After an ‘A Christmas Carol’ exam, I realised my year 10s were including any quotations they could remember and trying to squeeze them into their answers rather than selecting the most relevant moments/phrases from the novella. I created this match-up activity for the themes and quotations in ‘A Christmas Carol’. This can be completed quickly by writing the beginning letter of each theme into the quotation box or they can colour code them. I chose colour coding so that it can become a useful revision resource. This can be adapted to add more quotations or this can be done by the students as an extension task. I also extended this task by asking the students what Stave it is from and getting them to explain why this quotation is significant to the theme.

Exam Question Beginning of a level 6 response Activities to finish and self-assess essay using students- friendly success criteria

Activity to get students to structure their essay according to their introduction making sure their response fully supports their ideas. Students are to read the introduction, identify the points that need to be proven in their essay, add relevant examples from the text and organise their essay into a coherant argument e.g. chronologically through the text. A Christmas Carol and Poetry.

Practice question 4 from Language Paper 1. Not a past paper. Potential question. Encourages the students to give a personal response and group methods/ideas together.

This planning sheet encourages students to plan their structure, devices and vocabulary to ensure they are meeting the mark scheme. Also, questions at the top encourage students to create a more original and well-thought-out speech e.g. writing from a different perspective, as well as, matching the tone, style and register to purpose and audience. This structure also ensures students follow the conventions of a speech to ensure they are awarded marks. A great resource for any ability as the plan will become their writing support. Great for Language Paper 2 and Speaking and Listening Endorsement. Good preparation for practicing oracy.

Lessons and resources for the poem ‘Walking Away’ by Cecil Day Lewis. Includes: pre-reading task contextual information reading with vocabulary support summary task with support and challenge differentiated analysis task(s) with prompts exam-style question

A 36 question gap-fill quiz that checks students’ memories of the family poems in the ‘Love and Relationships’ cluster. Peer-assessed and answer sheet included.

This is a revision activity for animal farm which is topical and engaging for the students. It follows the latest television show ‘The Masked Singer’ where students are given hints which reveal the masked character such as key quotations, descriptions, allegorical links, Orwell’s views etc. Students can also ask for a hint which tells them a bit more about the character or their link to the text and context. The quotations and hints are more cryptic than the obvious to broaden students’ knowledge of the key characters and the text and thus allow them to make developed personal responses. Answers and teacher guidance in the notes of each slide.

This double-sided worksheet makes reference to the mark scheme for achieving higher grades and explains the skill of embedding evidence. The resource contains three activities: correcting answers, filling in the blanks, and skill practice answering questions. These tasks are clearly explained with supporting examples, challenges and extensions to meet all abilities. It is also differentiated by outcome and so can be used with all ages and abilities. This resource can be peer/self/teacher assessed. This worksheet was used as feedback from a DNA essay to intervene and develop this skill of embedding references and using subject terminology to develop answers.

Recall questions on the family poems in the anthology. Each question requires students to answer with references from the poems: Before You Were Mine, Eden Rock, Climbing My Grandfather, Follower, Walking Away and Mother, any Distance. To be peer-assessed. Teacher answer sheet included.

A complete lesson and resources introducing students to a range of genres and fiction texts. Identifying and analysing writer’s methods in the opening of ‘A Monster Calls’ to convey the gothic genre. Support, challenges and extensions for all activities. Range of activities for all abilities and learning styles. Promotes reading!

This lesson checks students’ comprehension of the text as a whole. Goes through the question and mark scheme in detail. Gives the students a task to annotate the extract with colour-coded guidence and a model paragraph before students complete and self-assess the answer. The extract is taken from ‘The Hunger Games’. This is a great introductory lesson to question 4 of Language Paper 1. There is plenty of scaffolding and modelling.

This uses another extract from The Hunger Games where Katniss’ sister Prim is chosen to take part in the games and Katniss volunteers herself. The question looks at the tension built by the writer. The lesson begins with short questions to check the students’ understanding of the extract. Answers given. Then, the slides go through the break-down of the question and mark scheme. The students have an opportunity to practice annotating their ideas, which is scaffolded, before writing their answers using the sentence stems provided. Peer/self/teacher assessed.

A planning template for transactional writing. Particularly made to support students at GCSE level writing a newspaper article for Language Paper 2 section B.

Includes: Pre-reading task on Victorian relationships Active reading starter activity with challenges and extension tasks. Recall activity on the poem ‘Before You Were Mine’ to gain an understanding of the similar themes in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ with challenge an extension. The poem is split into nine sections with prompts for thoughtful analysis.

A 40/40 students creative writing piece used to get the students thinking about how to structure their narratives in interesting and engaging ways but also explain the effect of writer’s structural choices.

The beginning of a grade 9 response - a great example of the criteria being met and broadening students’ vocabulary. Can be completed with any ability. The following tasks can be completed in pairs, as a class or independently. I completed this task after reading A1 and A2 with my set 6 class. The next step would be writing the first paragraph as a class, then pairs, then independently. This will be achieved as we read more of the play.

Exemplar creative writing piece for Language Paper 1 - part B.

Mini SOW introducing students to Language Paper 2 Part B (writing). The first few lessons focus on understanding, evaluating and making choices about perspective, viewpoints, audience, purpose and tone. The next week of lessons focus on identifying, revising and applying an effective structure for a speech.

All of the information (and more) students need to understand the context and plot of Animal Farm and the character Napoleon. The starter highlights the importance of context in Animal Farm and addresses some misconceptions and common exam mistakes. This lesson covers: Overthrow of the Tsar (revolution) The Bolsheviks General Secretary Totalitarian state Use of the secret police Five year plan Collectivisation Purges and praises Orwell’s views These slides can be made into revision cards or notes. Students should make links between the context points and the novella.