What the resource includes: 13 Steps: Just tell me what to do. These steps will make sure any story or description is at least grade 7 Sample question What does the mark scheme say? Translated for students to understand. Model Answer, at under 600 words, possible for a student to write under exam conditions. The Importance of Planning the Ending - this is much easier than planning the whole story, especially under exam conditions. 11 things the model teaches, and that the examiner really wants Where do ideas come from? Guidance on how to get started. 3 great jokes

This story is written to model exactly what students should do to write a story that they can finish within 40 minutes, which is roughly the amount of writing time they get at GCSE. There are no published stories of around 500 words, so I have begun to write my own. Writing one on a real character takes away the fear of planning - students already know how the story starts. There are three copies of the story: 1. Without any annotation 2. With a key to the annotations which teach a range of skills many English teachers ignore: a. The Power of Verbs b. How to introduce the character in an interesting way c How to use humour, not jokes d How to build tension using contrast and juxtaposition e How dialogue must reveal character before plot f The power of repetition and rule of three, or triplets, in building a rhythm h Paragraphing for impact 3. With a key to the annotations which teach the more conventional story writing skills: a. Metaphor b. Similes c. Personification d. Alliteration e. Assonance, Half Rhyme and Hidden Alliteration Finally, you also get a completely free video on how to teach this at: http://bit.ly/WriteAboutARealCharacter The PowerPoint slides which teach this lesson, and which I use in the video are available as a separate resource.

This comprehensive analysis of all 5 questions breaks down AQA Paper 2 into a series of very clear do's and don'ts that students and teachers can easily follow. Examples accompany the advice. The PowerPoint slides are all linked to videos on my YouTube channel, Mr Salles Teaches English, so it is much easier to see how to apply the advice.

16 pages of incredible detail made relevant to the play. Obviously, socialism and capitalism are defined. But it includes some amazing parallels between the 1940s and the present day, where the figures for the richest and poorest in society are nearly identical. Explore the extraordinary similarity between the Inspector’s words, and those of the Labour party manifesto of 1945. See how the great unrest, including strikes and killing of workers influened Priestley and his play. Discover the literary tradition Priestley’s play was responding to, and the impulse not to write about WW1. Find out why Priestley chose the cotton mills as his manufacturing business, and why this was so important in 1945. All these facts are explicitly matched to the play, so students can see how to use them in their essays.

This powerpoint teaches 5 key skills which are necessary to get full marks when writing about the structure of the text. The resource includes a full 8 mark answer, with annotations and explanations of how the answer meets all the criteria for Grade 9. This appears in both PPT and Word form, so is fully editable, and can easily be printed so that students can easily make relevant notes based on your teaching.

This very focused PPT takes an extract from Bleak House to show you 7 secrets of Dickens' description, including how to use contrast, why metaphor and personification trump metaphor, the power of listing and the subtlety of alliterative sound and rhythm. When we look at marking criteria we tend to befuddle the students with lists of descriptive techniques. Notice that listing, rhythm and contrast probably don't make it onto most teachers' lists, but these are the most powerful ways of improving their description. The kind of all writing techniques, or indeed the queen, is the use of the right verb. Dickens masters that too. The resource will also be linked to a video you can use to teach this, or plan your teaching from. Also included is the extract from Bleak House in Word.

Students struggle to create interesting plots and characters. This story and presentation shows students how to use a celebrity they know a bit about, and choose a moment of crisis in their lives. Yes, it covers all the usual techniques we all teach: alliteration, simile, metaphor, the senses, etc. But it also pays particular attention to: Repetition Allusion Powerful Verbs Contrast. Overdoing some techniques Minimising adjective and adverb use Showing the character's state of mind. Each paragraph has 3 explicit teaching points. You get two copies of the story - one as a Word document for you to customise or read. The other, in Word, to teach each of three explicit points for each paragraph.

What This Resource Includes 15 Steps: Just tell me what to do The mark scheme Sample question Examiner’s Advice 10 ways to think about structure How to write about the structure of an ending Extract of the ending of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens How to work out Dickens’ purposes as a writer Sample Question Sample Answer Text based on Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene Understanding the context of historical texts Sample text: The Doll’s House, by Damon Runyon How to analyse the structure of each of the 10 paragraphs of The Doll’s House Model Answer getting 100% Model Answer rewritten to 300 words, and still getting 100% 12 things to learn from the model answer How to edit your answer to improve your writing, using far fewer words 7 techniques to reduce your word count 10 great jokes

This complete scheme of work teaches students through: Lesson activities to develop the skills of reading and writing Examiners's advice as well as the criteria Links to demonstration videos Ways to improve spelling and punctuation Assessments Model answers of varying quality for students to assess and improve A teaching sequence to use and remember Rhetorical techniques A mnemonic to remember these techniques: AH!FASTERCROCH A PLC (Personal Learning Checklist)

What this resource includes: 10 Steps: Just tell me what to do Sample Question 4 Student misconceptions The marks scheme explained Exam tactics Glossary of terms: 15 of them, with 3 examples of each Sample texts: The 39 Steps, by John Buchan, CHAPTER ONE, The Man Who Died Sample texts: Call of the Wild, Jack London, Chapter I. Into the Primitive 11 techniques to teach from these extracts What does the examiner really want? Model Question Model Answer Colour coded Model Answer to show how to get rid of PEE paragraphs and write like an expert The Magic Finger: the technique for finding quotations to write about 14 Skills common to questions 3 and 4

What the resource Includes: 5 Steps; Just tell me what to do. Model answer 444 words Model answer 550 words Model answer annotated for descriptive techniques What do I have to do to get 100%? How to be original: Breaking the Vase How to adapt the description to a series of photographs in the exam: Here’s how mine might start if the photograph were of a train. Or imagine it was the park. Or, the ultimate vase breaking, you can simply have it as the photo in the room. Imagine a photo of a road. What does the examiner really want? 21 ways to look at Descriptive Techniques and Interesting Writing (More Than Just SOAPAIMS)

AQA likes to test the novel by asking students to compare Pip to another character. This is my top tip for 2018. Students often struggle to find interesting comparisons and fail to write about Dickens’ purpose. This resource introduces four big ideas which will allow your students to write confidently about Dickens’ purpose. It also provides 20 ideas and 20 quotations for them to use in their essay. Most quotations, as you can see, are detailed, so that you can give your students practice in selecting judiciously, and so that they learn to embed quotations in their sentences. Below is a sample of the first 4 ideas:

Eric is analysed in more depth than you’ve ever read before. You’ll know him better than you’ve ever done before, and your students will be able to excel. Here is a small sample so you can see what I mean:

What does the examiner’s report teach us about getting top grades when answering questions on Macbeth? Show students how to consider alternative interpretations. How themes and characters develop over time in the play. How to link context to each interpretation, so that it scores highly, and doesn’t just get added in as an irrelevant paragraph. How to come up with interpretations which go beyond what most students will write. The danger of getting subject terminology, and why naming words as parts of speech is likely to lead to lower grades, and will probably preclude a grade 8 or 9. Consider how Macbeth might actually have a deep love for his wife. Or how Macduff deliberately sacrifices his family. Or how Banquo needs Macbeth to become a tyrant king in order to fulfil the prophecy of Fleance’s kingship Or how the supernatural element might not just pander to King James, but actually undermine his belief in the power of witchcraft. The attached video will also teach you this in much more depth, so that you can share it with your students.

Dickens is a master of his craft, but by God, you can tell he was paid by the word, can’t you? Never was a man so in love with a sentence, loaded with clauses, garnished with phrases and then, to add to the confusion, the main clause tagged on at the end. What 16 year old wouldn’t struggle? I’ve abridged this great novel down to 20,000 words, from 27,000. That’s a quarter less time to read it, and a quarter more time to teach the content. Better than that, it actually makes for a more entertaining read. The conversation feels much more natural, and has some real pace. You can easily have your students taking parts. And of course, none of the essential quotations are left out! Here is a sample:

This presentation will help you teach the poet’s tone and point of view. It outlines the historical context and the political nature of the poem. It helps you teach the allusions to Macbeth, Ozymandias, Hamlet, and Dulce et Decorum Est, as well as looking at the imagery. Finally, it helps you analyse the poem’s structure and link this to Armitage’s purpose. The accompanying video gives you an indepth instruction on how to link your teaching to the slides.

Mrs Birling as you’ve never thought of her before. This is an analysis which goes much deeper than you would expect. Here is a sample to show you what I mean: But What if Mrs Birling is Right? However, a counter argument to that is how Priestley reveals Eric’s exploitation of Eva last, as though to emphasise that his actions were worse. There is also a further counter argument. Eva could actually have accepted the stolen money. She could actually have accepted Eric’s offer of marriage. And she certainly did tell the charity and Mrs Birling a number of lies: • That she was called Mrs Birling. • That she was married. • That her husband had “deserted her”. So, in terms of the facts, she is quite right to say “The girl had begun by telling us a pack of lies.” When Eva tells her that she wouldn’t take stolen money, Sybil’s reaction “all a lot of nonsense – I didn’t believe a word of it” is not just snobbery. It is also a logical doubt to have given the lies which preceded it. Another psychological problem for Mrs Birling to accept is that Eva would rather commit suicide than take the stolen money, or marry Eric, even though she describes him as “he didn’t belong to her class, and was some drunken young idler”.

What if you could teach your students 3 key skills which would make their essays worth grades 7-9? What if you could show your students 7 mistakes students make, which reduce their marks? And then, what would happen if your students learned to correct those mistakes? Then they would get grades 7, 8 and 9. A poll of over 600 students on my YouTube channel shows that 79% of students think my resources earned them at least one extra grade, and 38% think that they went up by at least two grades. You can find the video which teaches this presentation on Mr Salles Teaches English so that your students can also dramatically improve their grade.

What this resource includes: Mnemonic to remember rhetorical, persuasive techniques: MAD FATHERS CROCH How to plan an answer 9 skills necessary in a top answer The mark scheme explained Model answer Model answer, annotated and explained Why exam topics will never be interesting Sample topics and question Here is the beginning of the sample text: Model Answer So you want to get rid of school uniform. Perhaps Daddy and Mummy are rich, rich, rich and you want to show us all your designer gear, parading an endless range of just-off-the-shelf splendour and fashion to make your friends praise you and your rivals sick with envy. Direct address, emotive language, anecdote, rule of three, contrasting pairs, metaphor. Creating an enemy. Or perhaps you love lounging about at home in your sportswear, festooned with the right labels, hats and trainers still with their price tags proudly displayed, a sea of pristine white, kept shop-display neat. Repetition, alliteration, anecdote, emotive language, metaphor. Creating an enemy. Or perhaps you have other tribes: you are a Goth, an Emo, you’re indie, a hipster, you’re a dude, a dudette, a geek, a gangsta, or some other made up group you’re so desperate to belong to in your teenage years before adult life ‘ruins’ it all. Hyperbole, repetition, direct address, rule of three, emotive language, metaphor, alliteration. The opening three paragraphs create an enemy through humour.