Adele Roberts English Tutoring

FIRST CHAPTERS / OPENING LINES:

Reading the first chapter is so exciting or , it should be!
This is where the ✨ magic happens ✨ hooked into a novel, characters revealed, setting staged etc
When reading any book to a class? how do you do it? Props? lighting ? Comfortable furniture?
Do you take a class to the library to read?
Do you read to them?
Use an Audio book ? Etc

Opening lines:
These are often iconic. But, why?
They start (!) a story, hook you in, give you a hint of character, theme, plot!
📘 make inferences on plot/genre
📘analyse key words. Categories/ connotations of them.
📘 sentence lengths & punctuation are important.

First chapter ideas:
📖 don’t read it all at once or read it at once?
No wrong answer!
📖 Read it & then analyse? I like & probably prefer this way.
Reading for Pleasure! Is a first and foremost in my eyes. No matter the book or year group.
Get comfy, imagine & read!
Then … first thoughts & opinions with no judgements. [works for whole novel reading & not just chapter readings]
Takes notes on board & make into a fancy poster for display.
Keep as Q to refer back to: Do these first thoughts change or stay as the students read more of novel or when they get to the end ?
📖 display key words from chapter or from the character or the setting to show/present key theme /topic / impression?
📖 present & discuss OPENING Lines / paragraph.
How does it hook the reader (or initially you, the students?!)
What is the aim?
📖links to BLURB and / or FRONT COVER.
What is repeated / or introduced to reader?
📖 first impressions of characters / settings. Why?
📖 writing skills task: look at length & structure of chapter.
How is it structured? How are we engaged/ hooked etc
Look at sentence lengths used. Why?
📖 end of chapter- what makes the reader read on (cliche!) ? HOW are we encouraged?
📖 Predictions!
What will happen next? Why?
Find clues in chapter.

BOOK COVERS: I love using all the different book covers that have been published to get students excited about a book they will read.

Ideas:
- used with all year groups as intro to a unit
- take off the title & / or author name. Inferences about storyline. How do students know what it is about? Clues? (If a popular book, try & use an older book cover!)
- Analyse book cover for themes/ symbolism/ colour / how is the audience engaged?
- use as a revision resource. What themes, key/ central ideas, symbols etc is the author trying to project through their front cover(s)? Could compare different country publications / years published etc.
- with GCSE/A Level, how is the social & historical context shown?
- check students have read the book after a homework (!). Analyse the front cover in relation to ‘x’.
- speeches using one front cover & an extract. How do they link? Themes/ characters/ storyline/ authors viewpoint etc
- Spot the difference. A simple yet effective task. Great with SEND students who find inference more challenging.
Spot the difference between 2 book covers.
Or up level: use film and novel. What’s changed? Why?
- finally, the classic task of ‘design your own’! Film or novel.
Ensure it is different to what has been used before. Could use this task as springboard to an Oral Speech.

Good luck to everyone taking their first English exam today !

You will smash it 💥

UNSEEN POETRY TIP

GCSE students:
Have you been revising this weekend?
Feeling a little bit of ‘panic’ over the Unseen Poetry question?

Please don’t panic…

My first top tip is… this question is there to show the examiners how much you do know about HOW to analyse poetry!

Do you know how to analyse poetry? Yes!
Fab!

In Ks3 or Year 10?
Need a boost for the end of the year?

I have availability after half term if you would like some help before heading into the summer.

Bookings are open for next year too..!

WShakespeare…
The famous Bard!
The man who was a forefather of our English Language …
A man who wrote many plays & poems….
A man who stole many ideas… !
(Or was inspired by others & others now are inspired by him!)
Or is he just another of those writers that are enforced on the children of today to remember him & his ‘strange words’?

I have taught a few of his plays over the years but… I’m still learning about this man called Shakespeare.
This year, I taught a new play- the first new one for quite a few years. It was daunting, hard & I definitely resisted it at first.
Frequent questions were asked:
What does this SCENE mean?
Who is THAT character?
Why has HE died now?
&… miss, what are they SAYING??? 😂

But…. after the first ‘cycle’ I found it enjoyable, refreshing & most interesting. Although, I definitely wouldn’t have survived without & countless other literature based resources available !


What is your favourite activity to do with the students?
One of fav’s and will always be remembered is the Globe Making activity/task I set as part of a Shakespeare project.
As we studied the play across his birthday month & mine, the students decided to make a cake. A Globe Cake. It was … equally a clever piece of engineering & tasty but… a note to my former NQT self: never repeated again! 😂 (I’m disappointed I never kept that photo tho!)