IGCSE English Teacher and Examiner with a passion for making Literature come alive whilst simultaneously helping students get the best possible marks.
Contact me at: mrisherwoodliterature@outlook.com
IGCSE English Teacher and Examiner with a passion for making Literature come alive whilst simultaneously helping students get the best possible marks.
Contact me at: mrisherwoodliterature@outlook.com
This is a set of fully resourced lessons aimed at preparing students to answer unseen poetry and prose questions. Having found a lack of resources for both unseen poetry and prose I have created this resource which is designed to give students all the skills needed to approach the questions. This should take roughly 25 lessons to complete, although, it is easily adaptable to last more by giving students longer to develop annotation skills.
I have tried to make the texts as engaging as possible, and ensure it covers a broad range of literature: Kendrick Lamar, Dave, Billy Bragg, Shakespeare, Barret Browning, Osundare, Rupi Kaur, Maya Angelou, Dangaremba and others. It is not designed for students to study the context of these writerâs, but rather use their works as a way into studying unseen.
The unit has resources that can be easily adapted based on whether students have already studied the poetry anthology, and the novel already. There are differentiated resources to help with IGCSE essay writing included as well. There are also model paragraphs on a range of texts.
**New Full scheme for Songs of Ourselves Volume 2, Part 3 is available here: **IGCSE English Literature Songs of Ourselves Volume 2, Part 3 - Scheme of Work - 0475 Cambridge
Free Taster Lesson on the Capital now available. The Capital Free Taster Lesson
Leave a review and get a free resource of your choice from my TES shop. Simply email me at: mrisherwoodliterature@outlook.com with your purchase receipt and which resource you would like me to share.
First Exam in 2025.
Full lessons, with all materials for teaching the entire anthology. Including: engaging âways inâ to each poem, vocabulary building starters, contextual learning material tied to English Language IGCSE questions, practice exam questions for each poem, models and scaffolds.
The scheme is designed to take roughly 45 lessons to complete and can be extended through the addition of timed essays, or shortened by removing the English Language elements or simply looking at the texts without writing responses to questions.
This scheme of work is designed to integrate IGCSE English Language skills alongside English Literature skills.
The scheme is built with the concept of spaced retrieval in mind, and thus each poem also focuses on particular English Language skills.
Each poem also contains tasks which are designed to engage students in the subject matter, from mime, to drawing, to exploration via google street view. The hope is that students learn to find poetry exciting.
The model examples, checklists and strategies are a culmination of the understanding of the course developed whilst working as an examiner.
The scheme contains guides for some poems, although poems which already have decent guides on websites such as LitCharts do not contain guides. Instead I hope this scheme works to teach analytical skills and essay writing, rather than attempting to get students to regurgitate line by line analysis.
All IGCSE English Language questions have mark schemes which I have constructed.
Poems:
Nancy Fotheringham Cato, âThe Roadâ
Sarah Jackson, âThe Instant of My Deathâ
Arun Kolatkar, âThe Busâ
Julius Chingono, âAt the Bus Stationâ
Imtiaz Dharker, âThese are the Times We Live inâ
Elizabeth Jennings, âThe Enemiesâ
Sampurna Chattarji, âBoxesâ
W H Auden, âThe Capitalâ
Arthur Yap, âan afternoon napâ
Elizabeth Smither, âPlaitsâ
Elizabeth Daryush, âChildren of Wealthâ
Thomas Love Peacock, âRich and Poor or, Saint and Sinnerâ
Musaemura Zimunya, âA Long Journeyâ
Stevie Smith, âTouch and Goâ
George Szirtes, âSongâ
Also included is a recommended structure for the course based on the order I wish I had taught the poems in.
Full scheme for Songs of Ourselves Volume 2, Part 3 is also available here: IGCSE English Literature Songs of Ourselves Volume 2, Part 3 - Scheme of Work - 0475 Cambridge
New update 09/24 - Bonus lessons looking at how to effectively structure descriptive writing in a range of ways.
This resource is a scheme of work that hopefully offers a series of unique ways into descriptive and narrative writing. The scheme should last at least 20 lessons.
It has a fantastic lesson that guides students through planning descriptive writing, so that it is planned for effect.
It has some fun and unique creative writing activities often responding to different pieces of art.
It has a lesson on planning narrative writing using a curated list of short films.
It has a feedback lesson focused on making writing more concrete and maintaining tense (examiners reports from Cambridge often cite lapses in tense as a major reason for losing marks).
It has a series of lessons on punctuation for effect (punctuated by pictures of cute animals)
All resources are included and all videos are linked in the notes section of the slides.
As I tend not to recommend that students do narrative writing for the exam there are less lessons on this.
Please get in contact if there is anything youâd like me to add or clarify about the lessons.
The contextual links used here are based on substantial reading of literary criticism related to the play, and then brought back into an accessible format for GCSE.
It contains contextual notes, 24 slides (with discussion questions, videos and activities) and a review of Osama the Hero.
These lessons are designed to give students the ability to make truly perceptive comments on DNA context that go beyond simply making references to âgangsâ which ultimately is quite repetitive.
It is pitched for a top set and designed to take 3-4 lessons. It covers:
Dennis Kellyâs other plays âOsama the Heroâ and Post-9/11 literature as a concept.
Phil and Utilitarianism.
Emotional Abuse in relationships.
Victim Blaming.
In Yer Face Theatre.
Phil as Machiavellian
Post Truth Society.
These concepts are not generally talked about in revision guides and other material, and should stretch studentâs answers to be much more perceptive.
Please get in contact if there is anything missing, or that you would like me to add.
A re-upload of my scheme of work for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Based on mixed reviews, especially as the quality of resources for the text available has improved, it has been uploaded now for free.
This should represent a good jumping off point for planning your own lessons.
It looks at the entire text, moving from context, to theory, to close analysis.
The context lessons look at:
Masculinity
Patriarchy
Race
Class
Southern identity
The opening of the play looks at:
Staging of the play (including Williamsâs evocative descriptions)
The presentation of Brick and Maggie in the opening.
Depictions of wealth and class.
Essay writing guide lesson and essay planning lesson on the presentation of Maggie in the opening.
Lesson on the symbolism of the crutch, with a touch on Freudian analysis to prepare for A2 study.
Depictions of Brickâs alcoholism.
More lessons will be added as I develop and finalise the scheme whilst teaching it.
The lessons on the second half of the first act look at:
Page by page questions for three pages on Brick and Maggieâs relationship.
Extract based exam question designed in the style of Cambridge AS Level.
Research task on the Lavender Scare and Freudian analysis, and considerations of Brick and Skipperâs relationship.
Brief consideration of the opening of Act 2.
The next lessons include a series of slides designed to get students comfortable with considering literary theory, as well as later lessons developing their analysis, and an extract based question in the style of Cambridge exams.
It looks at:
Feminism
Misogyny
Lies, Lying and Mendacity
Symbolism
Homosexuality and Homophobia
Close analysis of sexuality
Tension
The presentation of Big Daddy in the whole text.
Reading of University level essay with discussion questions to guide reading.
Analysing Brick and Skipperâs relationship.
The final lessons are a little thin on the ground but contain a choice of two final exam style questions.
Full scheme for Songs of Ourselves Volume 2, Part 3 is available here: IGCSE English Literature Songs of Ourselves Volume 2, Part 3 - Scheme of Work - 0475 Cambridge
This is a fully resourced Scheme of Work for Crumbs from the Table of Joy. This has been produced as a ready to teach resource. I am charging for it as it has taken many hours to produce, as there is currently no other Crumbs resources available on the internet.
The scheme is designed to run for roughly 55 lessons when considering extra time for reading and annotating lessons. It includes a few exam style questions, and a model answer. The exam style questions are all extract based, as I want to see Cambridgeâs question focuses for the whole text before writing these.
The lessons cover context, character motivation, analysis of motivations of author and character, and much more. There are also a few extra lessons constantly being added, including one on Langston Hughesâs âLuckâ which appears at the start of the play.
If you have anything else you think I should add to the scheme please get in touch and I will add a lesson on it.
The idea of this scheme is to expose students to IGCSE type questions and skills (albeit without an explicit focus on it) over the course of the scheme. The theme of the scheme is town planning. Students will create their ideal town, and over the course of the scheme they will add more details to it.
The scheme covers the following skills:
Answering IGCSE comprehension questions.
Descriptions of character.
Creation of atmosphere.
Non-fiction writing of advertisements.
Blog posts.
Using existing texts to create new texts.
Understanding voice, and features of different non-fiction.
Bonus Skills:
The scheme looks at protest art and song because half way through the scheme a road will be built in the town that the students have grown to love. This is a very fun moment, as students love creating their own protests.
It has a focus on creative writing through looking at the creation of a town identity.
Increased focus on comprehension can be created through asking comprehension questions about any of the texts from the booklet. There are also starter slides in a separate ppt focusing on developing IGCSE style comprehension skills.
This involves a lot of lessons where students will just be writing, so regular feedback is important, but due to the extended periods of writing their should be time to get in their books.
It is quite a long scheme but it gives a chance to develop key skills. The baseline assessment at the start will work well to do a comparative assessment at the end. The comparative assessment can use a Cambridge IGCSE past paper Q1A-E, 2A-C and a Question 3 response that will utilise all non-fiction skills.
The Scheme folder contains a 32 page resource booklet, however, you may choose to print some resources individually. It also contains over 70 slides with success criteria and learning objectives.
This is an engaging introduction lesson to the themes of Boey Kim Chengâs The Planners. It supports students to understand the ideology behind the decisions made by leaders when creating a city. It is in essence a city builder board game that I have created to teach students about the poem. Slight disclaimer: this is not an all singing all dancing analysis of the poem (that is all available), but rather a very fun way for students to learn the poem; it is well suited to a last day of term or Friday lesson with year 10âs.
I have also now added a series of discussion questions for after, which allow students to compare their ideological positions with the decisions they made.
If you donât like the resource or think itâs missing something get in touch, and Iâll add even more. This was a lot of fun to make, and even more fun to teach.
First Exam in 2027 Cambridge IGCSE English Language Paper 1 Unit of Work (0500).
This unit is for the new paper if your students are sitting their IGCSE exams in 2026 then this resource is not designed for you.
This unit has been designed to teach students the key elements of exam technique for Paper 1. I have included 20 different short texts which are used as a means to go through each of the questions on the paper in a methodical way.
This scheme is intended to give you and your students everything you need to succeed with Paper 1 and more.
It has been produced based on my experience examining for Cambridge IGCSE English Language Paper 1 and 2 and aims to give students the tools to succeed in hitting the markscheme.
Included:
Over 200 slides with a range of activities for approaching each question on the paper.
A textbook containing 20 texts.
Two full practise exam papers, created by me, modelled on the new exam paper.
Example mark schemes.
Tips and advice for each question.
Model answers.
Step by step guides.
Bonus lessons/mini units on spelling, punctuation and grammar and persuasive writing.
An outline of the key changes to the paper.
Leave a review and get a free resource of your choice from my TES shop. Simply email me at: mrisherwoodliterature@outlook.com with your purchase receipt and which resource you would like me to share.
Full scheme for Songs of Ourselves Volume 2, Part 3 is available here: IGCSE English Literature Songs of Ourselves Volume 2, Part 3 - Scheme of Work - 0475 Cambridge
This is a model essay written in response to the question âHow is Godfrey presented in the openingâ. This could easily be adapted into an extract question, however, for now it focuses on the prologue.
This is one of few Crumbs resources currently available, and I will begin to share more as the year goes on. Please do get in touch and if you are also teaching Crumbs and would like to collaborate.
Please note this is a purposefully overly critical response to Godfreyâs portrayal designed to get students to think about whether they agree or disagree, but should function as a good model for how to write about the play.
Now added is a Youtube video on how to write an analysis of Crumbs. Itâs a little rough around the edges.
Full scheme for Songs of Ourselves Volume 2, Part 3 is available here: IGCSE English Literature Songs of Ourselves Volume 2, Part 3 - Scheme of Work - 0475 Cambridge
This is a free taster lesson for those interested in my full scheme of work for teaching the IGCSE English Literature (0475) Songs of Ourselves Volume 2 Part 3.
The lesson is designed to engage students with the poem and some of its key themes. It has also been designed, as my scheme has, to integrate IGCSE English Literature and Language skills. It, therefore, includes a practice English Language Paper 2 Question 1 with a guide on how to approach this question.
Also included is an annotation guide and model paragraph.
If you find this lesson useful please consider buying my full scheme for more engaging lessons utilising an integrated Language and Literature approach.
If you found this paper useful I also have a full Song of Ourselves scheme of work available for sale. Complete lessons on each of the poems, and language style questions related to each of them.
/teaching-resource/resource-13059967
I created this resource for fun, and to see how hard it is to create a full example exam paper following the Cambridge past papers. Far too much work went into it, to not share it with others.
It has been designed so that the question 1 questions are quite easy. But that in question 2 and 3 it gets progressively harder using Charles Dickensâ Hard Times as the text.
I have also produced a mark scheme for it, although, there is no indicative content for Question 2C, 2D and 3 as I find this less necessary when marking these papers.
It might not be perfect, but I think itâs pretty good, and is a useful alternative paper if your students know how to access past papers and mark schemes online.