by the Super Baby Project

A Pre C20th GCSE Assignment on Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Speaking & Listening and/or Written Response

I often get asked how to make Pre-Twentieth Century texts more accessible. This assignment has been used with a number of classes with children with statements of SEN and the students have enjoyed it. I hope you can make use of it too.

It can be used in conjunction with the full novel, the full chapters and/or the film version of the novel. The full chapters are available as a separate download and can be used on a whiteboard or...

Getting your teeth into a text!

Look closely at the newspaper article on Heather Mills.

Heather’s rants wrecking case

Got the wind up ... Mucca with papers at GMTV yesterday

By VICTORIA NEWTON Showbiz Editor
Published: 09 Nov 2007, The Sun

HEATHER Mills was last night looking for new divorce lawyers – after the top firm she hired “fired” her over her bizarre TV war against Sir Paul McCartney.

Lady Mucca, 39 – who went on GMTV AGAIN yesterday – was phoned by legal eagles Mishcon de Reya and told they could no longer represent...

An English Media Assignment

Film Review by ………………..

Blade Runner

Look at the advertisement for the film below. Who are the central characters and who are they played by?

Which other characters in the film caught your eye? Why?

What type or genre of film is Blade Runner? You can look at the information below which was taken from the DVD.

Who directed the film? This person has made some changes to the original film that was shown in the cinemas in 1982. What do you think the director has done to it?

The film was based on a...

What is Making Movies Make Sense?

‘Making Movies Make Sense’ is an all-new interactive resource to help you run film viewing and filmmaking activities with children and young people.

Making Movies Make Sense shows you:

• What equipment you need
• The key principles: camera, lighting, sound and editing
• How to make a film step by step: planning, filming and editing
• Practical activities for classroom and out-of-school contexts
• What films to use

Making Movies Make Sense is illustrated with dozens of video clips and still images. The disc also...

Scheme

Year 8 Media & Non-Fiction SoW.pdf
Year 8 Media & Non-Fiction SoW.doc

Lessons & Materials

2 Stars and a Wish.doc
Commentary Handout.doc
Countdown to Zero Table For Argument.docx
Countdown to Zero Table For Argument.doc
Countdown To Zero Article.doc
Essay Guide.docx
Essay Guide.doc
Essay.pptx
Essay.ppt
Finding Pairs.ppt
Language Choices.docx
Language Choices.doc
Language Device PEE Table.docx
Language_Device_PEE_Table.doc
Leaflet Guidelines.docx
Leaflet Guidelines.doc
Learning To Be Me.doc
Lesson 1.ppt
Lesson 2.pptx
Lesson 2.ppt...[ read full article ] »

Associated Resources

• Discourse Markers Toolkit.doc
• Discourse Markers PowerPoint.pptx
• DISPLAY Discourse Markers.doc

A ‘discourse marker’ is a word or phrase that helps to link written ideas. These words are generally more formal lexical items that find little use in speech – which is perhaps why they do not always come naturally to students.

Discourse markers can be used, for example, to link ideas that are similar (e.g. the adverbs, also and similarly); and they can be used to link ideas that are dissimilar (e.g. however, alternately)....[ read full article ] »

Shakespeare’s Contemporaries included:

Marlowe

Jonson

Decker

Beaumont

Fletcher

Greene

What can you find out about these people?

How are they significant to William Shakespeare?

Have you found any really good websites that tell you more about them? If you have, let me know using the contact page and I’ll add the links here to make it easier for other students.

One student plays a parent. Another plays a child.

The parent asks (orders?) the child to sit down as they have “Something important to tell them”.

The child dithers… perhaps they are watching the end of their favourite TV programme and the parent has to be more insistent.

The child suddenly realises that it is something serious.

What?

Lovely task for pairs and groups to discuss or brainstorm with felt
pens.

Good to inspire songs, poems and first person narratives.

Do you have other ideas which might generate interesting scenarios? Let...

How to drum up a poem.

Some of Philip Larkin’s verse strikes me as being inspired by famous sayings or proverbs. The three poems below could have been written in response to the following lines:
This first one looks like it could be a response to the saying:

• “One day my ship will come in.”

Next, Please by Philip Larkin
Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then we say,
Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear
Sparkling armada of promises draw near.
How...

If Marcel Proust had had a corner shop with Rowntree’s Fruit Pastilles or Starburst in, he wouldn’t have settled for lousy biscuits.

This might require a risk assessment for children with medical conditions.

Blindfold students and ask them to hold a fruit pastille or Starburst sweet on their tongue for as long as possible without chewing it.

Ask them to describe the taste sensations.

Perfect preparation for a Proustian poem on taste and the memories that certain tastes conjure up.

Harry The Spider Is My Friend…

I teach lots of students, both young and old, who find that writing does not come easy to them.

Essay questions scare them… especially the ones that appear on examination papers.

I always introduce them to Harry the Spider. He helps them learn how to make the task of writing an essay easier.

Harry likes working on speeches, letters, newspaper articles and lots of other assignments that teachers give out all the time.

Before long, my students are more relaxed about the whole process. They find examination...

How to Write in an Abrasive Tongue

Fun activity. Lots of laughing and learning here. First off, read through Jeremy Clarkson’s offering on the French manufacturing industry.

See if you can fill in the blanks with something (in)appropriate.

Easing into a Clarksonesque Register…

‘While the French like a good-looking woman in the Elysée Palace, they plainly have trouble with aesthetics in other departments.

Take the oyster as an example. I have no idea who first cracked one open, peered at the …….. inside and thought: “Mmm. I’m...

Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights” was published in 1847 under the pseudonym of Ellis Bell. It is now considered a classic novel in English literature.

Originally, the book seemed to hold little promise, selling very poorly and receiving only a few mixed reviews. Even the author’s sister, Charlotte, stated in a preface to the book, which she wrote shortly after Emily Brontë’s death “Whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff, I do not know. I scarcely think it is.” and other Victorian readers found the...

The following article from a newspaper is a fantastic resource for oral and/or written responses. Read it through first then go on to the assignments that are highlighted below it. You can use this as stimulus for improvised drama. Similarly, you can ask students to write down their responses to the tasks. These conversations can then be joined together to create a complete script.

Suspect whiff from flower border brings police and gang raids

Steven Morris
The Guardian
Saturday December 6 2008

An elderly couple who bought a pink-flowering...

Design some junk mail for yourself.

Junk mail hits our doormats and email inboxes daily.

• How do you stop the recipients simply sticking it straight in the bin?
• How do you ensnare potential customers?
• What ruses do you employ?
• Which psychological tricks do you use to your advantage?
• How do you make people think the envelope is worth opening?

Gather some junk mail and see what the professionals do. Cut out bits to help you in your design.

Think of a product you would like to push!

Just take a look at an email I received recently. This is a...

Read the following article from The Guardian and then the poem by Carol Ann Duffy that has caused all the fuss.

You might also like to read the comments on the TES English Forum about the decision to remove the piece from the examination syllabus.

Knife crime is certainly in the news. Should this poem be banned?

Top exam board asks schools to destroy book containing knife poem
Three complaints about Carol Ann Duffy work
 - Children’s laureate Rosen accuses AQA of censorship

Polly Curtis, Education Editor
The Guardian, Thursday...

Watch the video and analyse the lyrics. What does this song say about our culture in Britain today?

Why is the songwriter angry?

Roots by Show of Hands

Now it’s been 25 years or more
I’ve roamed this land from shore to shore
From Tyne to Teign, or Severn to Thames
From moor to vale, from peak to fen

Played in cafes, pubs and bars
I’ve stood in the street with my own guitar
But I’d be richer than all the rest
If I had a pound for each request

For ‘Duelling Banjos’, ‘American Pie’
It’s enough to make you cry
‘Rule Britannia’, or ‘Swing...

Think of an established TV magazine…whether it is Top Gear, Blue Peter or Grand Designs. These popular niche programmes have a ready-made template or formula that their fans recognise.

Once a template has been established, it is necessary to feed in new ideas to feed the creation to keep the programme attractive to viewers.

Media companies are therefore keen to have novel ideas to feed into their schedule.

Many ideas come from in-house production teams. Fortunately, many ideas come unsolicited from outside, whether from ardent fans or...

You have all heard of the famous fairy tale of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs.

Fairy tales often end with the cliché “and they all lived happily ever after.” The play below starts to suggest that this is not always the case. Sometimes things crop up to suggest the tale is not quite finished.Read the play and discuss with your friends what might happen next and before you know it you’ll have a sequel!

Scene One

Seven Dwarfs’ cottage.

Doc: (To audience) Hey up you lot. I’m Doc one of the Seven Dwarfs. Remember us?

Sneezy:...

Students should start by completing a survey on phobias/pet hates.

This will generate a list of possible topics for verses. They can write at length about one aversion or wander lonely as a cloud
contemplating several.

It’s been fun compiling this list of ideas that have worked for me in the classroom to inspire students in the creative writing. I hope you have found some of the topics and approaches useful.

We’d now really like to hear from you for more of the same.

Click here to send in your thoughts and we’ll log them on the site to...

Use a scenario in a painting and/or advertisement to inspire a piece of writing.

Again, this can lead to improvised drama. The source material could be a landscape or portrait.

Prompts?

• Who lives here?
• What do you think the person in this cottage does?
• Where are they going?

Individual Portraits

• What is she doing?
• Where did she get that scarf?
• Where is she going through that door?
• Who has disturbed her recently?
• Why is she smiling?
• What would you like to say to him?
• What secret thoughts are going through her head?

This technique can...

Hand out old magazines and newspapers and ask student to cut or tear out slogans from ads or weird and wonderful headlines.

These are then collected together and handed out at random for students to collate into surreal poems.

Find an old movie…one on video or DVD (obscure Sky Channels are fantastic for this) and having made sure that none of your students has seen it, show a random scene with the volume turned down. Yep. No sound at all!

Ask students to concentrate on the body language to see if they can work out what is going on.

They then work in groups to produce their version of the dialogue.

Usually has the class doubling up with laughter at show time.

Read the following short play and create your own ending for it then compare it to the one that was originally written.

The Key to Room 65

A teenager, Mary-Jane taps on a hotel door.

Emily: Come in! It’s open.

Mary-Jane enters her friend’s room and is puzzled to find Emily squashed against the wall with a coat hanger in her hand.

Mary-Jane:  What are you doing with that?

Emily: I’m fishing.

Mary-Jane: Fishing? What for?

Emily: My pants.

Mary-Jane: You’re using a bent coat hanger to fish for your knickers???

Emily: I draped...

Hand out dictionaries or lists of randomly printed words.

Students have to cover their eyes and point at words on the page.

A friend can keep note of the words they land on.

When they have collected twenty words, they have to use them (or as many as they can out of 20) to create a poem.

Visit an estate agent’s shop and ask for bundles of old property guides. These make marvelous props.

Recycle them in school and pass them round the English class, leaving each group of students with six houses to study. These six houses are on Compilation Street.

The students’ job is to populate each house with stereotypes. Nothing too vicious or racist… the grump, the neighbour who hates ball games, the dog lover and so on.

Each house should have at least two stereotypes living there.

The creative writing task is to plan conversations…...

You’ve seen the film. You’ve read the book. You’ve probably even got the duvet cover…Now write the panto!

Read this on your whiteboard and continue in the same style. For panto, think audience participation, slapstick and corny lines!

The Return Of The Bling!

Scene 1

Frodo: Gandalf, you’re late!

Gandalf: A wizard is never late Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.

Frodo: Whatever…it’s wonderful to see you. But what happened to your car?

Gandalf: Don’t ask. I’ve been down the high street. I just...

What happens next?

VERY popular task this one. Ever sent a text message to the wrong person? Can be VERY embarrassing! Blake has, so he knows. See this extract from the musical “Gordon Bennett!!!”

Extract from the musical Gordon Bennett!!!

Two boys meet on a corridor. Blake is VERY agitated.

BLAKE: Des! Des!

DES: What’s up? Calm down.

BLAKE: Everything’s gone wrong. And it’s all your fault.

DES: My fault? I wasn’t even here. I was in French. What have
YOU done now?

BLAKE: I was writing some stuff down on my phone. Look. (holds...

It was a usual Wednesday at school. Nothing eventful had happened, apart from Mr.Green farting in the middle of our English class making us all nearly fall off our chairs with laughter.

At lunch break we all hung out at our usual spot outside the local shop, me, Lucy, Rachael, Tony and Ben. We had to go there so that Ben could have his cig. He was the only one out of us all that smoked, we had all tried it but Ben was the only one that liked it.

It was outside the shop that day that we made our usual arrangement to meet at the local youth...

What happens next? You could turn this into a script or third person narrative.

Enterprising students can make this into a first person narrative with a little tweaking.

Trick or Treat

‘No,’ Danny’s mum said. ‘No way! You are not playing Trick or Treat. And that’s final.’

‘But Mum,’ Danny stopped there. He knew better than to argue when his mum was in that mood.

But his mum had more to say. ‘Some of the old people I work for are scared stiff at Halloween,’ she said. ‘They don’t want to open the door to kids dressed...

Newspapers are fantastic treasure troves for story and play ideas. Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy new the value of reading old newspapers when he had a bit of writer’s block. It worked a treat and gave him lots of ideas to put in his books.

Look at this story from The Daily Mail. Perfect for a human interest tale. Lots of “what happened next?” questions.

• What got him into treasure hunting?
• Did it ever lead to disputes?
• Will it change his life?

Amateur treasure hunter finds £25,000 bejewelled cross in field with metal detector

By DAILY...

Pop songs are great inspiration for drama, poetry and stories. You can guess my age when I say “Disco 2000” and “Common People” by Pulp are wonderful songs. Very atmospheric and you can just imagine the scenarios that inspired the lyrics.

Listen to a CD… perhaps one brought in by students and delve behind the lyrics. Lots to discuss! a good Speaking & Listening assignment too.

Use the situations conjured up to create the setting, the mood, the dialogue and write a story, poem or play.

Dear John...

The letter.

Show the class a sealed envelope. Ask them to imagine what correspondence is inside. They have five minutes in a group to come up with the best idea(s)

Groups talk about their ideas then pass their idea clockwise on to another group and the receivers have to turn this letter into a short piece of drama.

The drama must start or finish with the writing of the letter and it being sealed in the envelope.

Good for poetry assignments.

Other prompts can be parcels, wrapped picture frames, returned
Birthday or Christmas...

Improvised drama is often an excellent way to inspire writing. Bring in a box of objects. They can be related. For example, a tool box
full of tools.

Ask students to think of a scenario where this could be used…

such as a person calls in a plumber to fix the washing machine.

With a class full of ideas, you should have a lively number of situations.

Groups select one idea to use as basis for their improvised drama.

We need to bring in a problem.

Good stories have a juicy problem. The drama comes out of this
conflict and the ending should...

For Sci-Fi buffs. Improvise a drama in which a student has played so many computer games that (s)he is convinced that the game is REALITY and real life is illusion. The student adopts the speech patterns and mannerisms of the digital hero.

In the drama, the student is sent to an educational psychologist by a worried parent.

This always throws up some weird responses.

A poetry assignment inspired by this poem by Carol Ann Duffy.

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy
Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its...

A plea. If you are going to share one piece of television drama with your English class, let it be this! Do your kids a favour, buy this DVD now.

Blue Remembered Hills remains one of Dennis Potter’s best-known plays, and is the one that is most often still produced on the stage, even though it was originally written for television. It is a story about childhood, the “land of lost content” of Housman’s verses and has obvious appeal to modern English students.

In his introduction to the play Potter acknowledges that “compared with most of the...

Some Examples…

1. Rhetorical Question

Are they expecting us to take this lying down?

2. Emotive Language

Heather’s rants wrecking case!

3. Parallel Structures

To show kindness is praiseworthy; to show hatred is evil.

4. Alliteration

As busy as a bee

As dead as a doornail

As good as gold,

As right as rain

5. Contrast

Sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind.
(Note that this includes alliteration too)

6. Description and Imagery (using metaphor, simile, personification)

While we wait and do nothing, we must not forget that the...

Being Persuaded…

Advertising Name:

Survey magazines for products and services aimed at teenagers.

An example of a product is:

An example of a service is:

Adverts aimed at teenagers fit into several categories.

First task is to identify them.

Advertisers use a variety of tricks or tactics to get at their audience.

They can cajole, tempt, entice, flatter, worry, disturb, attract, intrigue, move, persuade and appeal to their teenage audience.

They can use celebrity endorsement, special offers, sex appeal, authority figures and discomfort...

Language in Action

Daily Mail makes up with Poles

Stephen Brook
The Guardian, Tuesday August 5, 2008

The Daily Mail has reached a peace deal with Britain’s Polish community over its coverage following negotiations brokered by the Press Complaints Commission.

The Federation of Poles in Great Britain lodged a formal complaint with the PCC that the newspaper had defamed Poles working in Britain, accusing the Daily Mail of printing articles that gave rise to “negative emotions and tensions between the new EU immigrants and local communities”....[ read full article ] »

An English Media Assignment

A scaffold to help students write about a TV show.

Copies of the DVD are available from Channel 4. I would particularly recommend Episode One from Series Two for study.

If the kids don’t laugh reviewing this show then you may hit me with a stick!

Name:

This is a sitcom. The two words that make up this type of show are…

The show takes place in…

The humour comes from…

The credits for the show are based on…

Here is Moss. He is…

Here is Jen. She is…

Here is Roy. He is…

The best thing about...

An English Media Assignment

This guide tells students and teachers what to look for in analysing Daphne du Maurier’s short story The Birds and then reviewing Hitchcock’s film version.

The guide allows you to study each work separately or combine the two pieces together into an English Media Studies assignment.

Answer the questions on computer so you can rejig your comments into an essay by removing the question numbers and cutting and pasting the comments in different places.

The Short Story

The story is taken from a collection now...

An English Media Assignment

Why do you think American TV viewers were so appalled when they first saw ‘Malcolm in The Middle’ ?

Malcolm In The Middle is an award-winning sitcom on television. Although the series has now come to an end, lots of people now think it is brilliant and the show has millions of fans around the world. They enjoy endless repeats of the show.

This has not always been the case, though. When the pilot was first screened in the USA, lots of people were appalled and angry. They failed to see the show’s funny side.

The Language of Persuasion

What approaches do advertisers take to grab our attention?

Look at some magazine advertisements and note the technique they employ. Tick off the following categories from the list when you spot it being used.

The same ad may use a combination of these approaches.

• Humour
• Economics
• Sex appeal
• Celebrity endorsement
• Science
• Time limits
• Machismo
• Popularity
• Insecurity
• Luxury
• I laugh or smile when I see this
• I think I could save money
• I find this person attractive
• I would like to be like this person
• I think this product...

First performed: 1594
First published: 1597
Revised for publication in The First Folio, 1623

What was happening at the time: Rodrigo Lopez, the Queen’s physician, executed for treason. A Spanish invasion attempted in Cornwall, beaten off by Sir Walter Raleigh

The play is based on a true story. The two lovers died in 1307

There were two families named Montague and Capulet living in Verona at the time.

Romeo and Juliet is probably the most famous of all Shakespeare’s plays.

Although the play is usually described as a tragedy, it...

Written: 1606
First performed: 1606
First review: 1610 by Simon Forman

What was happening at the time: The Gunpowder Plot in November 1605 and the trial and execution of the plotters in Spring 1606

References in the play

The Porter is a satire on Father James Garnet, a gunpowder plotter and ‘equivocator’.

The witches are there as a homage to James 1 who had written a book on witchcraft called ‘Daemonologie’ and was a witch hunter himself.

There is a reference to James’s brother who was drowned in a storm at sea for which...