choosing a colour while also making useful notes on the technique by looking at quotes and extracts. In the end, their task is to describe something, weaving colour imagery and mood words through the description. This could be set as a homework – or a next lesson. Linking this task to the opening lines descriptive writing task as a follow up lesson works well.

Drip-feed language analysis while familiarising students with unseen poetry… once a month, once a week or even one a lesson, this is not something to rush through. While it is a good idea to ask students to copy the text with an open line between line of the poem for annotations, the texts are also supplied as a worksheet to allow you the flexibility of setting the task for homework or differentiating by giving weaker students a printed version. As a quick revision exercise groups could work on separate extracts. Though ‘answers’ are given on the PP it is important to stress that these are only possible things to notice and any reasonable interpretation is worth considering. Another thing worth pointing out is that merely naming a technique like alliteration is not enough, the effect the poet creates should also be discussed and evaluated.

These quick starters are all self-mark and focus on vocabulary and spelling.

The lesson starter can easily become a discussion lesson with an enthusiastic class, but a 'one-liner' mumble if the class isn't interested: either have a discussio topic on each desk as students enter or put them in a hat for pairs to pick out. This gets them thinking about the themes covered by the collection of short stories. The lesson consists of short extracts promoting close reading in order to infer and deduce information about the characters and the setting. This is an important skill and if students say they didn't find the stories frightening, ask them whether they are just reading words or actually infering and deducing - I liken the difference to a balloon with and without the breath that blows it up. This is all about making reading a 3-D experience!

Being able to summarise is a vital skill. It is a particularly good way of checking understanding of what has been read and the ability to foreground the most important information when writing. It impacts other subject areas as summarising aids revision. The PP begins with a few guidelines and a starter exercise, models how to summarise and then gives an independent summary task using an extract from 'Out of Africa'. This task is also on the worksheet, which should be handed out at that point. There are two to a page to save printing costs. Students can check their own from the penultimate slide. The last slide plenary challenges students to think of other ways in which we summarise information, as in mind-maps & lists...

Rather than a series of lessons, this is a 'drop-feed' of tasks to improve older students' writing. The first step is to make them aware of how important accurate expression is. Great ideas are corroded by error-filled writing. The proof reading Power Point looks at two samples of students' writing that need to be improved - on the Word document these are written out to facilitate this process. In each case the next slide presents the corrected sample,so that students can peer mark or check their own. Each sample could be done in a different lesson: I'd recommend that for classes that are easily board by focused work. Likewise the two starters can be spread out. They focus on spelling, particularly the difference between sound and spelling, helping students notice pitfalls like ite/ight/ee/ea as well as the 'c' that sounds like 's'. Awareness leads to focus and on to improvement. That's the aim!

The questions on the worksheet are valid prompts for any comparison of poems, but are particularly for the new EDUQAS style of Section C unseen poetry comparison. The first worksheet contains the poems and the questions, which are based of the specimen papers provided by the exam board. This makes an easy to set homework of cover lesson. The second worksheet has key points as possible answers. So the task can be self or peer assessed easily. For other exam boards or general poetry preparation, the 'answers' could be the springboard for an essay comparing the two poems, to help less able students cluster their response.

Keep students mindful of the need to proof-read with regular starters and short SPaG exercises. These self-mark starters consist of an instructions slide and an answer slide PP and the text to be corrected on a handout, either for the whole class to aid speed or as differentiation to aid weaker/slower students.

This series is a question by question guide to the non-fiction paper, starting with reading. Each question begins with a ‘quick-fire starter’ when the technique required by the question is practised in its simplest form, usually a very visual text. This gives students confidence. It also keeps the time pressure on so that working quickly becomes a habit. Then the question requirements are explored through the exam board’s directives and again quick and easy examples with answers build up to more demanding practise through the series. Visual texts and Extracts of both 19th century and 21st century texts are used in the series to ensure students are undaunted by older texts. In all cases answers and a simplified mark scheme are provided. Although this series is preparing students for the Eduqas Component two English paper, it can easily be adapted to suit the question style of other exam boards: all have retrieval questions, inference questions etc. The focus of this resource is A2. A quick-fire starter gets students using the technique they need for the question on a simple visual task. The 'how to' PP looks more closely at the question's requirements and offers quick guided practise. The focus then shipts to how to formulate the gathered information into a 10mark answer. A sample answer is provided as well as a simplified, student-friendly marking memo that can be used for all the 10mark questions in this paper. Because work has been simplified to ensure a firm foundation, this task is also suitable for y9s beginning their GCSE work early.

This series is a question by question guide to the non-fiction paper, starting with reading. Each question begins with a ‘quick-fire starter’ when the technique required by the question is practised in its simplest form, usually a very visual text. This gives students confidence. It also keeps the time pressure on so that working quickly becomes a habit. Then the question requirements are explored through the exam board’s directives and again quick and easy examples with answers build up to more demanding practise through the series. Visual texts and Extracts of both 19th century and 21st century texts are used in the series to ensure students are undaunted by older texts. In all cases answers and a simplified mark scheme are provided. Although this series is preparing students for the Eduqas Component two English paper, it can easily be adapted to suit the question style of other exam boards: all have retrieval questions, inference questions etc. The focus of this resource is A1, so time has been taken to explain how the whole CP2 paper works. The starter introduces retrieval type questions, the main lesson looks at the overview of the exam, then moves on to a closer focus on retrieval, before the text becomes more demanding as students work independently. A hwk sheet is introduced and then assessed via a third PP. Because work has been simplified to ensure a firm foundation, this task is also suitable for y9s beginning their GCSE work early.

Questions on the climax in Act 2. Suitable for homework and SEN.