I am an English specialist and I am passionate about supporting all students to access the English curriculum, to achieve at the highest possible levels in their exams and to love the subject. I currently teach AQA and have created lots of full schemes of work which develop exam skills and independence. All my resources have been tried and refined in the classroom; I hope that you will find them useful.
I am an English specialist and I am passionate about supporting all students to access the English curriculum, to achieve at the highest possible levels in their exams and to love the subject. I currently teach AQA and have created lots of full schemes of work which develop exam skills and independence. All my resources have been tried and refined in the classroom; I hope that you will find them useful.
Resources for teaching The New Windmill Nineteenth Century Short Stories collection, including:
1. An in-depth, 30 page revision guide for the New Windmill Book of Nineteenth Century Short Stories on the Edexcel IGCSE English Literature Course. For each story, there is:
- An overview, covering key points on characterisation, plot and themes. Links are made between the stories where relevant.
- Key quotations
- A list of key themes.
2. Country Living SOLO Taxonomy Questions - 14 questions on the short story 'Country Living' by Guy De Maupassant based on SOLO Taxonomy principles. The questions are designed to be done after a first reading of the story to check and develop students' understanding of the plot, context and characters in a phased way. They are divided into sections of 'Unistructural', 'Multistructural', 'Relational' and 'Extended Abstract' going from basic, building-block knowledge of the story to abstract connections to contemporary ideas and writing. Students choose a starting point appropriate to their current skill and knowledge level; equally, they could work in differentiated groups, with each group taking a set of questions to answer.
3. 14 questions on the short story 'Napoleon and the Spectre' by Charlotte Bronte based on SOLO Taxonomy principles, designed similarly to those above for Country Living.
4. Nine comprehension and analysis questions on the short story 'The Nightingale and the Rose' by Oscar Wilde requiring in-depth, critical responses. The questions are designed to be done after a first reading of the story to check and develop students' understanding of the plot, characters and themes. This is a useful classwork or homework resource.
5. Three sets of questions on the short stories 'News of the Engagement', 'The Unexpected' and 'Hop Frog' from the New Windmill collection. The questions are designed to be done after a first reading of the story to check and develop students' understanding of the plot, context and characters. There is a combination of comprehension and analysis questions. This would make an effective classwork, homework or flipped learning task if you asked students to read the story independently before completing the questions.
Three sets of questions on the short stories 'News of the Engagement', 'The Unexpected' and 'Hop Frog' from the New Windmill collection. The questions are designed to be done after a first reading of the story to check and develop students' understanding of the plot, context and characters. There is a combination of comprehension and analysis questions. This would make an effective classwork, homework or flipped learning task if you asked students to read the story independently before completing the questions.
Designed for teaching of the New Windmill 19th Century Short Stories on the Edexcel IGCSE.
Nine comprehension and analysis questions on the short story 'The Nightingale and the Rose' by Oscar Wilde requiring in-depth, critical responses. The questions are designed to be done after a first reading of the story to check and develop students' understanding of the plot, characters and themes. This is a useful classwork or homework resource.
Designed for teaching of the New Windmill 19th Century Short Stories on the Edexcel IGCSE.
14 questions on the short story 'Napoleon and the Spectre' by Charlotte Bronte based on SOLO Taxonomy principles. The questions are designed to be done after a first reading of the story to check and develop students' understanding of the plot, context and characters in a phased way. They are divided into sections of 'Unistructural', 'Multistructural', 'Relational' and 'Extended Abstract' going from basic, building-block knowledge of the story to abstract connections to contemporary ideas and writing. Students choose a starting point appropriate to their current skill and knowledge level; equally, they could work in differentiated groups, with each group taking a set of questions to answer. Students might need to conduct some research in order to answer some of the questions.
Designed for teaching of the New Windmill 19th Century Short Stories on the Edexcel IGCSE.
14 questions on the short story 'Country Living' by Guy De Maupassant based on SOLO Taxonomy principles. The questions are designed to be done after a first reading of the story to check and develop students' understanding of the plot, context and characters in a phased way. They are divided into sections of 'Unistructural', 'Multistructural', 'Relational' and 'Extended Abstract' going from basic, building-block knowledge of the story to abstract connections to contemporary ideas and writing. Students choose a starting point appropriate to their current skill and knowledge level; equally, they could work in differentiated groups, with each group taking a set of questions to answer. Students might need to conduct some research in order to answer some of the questions.
Designed for teaching of the New Windmill 19th Century Short Stories on the Edexcel IGCSE.
An in-depth, 30-page knowledge organiser for the New Windmill Book of Nineteenth Century Short Stories on the Edexcel IGCSE English Literature Course. For each story, there is:
1. An overview, covering key points on characterisation, plot and themes. Links are made between the stories where relevant.
2. Key quotations
3. A list of key themes.
My GCSE students found this a really useful resource once we had finished first-teaching of the collection, to help them gain a thorough knowledge of the collection as a whole and a more secure understanding of the connections between the stories. I used this for phased revision - students would revise the information for one story, complete an in-class test on it and then move on to the next. Equally, it could be used as a resource to support essay-writing.
A 3-page guide to writing a comparative thesis paragraph for the A Level Gothic Literature unit. The resource includes:
1. An explanation of what a thesis is.
2. The golden rules of thesis-writing.
3. A model thesis paragraph comparing The Tell-Tale Heart with The Fall of the House of Usher, focusing on the extent to which they are Gothic texts.
4. Two pages of sentence stems for essay-writing - these are useful for all Literature essays, not just Gothic.
I used this resource as the basis for a lesson in which students worked in pairs to write their own comparative thesis on a different pair of Gothic texts, using the model and rules for guidance, first getting them to read the model and articulate what made it an effective opening paragraph. Alternatively, if your students have studied these texts, they could write the rest of the essay, using the thesis paragraph as a road map.
*Please note, if you have purchased my 'Essay Writing Guide for A Level and GCSE', the sentence stems in this resource are the same as in that.
A 7-page, in-depth guide to writing essays suitable for A Level and GCSE students. The resource includes a combination of advice and practice activities and covers the following:
1. How to re-draft essays, with strategies to make them clearer and more sophisticated.
2. Writing a hypothesis to start your essay effectively.
3. Using the passive voice.
4. A long list of sentence stems that are suitable for use across the board in literature and language essays.
I originally designed this booklet for A Level writing workshops but now use it with GCSE classes as well. I find it particularly useful at the start of the A Level course, but also at any other point when you want to improve students' essay writing skills. Some of the examples used are taken from a range of essay-writing subjects, not just English, to demonstrate the fundamental principles of good essays which are applicable to a range of subjects. The guide would therefore be useful for other essay-writing subjects with the exception that most of the Sentence Stems section is most suitable for English.
An A4 cloze exercise on Aristotle's Concepts of Tragedy which could be used with Shakespearean or modern tragedies. I designed it for use with A View from the Bridge and used it as a revision exercise, but it would also be a useful in-class test of students' understanding after you've introduced the concepts. Differentiation = the missing words are on the back for students who need support but they can attempt to complete as many gaps as possible before referring to this.
An 8-page workbook on the treatment of women in Romeo and Juliet. The first page contains a summary of key points about the role of women in the play, contextual information and societal expectations of noblewomen.
The booklet then focuses on Juliet, Lady Capulet, The Nurse, Romeo, Friar Laurence and Lord Capulet. For each character, students are asked to find and analyse evidence for relevant events and relationships. For example, the Lady Capulet section asks students to look at: Her relationship with Juliet, including her limited involvement in her day-to-day upbringing; her relationship with the Nurse and her relationship with Lord Capulet.
This could be used as a first-teaching resource or as a revision resource. It can be differentiated through different roles in group work - asking less-skilled students to find evidence and more-skilled students to analyse it.
A 32-page character revision resource for Romeo and Juliet covering twenty characters in depth. This booklet is designed to give students the thorough and highly detailed knowledge required by the new GCSE. The character profiles for major characters contain:
- Key Facts
- Character Function & Development (focusing in detail on how each character functions at a symbolic level and how they develop over the course of the play)
- Characteristics
- Key plot points in the play
- Key Quotations
- Summary of themes linked with the character
Key summaries are also provided for minor characters, e.g. Peter, Potpan, Abram and Balthasar, the Chorus. Although the focus is on character, the resource also provides much detail on key events and themes, motifs and context. In addition, at the end of the resource, there is a summary section of character development over the course of the play - half of these are completed as examples and students can complete the second half themselves.
I have used this resource to:
- Provide staggered revision homework and followed up with tests on each character
- As a support resource for essay-writing
- As a way to introduce characters or explore them in more depth as a class.
- As a research resource for jigsaw learning activities, dividing the class into groups and assigning a major character to each group.
- To help students understand how to think about character function and development.
Differentiation can be done in a number of ways - through the character assigned to a student, the sections they are asked to work on, and the number and length of quotations they are expected to revise. This is a particularly useful resource for a high-ability group with high target grades. It gives them the level of detail and breadth of knowledge that will allow their essays to stand out, and is designed to get them thinking at a functional and symbolic level considering the whole of the play.
Any questions, please ask.
A twenty-two page revision guide on The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Contains a combination of information and activities for students to work through, taking them back to the text and asking them to think deeply and independently about characters, language, themes and context. Once completed, the activities then act as a further revision resource for students. This was written with the new AQA GCSE specification in mind and has information on the AQA assessment objectives, but beyond that would be useful for revising the text for any exam board.
The booklet includes sections on:
The AQA paper and assessment objectives
Author Biography
Plot
Themes & Context
Character function, traits and quotations
Form and Narrative Structure
Language and Structure
Nineteenth Century Art and the unconscious mind
Setting
Practice extract question
I have found this very useful as a homework pack for a half term/term, which can be reflected on and further discussed and developed in lessons.
Differentiation is inbuilt - for example, a range of quotations is provided for the character activities. Students can analyse and learn a selection of these, or all of them, depending on skill level. A straightforward author biography is provided which will contain sufficient context for some students, but context is returned to in much greater depth in the 'themes and context' section of the booklet to provide stretch and challenge. The section on 19th century art could be used as an optional extension for targeted students or be used to challenge a whole class to develop their contextual knowledge even further.
Any questions, please just ask. Thanks.
A descriptive writing lesson drawing on the opening scene in Macbeth, the meeting of the witches on the heath. The lesson focuses on on sensory description and using a range of writing techniques including descriptive words, similes, metaphors, alliteration and personification. The activities check and reinforce understanding of these techniques before they put them into practice.
The resources are fully differentiated with modelling and scaffolding included. Students identify one or more target skills to focus on and there is a further challenge activity for those who complete the main writing task. The progress slide allows you to demonstrate progress within the lesson easily and students enjoy working through the levels. Engaging full colour resources are provided. This could be used with a KS3 or lower set KS4 group and is great for using alongside the study of Macbeth to develop essential writing skills and create interleaved English studies.
A character analysis lesson on Macbeth & Lady Macbeth. It is designed to help students build towards writing extended analytical responses. The resources are fully differentiated with modelling & scaffolding included. The different steps can be used as differentiated starting points, or all students can start at the beginning. The progress slide allows you to demonstrate progress within the lesson easily and students enjoy working through the levels. The full colour resources are very engaging. This could be used with a KS3 or lower set KS4 group.
A handout which examines A Doll's House as a problem play, and looks at the evidence for it as a feminist play and a tragedy. Includes quotations from Ibsen himself and the critic Tornqvist. A useful resource for understanding genre and meeting the context assessment objective on the OCR A Level spec.
A selection of Chaucer/Merchant’s Tale resources designed for A Level teaching and revision. Includes: Introductory slides on the Canterbury Tales; a SOLO taxonomy context research activity; a selection of activities on marriage; a handout on the Pluto & Proserpina interlude; a context revision knowledge organiser, drawing together lots of information; and a primary quotations revision resource.
A detailed handout explaining the Pluto and Proserpina Interlude in The Merchant's Tale. Their unique presentation and nuanced relationship is explored in relation to the wider tale. Designed for the OCR specification, which weights context heavily.
A bundle of three handy resources on the Marriage Tales and the presentation of January & May's relationship. 'Mapping the Marriage Tales' allows students to summarise each of the marriage tales and plot them on a 'graph' based on the view of marriage presented and who is in charge (videos of the four tales are on YouTube!). The 'Sympathy Graph' is useful for assessing how sympathetic May & January are at different points in the tale. 'The Wedding Night Experience' requires students to explore May and January's different experiences of the consummation of the marriage.
An A Level revision resource with fifteen key quotations from The Merchant's Tale which cover a range of themes and events. The meaning of each quotation is explained in modern English and there is a ticklist for the student to use when they have learnt the quotation. I found this particularly helpful for students who struggled to learn many quotations in Middle English as it provides a good range of quotes which could be used in lots of different essays.
An A3 double-sided revision resource for Chaucer and The Merchant's Tale context. Includes information on Chaucer's life, The Canterbury Tales, the marriage tales, use of irony, conventions of medieval poetry, the medieval Church, contemporary beliefs about poverty and death, Chaucer's earlier great poem Troilus & Criseyde and specific symbolism, imagery and references in The Merchant's Tale. My students found this a really useful go-to for context revision as the information can seem overwhelming, but here it's brought together in one place.
