After teaching content related to AMND, we had changed direction and ended up doing some creative writing. These lessons build on some top end creative skills.

A series of lessons and resources designed to introduce year 9 students to the wonders of the AQA English Language Exam. In these lessons, I deconstruct the Assessment Objectives in relation to each question on English Language Paper 1 Section A. I use the old Sunlight on the Grass story “Anil” as the source text (strictly speaking, this falls outside of what the exam could focus on, but I figure in using these stories as I have all this knowledge about them that isn’t being used!). 06/06/19: I’ve updated this to include a workbook that mirrors the activities in the powerpoint. Just fed up of dishing out lined paper and/or exercise books that’ll only get used for a few weeks.

A single power point designed to be taught as a walking-talking mock examination. This can extend over several lessons - I predict you'll need at least three to do this justice. The source materials are included.

A bare bones SoW that focuses on introducing the Literature aspect of study at KS3, but assesses the students on a piece of creative writing. The lessons assume you have a copy of the text for students to follow. Look at this as a starting point. Designed with a bottom set in mind.

A reintroduction lesson that should be taught with the understanding that the students have read the text beforehand. Designed as an entry point into year 13; ideal for new teachers looking to get the measure of a new class (as in my case). I found this lesson particularly useful when combined with FAR marking the material surrounding the quotations. You should view this as a starting point - future lessons will get much more specific.

My second lesson. Here, I focus almost entirely on ACT 2 SCENE 1 and Iago's soliloquies therein. The notes element of the power point pulls a lot of thinking together from across a lot of sources - you'll need these notes to flesh out the tasks. I tie it up with an exam style question at the end focusing on what we can infer about attitudes to women. Quite pleased with how this looks and how it goes.

Lessons designed to engage and interest my year 10s as they step into GCSE-land for the first time. They enjoyed the analysis of the song lyrics a lot. I found that my previous classes found it very hard to engage with the poetry element. These lessons (combined with a couple of others that don't belong to me) worked well.

An introductory unit suitable for Year 7 students - I taught it to top and bottom set (with differentiation) classes. It is designed to get kids using the basic PEE style structure to create a reading assessment-worthy response. I don't include all of the extracts I used - I photocopied straight from the texts in all honesty - but this is more than enough to get going. Hope you find this useful.

One power point per poem and some associated skills. I teach the poems in the order in which they appear in the anthology (except Tissue; I put that one at the end). I follow a pattern with the lessons and source the contextual information from the BBC Bitesize website (and a couple of other places when I get bored of them) - it makes sense as any student that misses out on something can go and find what they need relatively quickly. The material is readily available elsewhere, hence the relatively low price for so many lessons. NOTE: I have upgraded these lessons now. I’ve moved away from endorsing the PEEL style responses - the exam reports indicate clearly this is the thing to do. Additionally, I have included much more of a focus on the POWER themes. Lastly, I have used these poems as a springboard to discuss gender issues - part of this is my attempt to narrow the gender gap at the top end of GCSE English achievement by trying to get the lads to be more engaged with the material. These lessons are designed to work in tandem with my own version of the poetry anthology. At the moment, I have yet to upload the edited version but I shall do so soon. That being said, the power points wouldn’t take much editing to use them with the traditional AQA version. All of the original lessons are included just in case you are still using the PEEL method of building a response.