Good Book?

It’s Revision Time! So, I Just Read Over My Notes…Right?

It is revision time for the dreaded trial exams for our iGCSE students and the usual poor revision techniques are being used again i.e. passively read over my notes and take past paper after past paper that is never marked and so could quite easily just be consolidating misconceptions rather than challenging them. I delivered two 45 minute revision sessions to my F5s this week extolling the…

JAWS…and Two Key Lessons.

I recently organised and hosted a JAWS (Job Alike Workshops)  at my current school called ‘Literacy and Literature in Asia’. This event consisted of 15 or so visiting teachers joining the department, I am privileged to lead, to share a range of ideas, workshops and resources. Having only started at the school in August, and with the JAWS in the November, you can imagine that my initial reaction…

Wider Reading – A Differentiated Approach

The next step for A Level pupils following the CIE Literature course is to be able to incorporate opinion within their analysis, evaluate that opinion and use the evaluation to synthesis their own argument. What better way to encourage them to engage with wider sources than by providing differing levels of challenge as they get used to further developing as a critical reader: You should aim to…

Stand, Crouch and Sit Plenary Idea

It has been a while…exam season took over! Here is a simple, physical plenary idea to share with you: the Stand, Crouch, Sit Plenary On a ppt. slide, copy and paste your differentiated objectives (see example) and ask pupils to stand, crouch or sit depending on how confident they are. Then…students who are standing can be asked to go around the room and explain to those crouching, who in turn…

So…here is a teaching method I have been using with my year 12 IB class to try and encourage them to remember quotes for their exam and to make comparative and contrasting links between three texts for their final exam. Why not try getting pupils to make their own chain link bunting?

You just need to get them to colour code the links, follow the structure on each link: quotation, theme and link to another text, and then get them to physically link their ideas together. This will also look great on your classroom wall. Let me know if you need any further info or explanations.

Flower.

A Visual Hexagon Activity for Close Reading!

I am currently teaching Achebe’s novel ‘No Longer at Ease’ to my iGSCE group. As a class, it is important that we read together and clarify new vocabulary etc. I have been looking for activities that ensure the class are actively listening and engaged in a meaningful task, that meets the LO, as they read.  After looking around a few of the profiles of the Twitter teachers I like to follow I have…

LO: To be able to critically evaluate the effectiveness of the opening of the novel Goodnight Mr Tom

Good

Analyse the effect of specific vocabulary choices on the reader.

Great

Analyse the effect of vocab choices, and the narrator’s tone on the reader and the novel’s opening.

Even Better

Analyse the effect of a range of stylistic features, dialogue, sentence structure, vocab,  and narrative style on the reader.

Present a motion to the class and divide them up equally into pairs of for and against. Give them 20 mins to debate in pairs, in silence, using different colored pens. Carousel the activity and, based on LOs, get class to offer a WWW and an EBI to each pair (they must all choose a winner at each debate ‘station’). Tally up results.

Winning pupils are put into the semi-finals and paired up for a silent debate, with a different motion in relation to the novel / poet / text you are studying, on the white board.

Pupils watching the debate are given a person to ‘track’ and must offer feedback at the end of debates using the language of the LO and differentiated outcomes.

Finale is a three-way debate between semi-finalist winners including a prize for winners at the end (due to range of abilities in my class I gave a prize to the winning feedback team and the pupil who won the silent debate).

Try it an let me know how you get on!

Wrap up an appropriate prize i.e. chocolate bar. Wrap the prize up in several layers of wrapping and, in each layer, have a ‘prize’ (verses from the poem and some analysis) followed by a forfeit in relation to the poem. Clues for pass the parcel starter for poetry revision

  Give it a go and let me know how you get on.

Flower.

Questioning and Bloom’s…again!

Well, it haunts us all throughout our teaching career and I have been really focusing on my use of questioning inside the classroom recently, using it to create independent learners and encourage them to ask questions themselves – questions they then need to find the answer to. I have created a resource that belongs with Lesson 1 in my current SOW for ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. Here is how you can…

LO: to be able to consider the poems Dulce E Decorum Est and The Soldier within a range of different thinking levels

Should be able to REMEMBER, UNDERSTAND AND APPLY

Could be able to ANALYSE and EVALUATE

Might be able to CREATE

Starter

Instructions (read them all first and then complete)

On your desk you should have one large piece of coloured card and three felt tip pens (please check)

You need to draw the largest triangle you can and split it into 6 levels (please see example on board)

Please label these levels at the side of the triangle with the key words required

On the same piece of paper, you need two word banks: conditionals and sentence starter

Introduction

Explanation of Bloom’s taxonomy using key words.

Main

In groups, pupils CREATE questions for each level within Bloom’s taxonomy based on comparing and contrasting the two poems (or whatever it is you are studying).

Pupils then move one table along and answer the questions / complete the task

Pupils then move one table along and peer assess

Plenary

Assign each group a key word i.e. Evaluate / Analyse etc and ask them to feedback with the question and answer on the table and their peer assessment of that.

Have a go with your class and let me know how you get on.

Differentiated and Inclusive Questioning

  So How on earth do you get all pupils to answer questions within the lesson, make it fair and ensure you are creating a safe and inclusive learning environment…what about using craft sticks or lollipop sticks? Easy peasy…they are about 2 quid per pack (50 in each)…split them into classes, label them with the pupil’s names and a ‘rule’ that encourages inclusion and differentiation, and pop them…

Differentiated Bubble Plan for Comparative Tasks

Comparative essays…a daunting task for many. Check out these bubble plans that have been differentiated for low, med and high ability students. I am currently using them to help pupils compare and contrast Rupert Brooke’s The Soldier and Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum est. Have a go and let me know how you get on. For low ability plan click Bubble Plan Low Ability For medium ability plan click…

This blog post is a piece I have written for Showmyhomework.co.uk When I was at school, I seem to remember feedback being something teachers sometimes did that resulted in a grade with a few illegible comments and questions being things I shrunk away from under the desk just in case I was, god forbid, wrong! I loved being told I was right – that was great – but inevitably the pressure, in front…

Pupils’ fear of complex sentences and semicolons – sorted!

Simple sentences come naturally to them, compound sentences too, so why do pupils shy away from the complex sentence and its partner in crime: the semi colon? I have been working on strategies to focus on this within my lessons and have decided that, before pupils try their own, deconstructing and reconstructing sentences is the way forward  (great for chucking in some kinesthetic learning in the…

Wall Displays – Use Them As A Tool for Revision

We all have to do them and, depending on your creativity skills, they can be a fairly daunting task. So…do what every good manager does: delegate the task to the most creative in the room and those that will use them the most – your pupils. Attached is an example that I am currently working on in my classroom; this is a work in progress and a resource I will use for interactive revision and as a…

After years of being encouraged by pupils to read this, I finely began the Inheritance Cycle beginning with a well-loved copy of Eragon from the school library. I must say, despite some clumsy narrative at times, I am hooked. What more do you need in a fantasy than elves, dwarves, dragons and ‘Urgals’? The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings definitely left their mark on the author! Ergaon is a young man who finds a blue egg, hatches a dragon and becomes a rider. His initial journey is a coming of age story with all the usual sexual awakenings, family deaths and initial battle success that one would expect...and so the story continues. I can see why my pupils enjoy this so much. I want to be a Rider. 

                                    An intriguing flashback structure that follows the life of MGB officer Leo and his wife as his firm belief in the state disintegrates and they become a couple on the run fighting against the system. If, like, me, you know only a little about the Soviet Union, and the politics that existed within this state, this is a good, albeit fictional, place to start. Recommended to me after a tour around Eastern Europe developed a detailed interest in communism and life under communist rule, the story itself is highly emotive and fragments of history make it terrifyingly interesting. I am not usually a massive fan of crime fiction but this was well worth a detour from my usual reads.