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J. D. Gardner's Shop

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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.

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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.
Significant Cigarettes
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Significant Cigarettes

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An upgraded version of this resource with more activities, including exemplar material, a quiz, and support material for extended writing. 2-3 lessons worth of content on Significant Cigarettes, an excerpt from Rose Tremain’s 2007 novel The Road Home, which appears in the Edexcel IGCSE Anthology. These lessons were used to help produce the poetry and prose coursework. Students wrote on the theme of ‘identity’ in three texts. There is a wide range of activities, including guided annotation, discussion questions, analysis and practice paragraph writing. The PowerPoint is 19 slides in length (with an additional 4 slides at the end unused by me in recent teaching), so there should be plenty for you to pick and choose from. The excerpt is not supplied with the lesson.
Hyperion: A Fragment by John Keats
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Hyperion: A Fragment by John Keats

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This resource can be used across 2-3 lessons and leads students through the plot, context, settings, characters and key themes of the poem. I have tried to throw in a few strategies to make the lesson more student-led and less discussion or teacher focused, such as asking students to come up with their own questions about a section of text. The slides also contain my thoughts and ideas where they may be helpful.
Reading Comprehension
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Reading Comprehension

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A word document booklet, which can be printed or sent to students, containing extracts from six different texts, followed by 8-10 comprehension questions. Each set of questions is followed by a creative writing extension task themed around the extracts. The extracts have been sourced from the following texts: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee ‘Supersports High’ - an article from The Times (12.8.2012) Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier The resource may be suitable for students in years 6-8 depending upon their reading ability.
Of Mice and Men: Chapters 1-3
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Of Mice and Men: Chapters 1-3

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A KS3 scheme of work which covers the first three chapters of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. There are a range of activities which cover both reading and writing aspects of the novel. Note that we use ipads at my school so, where they are infrequently mentioned, you could set the task as a homework or else book a computer room. Keep your eyes peeled for lessons on chapters 4 and 5 in the coming weeks.
War Poetry Unit
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War Poetry Unit

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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).
Frankenstein: The early chapters
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Frankenstein: The early chapters

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A KS5 scheme of work (or a KS4 scheme for the more able). It covers the introductions, the Romantic genre, Walton's narrative, the first part of Victor's narrative, Byron and the Oedipus complex. The scheme is resourced with links to external websites such as the British Library and comes supplied with articles for which I claim no intellectual credit. Students can access the QR codes and hyperlinks which are given from time to time with an ipad or mobile phone.
Poetry Through Time
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Poetry Through Time

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The first part of a scheme of work on poetry from Beowulf, through Chaucer to the Romantic era. It gives students an understanding of how language has changed and the importance of the oral tradition. Lessons on the Romantic era help students engage with the sonnet and ode forms, provide context and teach them about Romantic ideals such as the sublime. The lessons on Keats are also available as a separate, smaller bundle.
The Great Modern Poets - Robert Frost
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The Great Modern Poets - Robert Frost

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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.
Edexcel A Level Poetry: John Keats (Volume 2)
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Edexcel A Level Poetry: John Keats (Volume 2)

7 Resources
A bundle of lessons that follows Edexcel’s A level specification for the poetry of John Keats. There is one lesson for each poem. Included in this bundle are the second 7 lessons in the sequence, in the order that they are listed in the exam board specification. To Sleep Ode to Psyche Ode on a Grecian Urn Ode to a Nightingale Ode on Melancholy Bright Star To Autumn
Edexcel A Level Poetry: John Keats  (Volume 1)
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Edexcel A Level Poetry: John Keats (Volume 1)

7 Resources
A bundle of lessons that follows Edexcel’s A level specification for the poetry of John Keats. There is one lesson for each poem of Keats’s. Included in this bundle are the first 7 lessons in the sequence, in the order that they are listed in the exam board specification. ‘O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell’ On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer On The Sea ‘In drear-nighted December’ On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again ‘When I have fears that I may cease to be’ The Eve of St Agnes