How do you feel today?

Working at a school this Friday, I came across a resource that I really liked but I could see that, with a few tweaks, it could be even more useful. So, I’ve made my own version of it.

Each ‘emoticon’ has beneath it a strip of five boxes that could indicate intensity or that could be [...]

Exploring deductive reading

This is a resource that is part of the Teaching Inference and Deduction materials that I presented at our English Conference recently. It’s function is to serve as a thinking chart during an activity that simulates the fact that able readers frequently predict and reflect on reasonable reading conclusions.

At the conference I used a (very) [...]

Tracking Characters

Here’s one of my resources from the recent Conference (see previous post). This is an exercise that helps students to explore one of the skills of reading to deduce: how able readers can track multiple characters in a text.
The important element in using this piece of work with a group is not to focus on [...]

Conference 09

Here, as promised, is the PowerPoint from my session at our recent Regional English Conference.This is an annual event hosted in Doncaster to support the teaching of English in the north east of England.
For those of you unable to attend, it was another excellent event chock full of ideas for teaching English. There were brilliant [...]

Sometimes you find the perfect thing

Ever heard of SnagIt? Well, this post is one for those ICT-curious teachers who are looking for tools that can create (among others things) interactive resources for their students.
I must admit I am attracted by the possibility of using Flash animations in my lessons but simply do not deem such labour-intensive resources worthwhile for everyday [...]

How to kill a love of reading

Just when we think that teachers have no standing in our communities, one of those delightful and flattering conversations occurs. You know the ones – they begin with a circuitous preamble (about the weather or a statement beginning with ‘I don’t know how you do it’) and then move towards the request for one’s opinion [...]

Extending answers

The blog finally gets audio!
I thought I’d share a little piece of my work with Year 10 English today. This group is described on the timetable as a ‘less-able, less-motivated group’ of students with low abilities. Some teachers might even refer to the class dismissively as a ‘bottom set’. I hate the term myself. To [...]

Don’t start with ‘techniques’

How is a reader best introduced to a text?
It was my good fortune today to work with a group of teachers on the subject of reading. In particular, we were examining precisely that subject – finding ways into a text for our readers.
The problem is this: students have to own a text (or at least [...]

A sequence for November

Sometimes we have no option but to help students engage with difficult or particularly challenging texts. One such text is Simon Armitage’s haunting poem ‘November‘ and it was the topic for my Year 10 class today.
I began by asking students to associate words or ideas with months of the year. February might associate in some [...]

Not in search of things that go ‘bing’ (really)

There is no doubt that students respond very well to ICT based activities especially those that involve sound, novelty and a degree of challange. Whilst trawling the internet for something completely unrelated (ain’t that always the way!), I happened across this site.

It contains lessons, web-based resources and interactive student materials related to the IRA/NCTE Standards [...]