My favourite author. You’ll need the whole story, which I’m not allowed to sell obviously.

A fun intro to being playful and experimental with poetry.

It says fairy tales but it’s quite scary - so beware your more tender hearted souls. The usual worksheets, resources and powerpoints for a jolly good teach-out. If you’re really wanting to spread the culture, check out Paula Rego - the Portuguese artist who illustrated some fairly heavy tales.

5 weeks’ worth of lessons to teach this much loved but under represented play - annoys me that Inspector Calls tends to pip it, which is why I’ve included the High Prior Attainment work and RAG most of the lessons. I teach AQA but the specification has changed about a billion times in the last six seconds, so most of the work is as generic as possible; I don’t go for teaching to the exam, I teach the play. It’s what we’re paid for. Passing the exam is the pupils’ job. Enjoy :-)

This is really useful for a disengaged GCSE class, using banned music videos as a starting point for spoken language or a piece of transactional writing. I’ve suggested some really interesting videos (all on Youtube) but I’m 50 now, and not as down with the kids as I used to be, so you’d probably want to augment the unit with some gangsters shooting each other or scantily clad dancers with gold teeth smoking decidedly dodgy looking Vape machines. Or something.

Can be delivered to a whole year group or class by class to absolutely nail the method aspect of paper 1 Lit.

Tackles the use of Shakespeare’s Method - the serious flaw in pupils’ responses. Can be delivered to a whole year group or class by class, to make sure that this key factor in teaching is sorted.

This is a right laugh to do with Y9 kids, to stimulate creative writing, writing for a purpose or as an introdution to GCSE Media / Film studies.

Mostly suitable for Y9 but would challenge an able Y8 class. It could be taught as part of your regular schemes of work, put together as a self-contained study booklet or used to support absent colleagues with its ‘copy and teach’ format. Each text has a PPT version of the poem to support class reading. Included: Introductory and all supporting Powerpoints Worksheets on all the following: (Including all source material) Extract from ‘The Iliad’ by Homer Extract from ‘The Knight’s Tale’ by Geoffrey Chaucer (2 lessons) ‘Before Agincourt’ – from ‘Henry V by William Shakespeare ‘Fears in Solitude’ – Samuel Taylor Coleridge ‘Napoleon’ – William Thackeray ‘Come up from the fields Father’ – Walt Whitman ‘The War Prayer’ – by Mark Twain ‘What the Bullet Sang’ – Brett Harte ‘In Snow’ – William Allingham ‘A soldier’s battle’ by Arthur Conan Doyle ‘Dirge of the Dead Sisters’ - Anon ‘Vitae Lampada – Sir Henry Newbolt ‘The City Clerk’ – J.A Nicklin ‘Who’s for the Game?’ – Jessie Pope ‘Fall In’ – Harold Begbie ‘I shouted for blood’ – Janet Begbie ‘The Hyaenas’ – Rudyard Kipling ‘The World in Armour’ – William Watson ‘Counter Attack’ – Siegfried Sassoon Extract from ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque ‘Statement against the continuation of the War’ – Siegfried Sassoon

Complete unit of work beginning with KS3 work on ‘A Modest Proposal’, using ‘Viz’ comic and articles by Jeremy Clarkson to develop understanding of rhetorical devices, parody, satire and irony - then introducing KS4 work on Spoken Language presentations with examples and non-fiction based activities that in turn link to writing for a purpose for Paper 2 Q5. 4 long PPTs to support 12 activities and display work should yield 20 or more lessons depending on the ability of your group. Text based work is suitable for cover work as well, including comprehensions and exam practice based on examples easily accessible to a non-specialist.

A one size fits all powerpoint to revise the importance of method when analysing Dickens in Q1 AQA English Literature Paper 1

Based on Seamus Heaney’s ‘Follower’, the lecture tackles the key methods pupils need to identify and comment on in Literature Paper 2

About 5 weeks’ work for KS3. Extracts, ppts and activities based on Great Expectations, Bleak House and Oliver Twist, for an able Y7 class, a good mixed ability Y8 class, or a struggling Y9 class to prepare them for the language and themes in A Christmas Carol

6 weeks’ work with PPTs and Worksheets - works as an introduction to Gothic Literature. Could be used for a very able Y7 group, a mixed ability Y8 or a reluctant Y9 group as an introduction to the more challenging vocabulary and syntax of Dickens and Stevenson.

This is a well-crafted, highly visual, lecture for middle to upper ability kids who need to move from band 2 to band 3 - focusing explicitly on Priestley’s dramatic methods and effects on an audience.

Basically these are my resources for the last specifications and before, which is why they are cheap. They will get you sailing towards the new specs for sure, helping the kids to get fully familiar with the basics, including language, themes, context and characters.

Helps Y9 produce a piece of creative writing based on the opening 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan (an old coursework / controlled writing task). You can also use the resource to help prepare Y9 pupils for Q5 paper 1, looking at details on images and helping them to write creatively in response.

A complete unit of work giving pupils practical experience of the knowledge and skills necessary for the new spec AQA English Language Paper 1.