I used this with Year 7 but could be used/adapted with year 8 or 9 too dependent on ability. Students consider what writing 'from life&' is, then do a short reading activity on the extract from &';Cider with Rosie'. Then they use this an inspiration for their own creative writing - a short talking activity included to prompt discussion and ideas, plus some writing in class and reflection. Works well - could be a stand alone or padded out to form a couple of lessons.

Hopefully self explanatory: Powerpoint contains overview of William Blake, including quotations for discussion and a focus on his illustrations. Two creative tasks linked to 'Auguries of Innocence' - illustrating a stanza in style of Blake, then writing their own in order to create a modern-day 'Auguries of Innocence'. Second task is on London - comprehension questions to guide reading, then a scaffolded version of the poem for students to adapt to create their own London 2012 poem (or any place they live I suppose!).

So, I have no life... and created a digested read of 'Of Mice and Men'. - Give students whole document: they highlight themes in different colours - Copy and paste for your own resource - Cut up and group - thematically or ref. to Steinbeck's style. Please post suggestions for using it!

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!

A selection of war poetry from Carol Ann Duffy to Wilfred Owen (and accompanying cover sheet). You can shuffle order around, but I have printed into an A5 booklet for students. I used this with Y9 but could be used for GCSE depending on board.

All these resources build to writing an essay: 'How are Beatrice, Benedick, Claudio and Hero presented to the audience in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, up to Act 2, Scene 1?'. We looked at Elizabethan expectations of gender first, and how characters conform/rebel..then onto analysis. The powerpoint is an activity to get them thinking about individual word choice/close analysis (can print off and turn into a worksheet). The other stuff is to do with planning essay/ gathering ideas etc. There&'s also a scaffolded essay here for weaker students.

A lesson designed to help students write about character succesfully- either for an unseen text or for any text studied in class. I would say GCSE level or a nice Y9 activity to get them ready for GCSE. The powerpoint should be self explantory but the starter activity is matching adejectives to definitions then there is a longer extract there to explore for main (From Clap Hands, here comes Charlie, by Beryl Bainbridge), The powerpoint should make what to do clear- for you and them.(ESPECIALLY GOOD FOR BOYS WHO CAN SOMETIMES STRUGGLE WITH EMPATHY BASED TASKS) :)

Developed for AQA lit controlled assessment with a focus on gender (compared with 'The Taming of the Shrew&')

An introduction to revenge tragedies and research task for students. I was teaching Hamlet and the Duchess of Malfi but could be easily adapted...

Comparison chart to (best blown up to A3) to compare any two poems from 'The World's Wife&'. Includes aspects to focus on... works really well. Could be easily adapted to compare with other prose/poetry texts too.

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.

Best to read the uploaded instructions doc but essentially, an easily adaptable resource providing an introduction to poetry. It will also set them up for the poetry anthology to be completed at the end of the scheme of work.

Some revision activities, quizzes, exemplar essay to help revise Hamlet... Designed for OCR A-level English Literature but transferable, especially the big revision quiz and the mini quizzes (some designed using Socrative)

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.

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

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

The teacher document explains how the students should go about this... Developed from a marketing/branding ideas, it gets students (I used it at beginning of GCSE/Y10, although could be used at other significant points!), to consider worries/fears/set targets etc. I used this for the first time this year, and have revisited throughout the year - good results. Let me know what you think.

Unusual, yes, but I taught this in year 13 as a part of 'satire' texts in time module. Goes well with 1984 - book is interesint and scarily now, so students find loads to think about.

A powerpoint that allows you introduce narrative in a critical yet accessible way. Filched from OCR critical anthology, David Lodge, Montgomery et al (who's Al? classic student comment). We then applied some of these ideas to McEwan's 'Enduring Love', but could be used with any prose text where narrative is a significant feature! The final slide contains an extract based activity with leading questions. Think critically, kids!

I created this activity to be used about halfway through studying 'Best Words' (the now defunct AQA anthology)... however, could be easily adapted and used half way through any study of contemporary or literary heritage poems. The students have to 'answer back' to a poem of their choice in the anthology, showing their understanding of language, style and thematic ideas. The powerpoint/lesson plan explains a lot - and the chart is designed to help students gather ideas. Works really well and usually creates some FANTASTIC poems from the students you wouldn't typically expect.