English

TERM 1

Introductions, Language Analysis, Non-Fiction Writing and the Older Text Anthology:

Year 7 begin the term with our Introductions module, which helps students settle into life at Grace through three key assessments of writing, reading and speaking and listening. After this, they use non-fiction persuasive texts to develop a range of reading skills.

This then links well with the non-fiction writing anti-bullying scheme after the half term, supporting SMSC and ethos and teaching students the key skills of non-fiction writing they will use throughout their time at Grace.

Finally, students look at the Older Text Anthology, compiled of extracts of famous texts from the literary heritage canon, to help them have a greater familiarity with older types of writing.

Topics Include:

• Autobiographies and biographies
• Poetry analysis – in particular ‘New Boy’
• Presentations about their passion
• Analysing Language
• Writing letters of complaint
• Extracts from the older text anthology

Key Skills Being Developed:

• Extracting information from a text
• Understanding writer’s purpose in a text
• Developing empathy skills
• Developing planning and drafting skills
• Developing speaking and listening confidence
• Understanding ‘hidden information’ (subtext) in more difficult texts
• Giving a personal opinion about a text with reasons backed up
• Working out the PAF of a task and using DEAF
• Commenting how specific details of a text are influenced by biographical, social and historical context

TERM 2

Creative Writing and The Novel:

In the second term, students write their own stories, developing their ability to write creatively as well as their literacy skills. After half term, students read an entire novel as a class and look at analysing language.

Topics Include:

• Planning a short story in response to a range of titles
• Second short story that improves on the first
•  Examples of the novel include ‘The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas’ and ‘Room 13’
•  Learning about plot, themes, character development

Key Skills Developed:

• Developing use of sentences, such as the Alan Peat sentences
• Developing use of language devices, such as metaphors, similes, personification
• Word choice for effect
• Effective punctuation
• Creation of tension
• Delay of information
• Making time jumps
• Effective description of setting, character and emotion
• Tone of narrator (voice and viewpoint).
• Work on tenses
• Using textual references to support the comments made about texts
• Understanding subtext
• Identifying the writer’s purpose/intentions
• Giving a personal opinion about a text
• Developing essay style responses

TERM 3

A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Poetry from Other Cultures:

To start the summer term off, students look at Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Pupils will be studying extracts of the play to develop their understanding of Develop familiarity with the play and Shakespeare’s use of comedy.

Finally, for the last topic of the year, students to learn how to annotate a poem, how to apply context to a text, how to comment on the effect of specific language choices and literary devices, and how to write an essay and a comparative essay on a poem.

Topics Include:

• History of the Elizabethan era
• History of Shakespeare
• Extracts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Essay writing
• Different poems from cultures around the world

Key Skills Being Developed:

• Identifying specific words and phrases and explaining how they create meaning and impact the reader
• Identifying and explaining effects of devices and techniques used by writers (such as similes, metaphors)
• Understanding the writer’s intention in a text
• Commenting on social and historical context of a text
• Comparison of poems
• Identifying structural features
• Identifying genre or form of a text
• Identifying main links between texts, e.g. characters or settings
• Key poetry terms

TERM 1

War Poetry and the Novel:

Students start the year with a scheme of WW1 Poetry, which helps pupil develop their appreciation of poetry. Pupils then write a range of stories to develop the readers.

Topics Include:

• Range of poems covered, such as ‘Who’s For the Game?’, ‘My Boy Jack’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’

Key Skills Being Developed:

• Using textual references to support the comments about texts
• Understanding subtext in more difficult texts
• Commenting on writer’s use of language
• Commenting on use of structure and form
• Writing on writer’s viewpoints and organisation
• Evaluating texts
• Comparing ideas and perspectives across multiple texts
• Understanding relationship between context and text

TERM 2

Reading Scheme and Creative Writing:

Students develop an understanding of the key reading skills required at KS4. The focus of the scheme is to secure the information retrieval skill and begin to develop their analysis, comparison and evaluation skills.

After this, students study the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’, where they learn about the history of the American Depression and the plot, theme and characters.

Topics Include:

• Looking at a range of fiction reading extracts
• Practising a variety of question styles, such as comparison and evaluate
• Planning a short story in response to a range of titles
• Second short story that improves on the first

Key Skills Being Developed:

• Skim and scan the text to find specific details
• Identifying specific words and phrases and explaining how they create meaning and impact the reader
• Identifying the effects of devices and techniques used by the writer
• Identifying the writer’s purposes and intentions
• Developing use of sentences, such as the Alan Peat sentences
• Developing use of language devices, such as metaphors, similes, personification
• Word choice for effect
• Effective punctuation
• Creation of tension
• Delay of information
• Making time jumps
• Effective description of setting, character and emotion
• Tone of narrator (voice and viewpoint).
• Work on tenses

TERM 3

Unit(s) Title: Shakespeare – Macbeth and Non-Fiction Writing

Topics Include:

• Macbeth
• Non-Fiction Writing

Key skills being developed:

• Relevant contexts
• Decoding vocabulary
• Extract analysis
• Language analysis
• Presentation of characters
• How to write theme essays
• Key subject terminology for effective analysis
• Key vocabulary for high level responses

TERM 1

Unit(s) Title: Animal Farm – George Orwell, Creative Writing

Topics Include:

• Relevant context – Capitalism, Socialism, Class – useful for AIC exam text
• Decoding of difficult vocabulary
• Extract Analysis
• Language Analysis – focus on rhetoric devices of writers
• Presentation of characters
• Writing a theme essay - with context embedded into the response
• Sentences for effect
• Word choice for effect
• Effective punctuation
• Creation of tension
• Delay of information
• Making time jumps
• Effective description of setting, character and emotion
• Tone of narrator (voice and viewpoint)
• Work on tenses

TERM 2

In this term students will study a Language module followed by a Literature module.  In the first half term they will study creative writing, and later move on to study the first set of poems from their G.C.S.E Literature anthology. 

Topics Include:

• Non Fiction Writing
• Poetry Anthology

Key skills being developed:

• Fully embed the PAF, PLAN, DEAF, LINKS approach.
• Teach tone – what is appropriate and how to create it
• Annotation of poems.
• How to write an essay on the poems
• Poetic devices and impact in the poems
• Contexts of the poems
• Links and comparisons

TERM 3

In this term students will study a Literature module of work followed by a Language module.  In the first half of the term they will study Romeo and Juliet, and later move on to learn how to respond to a range of Non-Fiction texts.

Topics Include:

• Hamlet
• Non-Fiction Reading

Key skills being developed:

• Plot and character knowledge
• Responding to extracts of Shakespeare
• Language Analysis
• Approaches to the Reading Papers

TERM 1

Unit(s) Title: Non-Fiction Reading and Writing.

Students will study a range of texts and complete a range of activities in order to prepare them for the G.C.S.E paper 2 exam.

Topics Include:

• Non-Fiction Reading and Writing

Key skills being developed:

• Using TQI
• How to evaluate
• How to compare
• Reading for meaning
• Language analysis
• Analysis of the writer’s craft
• Fully embed the PAF, PLAN, DEAF, LINKS approach.
• Teach Tone – what is appropriate and how to create it

TERM 2

Unit(s) Title: Fiction Reading and Writing.

Students will study a range of texts and complete a range of activities in order to prepare them for the G.C.S.E paper 1 exam.

Topics Include:

• Fiction Reading and Writing

Key skills being developed:

• Using TQI
• How to evaluate
• How to compare
• Reading for meaning
• Language analysis
• Analysis of the writer’s craft
• Sentences for effect
• Word choice for effect
• Effective punctuation
• Creation of tension
• Delay of information
• Making time jumps
• Effective description of setting, character and emotion
• Tone of narrator (voice and viewpoint)

TERM 3

Unit(s) Title:  An Inspector Calls and A Christmas Carol.

Topics Include:

• An Inspector Calls
• A Christmas Carol

Key skills being developed:

• Relevant contexts
• Decoding vocabulary
• Extract analysis
• Language analysis
• Presentation of characters
• How to write theme essays
• Key subject terminology for effective analysis
• Key vocabulary for high level responses

TERM 1

Romeo and Juliet:  

In this term students will be preparing for their English Literature GCSE, Component 1 exam, section A. In the first half of the term they will read and study the play, and in the second half term, students will move on to focus on how to approach and improve responses to exam-style questions on the text.

Topics Include:

•  Plot of ‘Romeo and Juliet’
•  Character studies
•  Analysis of themes and wider ideas

Key skills being developed:

•  Relevant contexts – patriarchal societies, Elizabethan period.
•  Decoding of Shakespearean vocabulary
•  Extract analysis
•  Language analysis
•  Presentation of characters
•  How to write theme essays
•  Key subject terminology for effective analysis
•  Key vocabulary for high level responses

TERM 2

Poetry Anthology and English Language revision:

In the first half of the term students will be preparing for their English Literature GCSE, Component 1 exam, section B. Students will read and study all of the poems in the Eduqas poetry anthology, learning how to analyse and compare poems in response to a range of exam-style questions: love, power, time, place, war, loss, gender, suffering and nature.

In the latter half of the term, students will be moving on to revise core skills needed for Component 1 and Component 2 of the English Language exams.

Topics Include:

• Learning key contextual information for each poem in the anthology e.g. Romanticism, WW1, Victorian London etc.
• Biographical information for each featured poet.
• Analysis of themes and wider ideas explored in the anthology.
• Revision of Component 1 Reading and Writing skills (fiction – extract analysis and creative writing)
• Revision of Component 2 Reading and Writing skills (non-fiction – article analysis and non-fiction writing styles)

Key skills being developed:

• Relevant contexts
• Decoding of difficult vocabulary
• Language analysis – specific focus on writer’s use of poetic devices
• Comparison of poems – themes, style, language and structure
• Key subject terminology for effective analysis
• Exam practice: completing numerous paired analyses of poems on a variety of themes
• Revision of core language reading skills: retrieval, inference, analysis, evaluation and comparison.
• Revision of all core writing styles: creative writing, letters, speeches, articles, reviews, reports.

TERM 3

Revision of all units/components:

In this term, students will be revising all topics and components for both GCSE English Language and GCSE English Literature.

Topics Include:

• English Language Component 1 – fiction reading and writing
• English Language Component 2 – non-fiction reading and writing
• English Literature Component 1 – Shakespeare and Poetry Anthology
• English Literature Component 2 – ‘An Inspector Calls’, ‘A Christmas Carol’ and unseen poetry.

Key skills being developed:

• Revision of core language reading skills: retrieval, inference, analysis, evaluation and comparison.
• Revision of PAF, plan, DEAF and LINKS approach for reading questions.
• Revision of all core writing styles: creative writing, letters, speeches, articles, reviews, reports.
• Revision of how to improve writing through the use of sentences for effect, word choice, setting and character descriptions, use of tone, tenses and basic literacy skills.
• Relevant contexts, plots, characters, themes for all literature texts.
• Language analysis.
• Key subject terminology for effective analysis
• Exam practice: how to approach and improve responses.