I teach English at an academically successful school in Berkshire. I only publish resources that I have personally used in the classroom and always aim for maximum visual and interactive impact.
I teach English at an academically successful school in Berkshire. I only publish resources that I have personally used in the classroom and always aim for maximum visual and interactive impact.
A full lesson designed to lead students through the poem Half-Past Two by U. A. Fanthorpe which appears on the Edexcel IGCSE Literature specification.
The visually-pleasing resource includes: a choice of starter activity; an ‘exploding’ quotations activity with detailed exemplar; guided language analysis with questions on key lines; a PETAL paragraph writing frame to support students in writing a response to an exam-style question.
The cover image was created by AI and is included in the resource.
A full lesson guiding students through the poem ‘Hide and Seek’ by Vernon Scannell, which appears on the Edexcel IGCSE Literature specification.
The resource contains: a simple starter activity; guided analysis, breaking down key lines with questions; a plenary activity asking students their thoughts on the moral of the poem.
The lesson could be developed with an extended writing activity and additional questions for each section of the poem. These are not included and this resource is not as detailed as some other resources in my shop, hence the lower price point.
The lesson begins with some definitions of reliable and unreliable narrators, requiring students to justify which they feel Offred is. Next, students discuss the benefits of each type of narrator to an author before looking at some specific sections where Offred can be seen as unreliable. They must analyse the possible reasons and effects of this lack of reliability.
The resource is aimed at AS / A level students just beginning the novel. The presentation unpacks the first page and half of Atwood's novel in a fair bit of detail. The epigraphs, satire, context, significance of names and mode of narration are all covered. More like this to come.
This lesson takes students through the Petrarchan sonnet form and Keats’s use of it, key context surrounding the poem and discussion / language analysis questions which focus students on its main interpretations. The language analysis task can be enacted in groups or as individual / paired comprehension. I have also included some information on Apollo and his relevance to Keats, as well as information on ‘The Camelion Poet’.
Separate PowerPoints for chapters 2 and 3 of The Handmaid's Tale.
The chapter two presentation deals with the introduction of the Marthas, the shift in style from the first chapter and some of the key images from the second chapter.
The chapter three presentation focuses on the character of Serena Joy. It includes context on the three women Serena Joy's character was based on. I have included some links to clips of the women, which stimulate debate as their views are fairly controversial. Then there is a simple outline for group work and an essay question.
The lesson begins by building character profiles of Commander Fred Waterford and Fred Judd, and asks students to consider the significance of each character. Next is a close focus on the presentation of his character with discussion questions and, finally, a motion that forms the basis of a debate over his character.
A bright and visual presentation with a mix of teacher led and student led activities, designed to promote engagement and independent thought. Structure, form, language and context are all covered. There is an annotation activity for students' anthologies (not just copying off the board). The resource would suit middle ability and more able students studying the Eduqas exam board for GCSE and provides work for at least 2 lessons.
Lesson 3 in the scheme of work on writing in the dystopian genre. The lesson could be used as a one-off resource but is designed to build on students’ prior knowledge of noun phrases, non-finite clauses and adverbials.
The resource asks students to think about the conventions of the genre and then asks them to write their own story openings. An original exemplar story opening is included to discuss / annotate with the class, which showcases the techniques practised in the previous two lessons.
The lesson has been designed for use with high-ability year 7s, but would equally be suitable for students in years 5, 6 or 8, dependent upon ability.
Intended as the fifth in a creative writing scheme of work on dystopian writing. However, this lesson will work independently.
The resource is centred around an extract from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick as an example of how students could write a persuasive advert for their own automaton - either humanoid or animal.
I have included an additional starter activity as the material may take more than one lesson to cover.
The resource was designed for high ability year 7 students, but could work for students in years 5, 6 or 8, dependent upon ability.
A simple lesson focusing on the use of rhyme in Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. I would recommend it being taught to younger students getting to grips with how we annotate rhyme schemes and compose rhymed poems; I taught this lesson to a mixed ability year 7 class.
The presentation includes a starter asking students to use metaphors. Then, there is a slide exemplifying the difference between true and near rhyme. I’ve included an embedded video of a good reading of the poem. Following this is an annotation exercise and, finally, students are asked to write their own rubai using the same rhyme scheme as Frost.
This lesson teaches students how to analyse the language of a poem through a range of activities relating to Counting Tigers by Gillian Clarke. It includes a choice of starter activity, a quotation ‘exploding’ activity, two exemplar responses to an exam-style question on the poem and a writing frame utilising the PETAL acronym to help students write their own response. The lesson is highly visual and there may be enough content to cover more than just one one-hour lesson. I taught this lesson to a low-ability year 9 class, but it could easily be pitched to GCSE students as an unseen poem.
A step-by-step PowerPoint that takes students through writing an analytical response to a question on Shelley's Ozymandias. It centres on an exemplar piece that might be indicative of a grade 7 or 8 and has a writing frame included. There is also an annotating activity and a web hunt. It does not cover comparison to other poems. Suggested for more able years 10 and 11.
An introduction to Romanticism aimed squarely at KS3. The focus is on the art and ideals of the Romantic era and begins with some annotation of Fuseli's The Nightmare. There is a link to an engaging video on the topic, though it runs rather fast, so it would be worth pausing for discussion or using the video with higher ability only. The presentation contains printable grids with key questions, drawing students attention to important things in the artwork. The resource does not deal with any literature, but provides an opening from which you can segue into the works of the Romantics.
Some of the better lessons I created for a year 9 War Poetry SOW. They are visual, many contain clips and are all fully differentiated (including LOs).
A lesson which examines the imagery, form and context of Keats’s On sitting down to read King Lear once again. A group task is provided to facilitate study of the imagery of the poem quatrain by quatrain.
The second in a sequence of lessons on dystopian fiction which builds upon grammatical skills for writing. The resource works as a stand-alone lesson too.
The lesson introduces students to adverbs and adverbial phrases through the blurb of Gone by Michael Grant, getting them to identify the different types of adverbial in the text before asking them to write their own blurb or story opening in the dystopian genre.
This lesson was designed for Year 7 but could work for students in years 5, 6 or 8 dependent upon ability.
A simple, highly-visual introduction to adjectives with a range of explanations and tasks for students to complete. There is also information and tasks on adjectival phrases and postmodification.
The resource would make a good introductory lesson to this word class for primary age students (perhaps years 4, 5, 6) or early secondary age students who need a reminder (year 7).
This is a 35-slide series of lessons for the Edexcel English Literature A level course on the poetry anthology ‘The Great Modern Poets’.
The resource introduces modernism briefly and then contains individual lessons for the six poems of Robert Frost’s in the anthology:
The Runaway
Mending Wall
Stopping by woods
Mowing
The Road Not Taken
Out, out-
Engaging YouTube videos are linked, there are a variety of discussion questions about language, form and structure and key context is provided.
I have also drawn on online web articles (contained within) as a stepping-off point for discussion - mainly from the Poetry Foundation website, which I found very useful in teaching this scheme. Links to the original articles are included.
Note that for ‘Out, out -’, there is only a one-slide brief for a student presentation, rather than the more in-depth, discussion-based material provided for other poems.
An introductory lesson aimed at Year 7 students on dystopian writing. The resource could be used with students in 5, 6 or 8 too, dependent upon ability.
The lesson begins by deconstructing the etymology of the words ‘utopia’ and ‘dystopia’ and is then made up of a series of tasks on identifying, analysing and using nouns and noun phrases in relation to an extract from The Beach by Alex Garland. At the end of the scheme, students will use their learning to write a part of a dystopian story.
Two separate starter activities are included in case you would like to spread the material across two lessons. There should be enough material to do so.
Other lessons in the sequence will follow as they are completed.