Current published Senior Cycle English textbook author with a grá for flaticons. 14 + years experience in creating T&L units for Senior Cycle English & new Junior Cycle English.
My units and worksheets are learner-centred and highly visual. Critical thinking skills and 'responsibility for own learning' are central key skills embedded throughout my resources.
Current published Senior Cycle English textbook author with a grá for flaticons. 14 + years experience in creating T&L units for Senior Cycle English & new Junior Cycle English.
My units and worksheets are learner-centred and highly visual. Critical thinking skills and 'responsibility for own learning' are central key skills embedded throughout my resources.
Feature Film Studies: Complete T&L unit on ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’ (2016) by director Taika Waititi for Junior Cycle English Students
This T&L pack include a 13 page work pack and supportive PowerPoint to support differentiation (adaptive teaching):
A two-page T&L visual explainer on film angles/camera shots with colour stills as examples
A one-page overview of the film director’s work, setting, plot and coming of age genre
Key Moments Film Analysis on 6 Key Moments with higher and lower order questions to support students creating their own film studies notes and personal responses as we move though the movie:
• Analyse the Opening Sequence - Mise-en-scène music, shots, costuming etc.
• Ricky’s birthday - music, shots, costuming etc.
• Ricky and Hec reunite in the Wilderness – Characterisation & Relationships
• Events in the Cabin
• The Wild Boar Incident & Bella’s Ashes
• The Ending - Mise-en-scène, music, shots, costuming etc.
Writing skills activities: diary entry & newspaper article writing task.
2024 Junior Cycle Film Studies Exam question included with lined writing box and a QR link to a sample answer online.
This TY English unit will take 4 - 5 classes to complete end of November to December pending TY activities.
It begins with an Christmas themed unseen poem ‘Trio’ by Edwin Morgan and unseen poetry questions with rough work prompts and a link to an online Scottish audio performance of the poem with BBC link to online T&L resources. There are lined spaces for learners to enter their answers similar to the junior cycle English format.
The next class(es) features two creative writing micro activities with the prompts:
Write a short creative piece of writing in which you outline and describe your ultimate Christmas holiday.
Write a personal piece of writing in which you outline and describe your favourite Christmas memory of all time. This resource has doodle ‘colour me in’ features and an aesthetic space for TY learners to write their micro essays (1 A4 page) x 2 options.
The following class, gives learners the space to plan their own creative poem with a scaffolded rough work planning space and an aesthetic space to write their poetry drafts.
TY’s could submit the unseen poetry as a timed assessment or the creative writing options or their self written poem as their assessment to submit for their Christmas reports.
Junior Cycle English unit to teach ‘The Outsiders’ novel text to 2nd or 3rd year classes as their main studied novel text with a view to using it in the JC terminal exam. It should cover all your prep for 6-7 weeks!
There are 12 Chapters and 12 PowerPoints to cover each chapter in depth as a well as PDF support sheets to guide the news article task on the Church fire.
This unit also uses the novel as a springboard to teach persuasive/argumentative writing, news article writing, diary entry using a feelings and emotions vocab wheel, informal letter writing & social media short from writing.
The 12 T&L PowerPoints Contain:
• A big picture overview of each chapter
• Learning intentions for each chapter
• An embedded link to the chapter by chapter audio version of ‘The Outsiders’ on YouTube
• Key Moments analysed in the PPT.
• Course Hero Youtube video explainer embedded for major key moments.
• Individual/Pair and Group Work
• Note taking opportunities
• Studied Poem: Robert Frost’s ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’ with annotation pair work task
• Critical thinking questions – Oral Language re characterisation & relationships
• Media studies T&L and new article writing based on Chp 6 and 7. – The Fire.
• Literary techniques: Motif, symbolism, circular plot, metaphor, allusion
• Cultural references explainers: Car brands, Dairy Queen, reformatory, ‘Gone with the Wind’ novel, USA Marriage norms in the 1960s etc.
• Wellbeing: Self-reflection on being present and mindfulness. Explainers on minor concussion & exhaustion & info on journal writing for trauma
This unseen poetry unit explores ‘Trio’ by Scottish poet Edwin Morgan and LC poet (2022-2026) Patrick Kavanagh’s ‘A Christmas Childhood’.
This unit will take a roughly week to cover in December. Both poems are Christmas seasonal themed with stylish aesthetic versions of the poem text printed and features unseen poetry style questions and research tasks.
This exam is an Unseen Poetry question based on Edwin Morgan’s Christmas poem ‘Trio’, set in Glasgow Scotland. This editable Word.docx exam takes roughly 45 minutes and is formatted similar to the Junior Cycle English exam with lined boxes for learners to fill in their answers onto the page.
A preview of two of the 4 questions:
(a) What do you think the poet is saying about the power of youth and hope at Christmas? Support your answer with reference to the poem. (10 marks)
(b) Identify two images from the poem that make an impact on you and give reasons for your choice. (10 marks)
