Twinkl Resources

The people at Twinkl have given me a free account on their website and in return I said I’d review, occasionally, some of their resources.

Resources for lessons is a tricky subject for me, because where people want a full standalone lesson lovingly crafted by someone else, I want a task or resource to use in a lesson. If I wanted something done for me, I’d still be living with my parents and they’d write this blog for me. Therefore, I am going to pick several resources, which I think are useful for parts of a lesson.

Fronted Adverbial Word Mat

I am a big fan of using primary school approaches in the classroom. A simple, yet effective way of ensuring transition without the need for a big label. This resources is particularly useful with creative writing. My Year 8s are currently writing horror stories and they are guilty of writing pedestrian sentence openings. I am going to use this when drafting. I particularly like the fronted adverbials related to degree for developing some sophisticated expressions.

Paragraph Cohesion

Paragraphs are the bane of my life and I always like an extract where the use of paragraphs is explored. This resource uses an extract from ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and gets students to uses the appropriate conjunction or adverbial. Nice for 5 minute activity before you start looking at paragraph construction in more detail.  

An Inspector Calls Mini Exam Pack

I am always on the lookout for ways to support the department and I found this pack quite an easy hack. I have photocopied the pack and I am giving it to staff so that they can set them as homework. With the questions photocopied as a booklet, students can plan a question after each lesson and start the following lesson with sharing their plan.

Phase 2 Captions Handwriting Activity Sheet

Sometimes differentiating work can be hard. I have found this activity, along with others, on handwriting quite helpful when you have a student who struggles with writing and writing prose. This helps, with a TA, them to work on their control of their pen / pencil.

All resources can be found here:

http://www.twinkl.co.uk

The Rules of Poetry

There was a moment this week when I was talking to a class about free verse and its benefits for poetry. During it, I had a thought. A thought about rules. How important it is to understand the rules of a particular poem? Whether a poem is free verse or not, there is still a set of rules guiding the writing. Not having rhyme is a rule. Not having a regular rhythm is a rule.

I have analysed ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ umpteen times and I thought I’d view it differently. I thought I’d view it from a set of rules. I started with a few rules and then things snowballed.

Rules

1.       Sound effects are repeated three times

2.       End each stanza with the ‘six hundred’

3.       Visual details are repeated twice

4.       All dialogue starts with ‘Forward, the Light Brigade’

5.       The last verb in first fours stanzas is ‘rode’

6.       Verbs are paired when action takes place

7.       Stanzas three and five repeat the same five lines at the start

8.       The first word in every line is stressed

9.       One word in the whole poem is three syllables long

10.   All words, apart from one,  in the poem are one or two syllables long

11.   Dactylic diameter used throughout

12.   The number of times the imperative ‘forward’ is used matches the number of times the imperative ‘honour’  is used at the end

13.   Exclamations are followed by questions at the start but this is inverted at the end of the poem

I could go on and on looking for rules. This, by no means, is an exhaustive list. But, when you have rules down on paper you can start exploring the meaning in greater detail. What is the significance of a rule? (Incidentally, you have some rules to help them create a poem.)

Rule 13 – Nobody questioned the orders until after the event. Therefore, the last stanza reflects that need to question first before action. The poem subtly wants a change in the structure of the military organisation.

Rule 9 – Battery is the one three syllable word in the whole poem drawing attention to the key difference between the light brigade and their enemy.

Rule 1 and 3 – Greater emphasis is placed on the sound effects rather than the visual aspects to give a level of distance and confusion. The events are heard more than they are seen. Reflects how the public experienced

Rule 12 – The poet replaces the officer giving orders at the end of the poem. His commands equal that of the officers in the event.

These aren’t definitive interpretations, but they present a starting point to enable a focused discussion of the poem. Tomorrow’s lesson with my Year 10 is about the Ted Hughes’ rules in ‘Bayonet Charge’.  

Thanks for reading,

Xris