All my resources are aimed at teaching students to the top, that's the USP! You can find them on the UK's second largest English teaching channel, Mr Salles Teaches English, and also see how I deliver them there. If you want to be an even better teacher, try The Slightly Awesome Techer, https://amzn.to/2GtQu6l
All my resources are aimed at teaching students to the top, that's the USP! You can find them on the UK's second largest English teaching channel, Mr Salles Teaches English, and also see how I deliver them there. If you want to be an even better teacher, try The Slightly Awesome Techer, https://amzn.to/2GtQu6l
What this resource includes:
Sample question
6 Steps: Just tell me what to do
The mark scheme explained
Mnemonic for persuasive techniques: MAD FATHERS CROCH
19th century text
Original modern text
Perfect model answer to teach from, 530 words
Perfect model answer annotated and explained
How to analyse a writer’s tone
How to infer
Here is the beginning of the model answer:
Model Answer
Dominic Salles uses direct address to take the reader on a journey around the city, “as you walk the battlements”. While Salles tours this city, Dickens uses direct address to take the reader to the centre of Greenwich fair, “imagine yourself… in the very centre and heart of the fair.”
Both writers therefore experience the city on foot. This metaphor, and the positive connotations of “heart”, imply that the fair will be a joyous experience. Salles begins with similar praise, using the hyperbole of the reader “gasping at the beauty of the town.” However, Salles takes the reader on a series of experiences which will make the reader wish to leave.
Thus the alliteration of “cramped and crowded” lanes emphasises how little you might enjoy walking the streets. He uses the threatening simile of tourists “swarming like locusts” to convey his horror at being trapped in the crowds.
In contrast, Dickens celebrates being in “an extremely dense crowd”, using language from the semantic field of play, so that the crowd “swings you to and fro” like a game, before delivering you to the “centre”.
The document contains every word spoken by the witches, or about them. Very useful for annotation.
However, each page is highlighted with the most relevant quotations.
The real merit of this resource is the video which goes with it. Students can take notes from this and consider;
The context of Jacobean England.
King James and his views on witchcraft.
Shakespeare’s possible view of witchcraft.
Shakespeare’s politics.
The nature of the patriarchal society and Shakespeare’s possible views on this.
How the witches mirror Lady Macbeth.
Here are five texts to teach from, model answers for questions on argue, persuade and inform, and 15 rhetorical techniques to teach your students.
Better than that, these 15 techniques are made explicit in each of the texts, and in the three model answers.
Does any other resource help your students see how to get 100% in Question 5, no matter what the question?
How to write an article.
This shows students how to move from grades 5 to 6, 6 to 7, 7 to 8 and 9.
It also teaches 10 techniques that will get students grades 7 and above:
Start each sentence with a different word
Write about the future
Not only…but
Show me…show me
Pair your verbs for emphasis
Extend your simile or metaphor
Anecdote
The contrasting power of ‘but’
Humorous comparison
Go to town on triplets. More anecdotes. Load your sentences with techniques which fit
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
11 Steps: Just Tell Me What to Do
Sample Question
What the mark scheme says
Why students should always write about complex sentences
How to write great complex sentences in students’ own writing
How to write about contrast and juxtaposition
Model text, based on Brighton Rock
3 Further texts for practice: Little Dorrit, Oliver Twist, Household Worlds extracts
Model Answer, to get 100%
Model Answer which can be written in the 12 minute time limit, to get 100%
15 skills to learn from the model answer
How to move on from PEE paragraphs so students can write more in fewer words, and sound like an expert
10 great jokes
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
Here’s the beginning. Hope you like it.
Tycoon
I loved being a Geezer, a wheeler, a dealer. Loved it. Every Christmas we’d celebrate; a great family get together. And I was always The Man, Top Dog, El Numero Uno.
I started out in stations, really small. You’d barely notice me: one more ant in the ant hive. Nostalgia was my USP then. I set up as a shoe shine boy and many passengers enjoyed the anachronistic joke. I made a few bob. But coins, and I wanted some of the folding. Who doesn’t love money? The crisp feel of it, fresh out of the bank.
And then it hit me. The Victorians. Top hats, bowler hats, starched collars, canes. I started to dress the part, and the customers began to flood in.
What next? Moved to a bigger station: King’s Cross, then franchised a mate in Euston.
Here’s the beginning. Hope you like it.
Amarillo Slim
So it happens one time in Mindy’s, which is a favourite with many prominent citizens on Broadway, when I get to talking to Amarillo Slim about this and that. Amarillo Slim is well known to one and all on account of his nose for the Vig. Indeed, many have got plenty potatoes following Slim’s nose and like many citizens, I am always happy to put more potatoes in my pockets.
I notice Slim is not holding his whiskey and soda, which is his usual liquor, but is holding a bottle of cola which, as most citizens will tell you, does not offer a good time. Slim talks about this and that, being mostly horses, and five card stud, and I notice he has the Daily Post open to a page that has no horses on it.
Slim says nothing about this and I ask him about the disappearing whiskey. He says, “you should try this cola, there’s plenty potatoes here.”
Slim is not seen at Mindy’s for some time, but I get to think about him anyway, because he leaves behind the Daily Post open to a page on table tennis, which is little followed on Broadway. Indeed, there are many guys and dolls who suppose it is another name for making eyes and sneaking peaks at each other in a crowded restaurant when plans are made without words.
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 text:
Countdown to Grammar Schools
I’ll have an opinion please Rachel. And a hyperbole. And another hyperbole. Yes, now an opinion…(repetition)
Michael, you have a six letter word: Brexit. Congratulations. Yes, it is now in the dictionary. And Theresa, you have a seven letter word: grammar, where would we be without it? Congratulations, you are today’s winner. (anecdote and humour)
And so we sprint towards an uncertain future, stiffened by the shouts of opinion and hyperbole: parents of progress or decline? The countdown clock will tell. (several metaphors, using emotive language, alliteration, contrasting pairs)
But what if we count up, instead of down? What if we looked at some numerical facts about grammar schools? What if, unlike the fact-free Brexit debate, everything we needed to know were contained in one place, indeed, one spreadsheet? Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Gov.uk performance tables. Make yourselves at home in a world of facts.* (rhetorical questions, rule of three, creating an enemy, alliteration, emotive language, direct address, metaphor)*
Opinion 1: grammar schools increase social mobility.
Fact: The number of disadvantaged students in year 11 in selective schools in 2015 was 1389, 4% of their year 11. Social mobility, or mobility scooter? How do these students do? With these cherry picked few, 89% make expected progress in English, and similarly in maths. Not shabby. So, for disadvantaged students, grammar schools could work, if only they could push through the weighted doors. We need to dramatically increase their number. *(fact and opinion, statistics, metaphor, contrasting pairs, emotive language, metaphor, direct address) *
By this stage, then, I have already used all the rhetorical techniques in MAD FATHERS CROCH. That’s in the first 215 words. You have 45 minutes, in which you ought to be able to write double this length. If you practise using these techniques, one at a time, they will become second nature to you.
Here is an interesting fact for you. Yes, I am an English teacher, but I have only been commissioned to write articles since I published my book on the 15th of August 2016. In other words, the only training I have had in using these techniques is teaching them in class. This means that over the course of year 10 and 11 you can practise them at least as many times as I have.
AO1: The Ability to Quote and Explore Interpretations, Including Personal Response
The presentation takes students through these four skills:
Begin with the author’s purpose
Link the author’s purpose to symbolism
Refer to the characters as a construct
Propose an alternative interpretation
Watch my video to see how to teach it.
This resource includes two model pieces of writing, one at grade 6, the other at grade 9.
Apart from the marking criteria, the grade 6 is characterised as such because it has several weaknesses:
It’s too short for 40 minutes of writing
Too many paragraphs start the same way
Too many sentences start the same way
There are few rhetorical devices (MAD FATHERS CROCH)
Although it shows off with commas, it doesn’t show off other punctuation
Although the beginning is a little original, the ending isn’t
Paragraphs are organized, but not crafted for impact
The grade 9 piece is divided into one sentence per slide, to show 3 rhetorical devices in each, which are made explicit.
These are rhetorical devices contained in the mnemonic MAD FATHERS CROCH. The most powerful one of these, in that it helps facilitate most of the others, is the use of Triplets.
There are also two instructional videos for this resource, one aimed at why students get stuck at grade 6. The other is explicit about how to get grade 9.
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.
Teach students how to write about sentence forms.
How to narrow this down to complex sentences, and see why nearly any description will have a list.
How to write about the effect on the reader.
See three texts which use complex sentences in a list.
Teach students how good writers use complex sentences with contrast to manipulate the reader’s thoughts or feelings.
Apply this to the specimen papers.
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)
Here’s the beginning. I hope you like it.
The Face
I don’t think you understand, do you? I mean, how could you, how could you possibly? I suppose, when you look at me, when you truly look at me, you don’t really see what’s there. That’s the point. My eye, how it fixes you with an open stare, how it dares you to look away. You’re not used to that, are you?
You remember me. Everyone remembers me. England’s queen of starts, going on the B of Bang. The gold medals, always the gold medals, the impossible comebacks. 2020, 2024. I’m a legend, a national treasure, an inspiration. And of course the honours – Sports Personality of the Year, twice, Dame: Kathy Stringer, invincible, indomitable, incredible me.
This resource includes a sample text, with a key for difficult vocabulary. It has a sample question and answers. It dovetails with the specimin paper you may have used as a mock, with different questions.
The best way to use this is as part of the bundle on Paper 2, Questions 1-4!
Here is the beginning.
Question 1
Remember, you will get a 20th or 21st century text to go with your 19th century text in the exam. However, for copyright reasons, I will avoid a modern text. This does have the added benefit for you of getting familiar with the kind of convoluted sentences older texts use, so that you will be better prepared for the exam.
Here is an example of a text from Dickens that is used in the specimen papers:
Greenwich Fair: Where Dickens let his hair down
Charles Dickens is writing in 1839 about a fair in London which was a popular annual event he enjoyed.
The road to Greenwich during the whole of Easter Monday is in a state of perpetual bustle and noise. Cabs, hackney-coaches1, ‘shay’ carts2, coal-waggons, stages, omnibuses3, donkey- chaises2 - all crammed with people, roll along at their utmost speed. The dust flies in clouds, ginger-beer corks go off in volleys, the balcony of every public-house is crowded with people smoking and drinking, half the private houses are turned into tea-shops, fiddles are in great request, every little fruit-shop displays its stall of gilt gingerbread and penny toys; horses won’t go on, and wheels will come off. Ladies scream with fright at every fresh concussion and servants, who have got a holiday for the day, make the most of their time. Everybody is anxious to get on and to be at the fair, or in the park, as soon as possible.
The chief place of resort in the daytime, after the public-houses, is the park, in which the principal amusement is to drag young ladies up the steep hill which leads to the Observatory4, and then drag them down again at the very top of their speed, greatly to the derangement of their curls and bonnet-caps, and much to the edification of lookers-on from below. ‘Kiss in the Ring5,’ and ‘Threading my Grandmother’s Needle5,’ too, are sports which receive their full share of patronage.
This resource has numerous examples of language features for you to teach your students how to both recognise the writer’s craft, and use them in their own writing.
Here is a sample:
Juxtaposition: two things that are put close together in order to emphasise the difference between them.
• “Give us a pound, mister,” said the beggar, scrolling through the internet on his phone.
• The mother, tortured with pain, now smiled beatifically, while the baby, newly released, screamed incessantly.
• While the battle raged, the generals sat behind the front lines, drinking beers and stuffing three course meals.
Repetition: repeating a word, phrase, or idea. This can be done to emphasise, to create a rhythm or tone, or to reveal a contrast or comparison.
Register: In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular setting.
What words give this the register of colloquial, American teenage language?
“(Candace runs out to the backyard, she stares in shock upon seeing the rollercoaster, along with horror music)
Candace: Phineas, what is this?!
Phineas: Do you like it?
Candace: Ooh, I’m gonna tell Mom, and when she sees what you’re doing, you are going down. (runs off) Down! Down! Down! D-O-W-N, down!”
Which words deal with the idea of writing a novel?
“In my mind, I continually entertain myself with fragments of narrative, dialogue and plot twists but as soon as I’m in front of a blank page, they evaporate. I feel stuck. Sometimes I think I should give up, but I have convinced myself that if I can find a way to write more freely and suppress my inner critic, I could finally finish that first draft.”
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.