A scheme of work for Y13, comparing Milton's 'Paradise Lost&' and Marlowe&';s 'Dr Faustus&' using the OCR format. Challenging but very rewarding - lots of links for classicists too.

A detailed revision powerpoint, outlining the AQA modern texts exam (although this could be removed/ changed to fit your board) and lots of slides on context, complete with questions encouraging students to make links to the novel. Final slide suggests they get into groups and come up with essay plans to past exam questions.

A two-page timeline of Gothic literature, covering typical texts and context. Useful overview for teacher and student and gives them a sense of Gothic literature as a whole.

Essay instruction sheet for essay on To Kill A Mockingbird with hints and tips - good half term hmwk or could be prepared in class as an exercise in essay planning.Question is: 'Explore the ways in which Harper Lee presents the development of Scout and Jem in the first section of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’.'

A glossary of useful terms for English and English literature - good for years 9, 10 and 11. perhaps even y12/13. Students to fill in throughout year or a good hmwk task.

Simple powerpoint with questions and thinking points for act 3 of The Crucible. Good for first reading in class and discussion - could be used as a starting point for a more extended piece of writing or a debate/discussion for speaking and listening.

Scenes from Macbeth on a printable handout annotated with questions to make guided reading/ note taking a little easier, particularly at early stages of play. Focus mostly on presentation of character.

A glossary of poetic devices suitable for advanced poetry study e.g. dactyl, pararhyme, diegesis etc. Can be simply given to students or used as a base for making a starter activity e.g. dominoes, bingo, match etc

A range of worksheets/activities for some of the texts in the EdExcel English iGCSE anthology for the exam. Texts include Chinese Cinderalla, Climate Change, Explorers or Boys Messing About, and A Passage to Africa. There are also two film articles to discuss compare for unseen non fiction. Fairly straightforward but hopefully useful stuff.

Lesson (fully explained in powerpoint) on Anglo Saxon poetry more generally (linked into Beowulf), with a focus on kennings. Homework activity uses modern kennings poem as a model and lets them have a go at writing their own. I used with year 7 but could be extended to year 8. Lots of fun!

A number of resources created for 'The Ruby in the Smoke'. Includes an essay plan for writing about character, synonym and antonym starter with words taken from book, a list of items to research for homework linked to b/ground of book and short descriptions of character from book, which could be used for analysis or to inspire own writing.

As with the others the powerpoint is pretty self-explanatory, but the aim of this lesson is to help students understand how meaning is made and be able to write succesfully about it in exams. Overarching objective is to explore techniques used to analyse the way in which writers create particular effects. The extract used is a James Lee Burke one, so quite exciting :) in an englishy way!

Full lesson plan and activity, leading to an essay

A good way of practising close reading skills.. these resources are: 1. a selection of openings to novels; can be used in a number of ways.. with frameworks to develop close reading skills, dicussion, when beginning a novel with a particular effective opening. 2. powerpoint for reading lesson; memory game starter included and circuit training activity complete with self timer built in- open it to see! 3. extracts to be used in activity explained in powerpoint… works a treat, i promise!

For new iGCSE anthology, nothing existed on this poem so I created it. Copy of poem attached.

This resource was developed when I was teaching 'The Handmaid's Tale' in Year 12 on the OCR spec for comparative c/work but could be used/adapated for any study of a prose text. The idea is to get the students 'asking the right questions' of texts, with a solid focus on assessment objectives (in this case A03/4). Hopefully the powerpoint explains it but essentially, each student (or in pairs) is a that allow the best possible answer. . . The 'steps' outlined in the powerpoint give them guidance.

Two introductory resources I used for a y12 group about to start studying Austen's 'Persuasion' for c/work/ Pre-reading activity gets them thinking about openings to a selection of Austen novels (so could be used for any Austen novel). We focused on style and applied critical ideas about entry strategies. Then there is a female character adjective match focusing on chapters 1-3. They have to find supporting quote/evidence to justify their ideas.

Students have to find the titles of Shakespeare's plays hidden inside the wordsearch...

Two documents - easily adaptable - which allow students to keep track of their improvement, and allow you to assess their oral tasks too. Great for parents' eve and to see whether students actually read anything you write on their work!

I created a learning objectives sheet/ key vocab and stretch/challenge targets for each act of 'An Inspector Calls'. Good sheets to give students at the beginning of each act- you can return to these as much as you like throughout study...simple...but work well!