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GCSE English Language Paper 1 Explorations in creative reading and writing

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Question by Question Revision Section A Question 1 [4 marks] The bread and butter: Show the examiner that you can select relevant information even based on the smallest of details. AO1: Identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas Select and synthesise evidence from different texts Hacks!

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Links to speeches for use in GCSE and FS

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Brief commentary on one line from a book, song, television show and more.

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Explore the fundamentals of music via Ableton’s interactive website. Experiment with beats, melody, harmony, basslines, and song structure in your web browser.

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What can you write in 10 minutes or less? Let's find out! For a quick creative writing exercise, try one of the 20 writing prompts below, excerpted from Chronicle Books' 642 Tiny Things to Write About. Each prompt was created by a writing teacher at the San Francisco Writers Grotto to be done in 10 minutes or less. For a bigger creative challenge, do one writing prompt a day for 20 days.

20 creative writing prompts from 642 Tiny Things to Write About:

Write a eulogy for a sandwich, to be delivered while eating it.

Write the ad for an expensive new drug that improves bad posture. Now, list the possible side effects.

Think about your day so far (even if it's still morning). What's the highlight at this point?

Write the first communication sent back to Earth after humans land on Mars.

Finish this sentence: The smell of an orange reminds me of....

A genie grants you three tiny wishes. What are they?

It's 1849, and you're headed West along the Oregon Trail. Describe the safety features of your state-of-the-art covered wagon.

Write the passenger safety instructions card for a time-travel machine.

An undercover spy is about to impersonate you in all aspects of your life. Write instructions.

Write your life story in five sentences.

It's 2018. Where did you last see your jetpack on Saturday?

Which is the oldest tree in your neighborhood, and what has it seen?

At a banquet in Kazakhstan, you are greeted as a guest of honor and served the traditional sheep's eyeball. Respectfully, you decline. You are then offered the sheep's tongue, instead. What's your excuse this time?

Fill in the blank and keep going. "I really ought to eat more_____."

Find a photo and write what's not in the picture.

As a talking Chihuahua, what would you tell your humans about the new crying baby who now lives with you?

Pick a place you've never been to. Explain why you are moving there.

What piece of advice do you most often give and least often follow?

If you were given one extra hour today and you weren't allowed to use it for anything you'd normally do (e.g.; eat, sleep, etc.), what would you do with that hour?

How's it going? Write the honest answer.
Check out Chronicle Books' 642 Tiny Things to Write About. For more creative writing prompts, sign up for the TED-Ed weekly newsletter here >> Featured image from the TED-Ed Animation: Three anti-social skills to improve your writing.
Want to improve your creative writing? Start with these TED-Ed Lessons: How to write fiction that comes alive, How fiction can change reality and How to build a fictional world.

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20 creative writing prompts that you can do in 10 minutes

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What can you write in 10 minutes or less? Let's find out! For a quick creative writing exercise, try one of the 20 writing prompts below, excerpted from Chronicle Books' 642 Tiny Things to Write About. Each prompt was created by a writing teacher at the San Francisco Writers Grotto to be done in 10 minutes or less.

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Infographic Maker Trusted By 11 Million Users - Piktochart

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With Piktochart AI, you can create stunning infographics, reports, presentations, and more in seconds. No design experience needed. Start for free.

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It's an exciting time for online language - it's been an evolution from the beginning of communication on the internet in the 1960s, the development of ASCII through text speak and into tweets, instant messages, Snapchats, status updates, memes, likes and omg, lol...

This new language is creeping into all aspects of our lives whether we socialise on Facebook, text our kids and grandkids, or email for work. Our digital capability skills, knowledge and experience has to be broad and flexible - and part of this involves understanding and communicating using new kinds of language.

There are many different forms to this language and I have divided them into four main ones for this blog. The first one I am really interested in is emoticons. A couple of years ago I was writing a Kahoot quiz on emoticons and I did some research looking for inspiration. Incidentally, I have now delivered this quiz well over a hundred times to countless teachers and managers across HE, FE and Skills in the UK. Let me know if you have a Kahoot account and want me to share it with you.

Among many fascinating and surprising things I found was that Moby Dick has been translated into emojis. You can find the hardback version under the name Emoji Dick and the free pdf version here. Sometime later I found that the 200 most common words in the Christian bible have also been translated into emojis and you can access the Emoji Bible website here. If you are the sort of person who likes to verify its credentials and find out more about a word - please check out Emojipedia for a world of information and background.

Here is one of my quiz questions: what do you think this sentence means?

A second creative and exciting form of online language is acronyms. Acronyms have played an important part in English for centuries - where would we be without SOS, DIY, RSVP, ID and a thousand others? Common acronyms I come across in business circles include BRB, ATM, TBH, IMO, DM to name a few. In my various social circles the list is endless! I have great fun in my quiz asking participants how many of them use the acronym LOL for 'lots of love' instead of 'laugh out loud' (which is correct). There is always either one person in the room or somebody knows someone who uses it for 'lots of love' - much to the confusion of friends, colleagues and family.

A third form is punctuation which can be used to create emoticons :-S or to add body language or tone to a chunk of text ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Punctuation can be used cleverly to add *emphasis* or ... to recreate speaking (um) pauses... and [smiling politely] imitate voice!!! Like SHOUTING... One of my quiz questions is this - What is the tone of this status? "You did a great job on that presentation! ;-)" Is it Genuine? Sarcastic? or Joke? The room is always split - half choose genuine, half choose sarcastic or joke. I have to point out that if one half of the room used this winky face in a message, the other half of the room who received the message would misconstrue the tone, and could potentially be offended...

The fourth creative and fun form is writing the spoken word as it sounds. Many examples can be found of accents being reproduced in online messages, statuses and tweets. Some of my favourite examples are from Scottish tweeters - google it, you won't be disappointed. For example "the police came tae ma door and told me my dugs were chasing people on bikes ma dugs don't even have bikes" @darylgaughanx.

When these forms of language (and other forms such as images, memes, gifs and others) come together into chunks of text, messages or statuses the results can be creative, funny, moving and inspiring. But to some this language is completely inaccessible. The rules are being made up as we go along and people can feel alienated and excluded. And some, whose views on language are purist and driven by an insistence on traditional spelling, grammar and punctuation, would rather not engage at all.

(If you would like to see more examples of creative online language, here's a link to my Tumblr collection of artefacts, articles and amusing memes )

(You can read sections of the PhD here )

(Have a look at Jisc's work on digital capability here )

Previously:

Coming next:

1. Online language - A new species of language

2. Online language - How are communities using it?

3. Online language - Why do we need to teach it?

4. Online language - Bilingualism

5. Online language - Somewhere along the line

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Online language - What does it look like? - Inspiring learning

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This the second in a series of blogs looking at online language... What is it? How is it being used? Why do we need to teach it? Here Esther looks at four different characteristics of this method of communication - what features and etiquette do we see developing online?

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You can find my post about Paper 1 Section A here.

Back in December I attended AQA's Effective Exam Preparation course for the new English Language GCSE. It was a really informative day and has been instrumental in helping me to design how we prepare our year 10 students for their English Language exam this Summer (I will blog at some point about why we're entering year 10s for English Language a year early). This is a post to share what I learnt and approaches to answering Paper 2 Section A which you may want to use in your own classroom.
Paper Specific Booklets and Metacognition
One of the best takeaways from the course was the idea to create booklets using SAMS4. Every student in year 10 now has a Paper 1 and Paper 2 Booklet that includes SAMS4 source material and questions along with exemplar essays and mark schemes. We then use metacognition lessons to: model exam strategy; model how to write answers; unpick the AOS and the mark scheme; mark exemplar answers and to make note of important reminders e.g. to read ALL of the information available to them on the question paper. Students have responded really well to this approach.
Question 1
We want ALL of our students to get 100% in this question - a message which we have repeated throughout the year. This question, testing AO1, is placed first to ease students into the paper and is, on the face of it, pretty straightforward. However, if we don't teach this question well, it is very easy for students to make silly mistakes and lose marks. It is important that we consider how a student might make this question difficult for themselves and prevent these pitfalls.
What we're telling our students:

On the source, put a highlighted box around the lines you are being asked to answer about (this may seem silly but we want to do what we can to ensure students don't answer about the wrong bit of the text - it also highlights pretty quickly students who struggle with 'getting' what the numbers down the side of the text are).

Highlight 'shade the circle in the boxes'. I suspect this answer could be marked by a computer and I don't want students to miss out on marks because they've made the silly mistake of ticking a box or put a cross in it.

When you read through the statements the first time, put a little dot next to the letter of the statements which you think are true.

Read the statements really carefully and cross reference with the text - sometimes it will be a small detail that can mean the difference between getting a mark or not.

When you're happy you've selected the right four, shade the circles in the boxes.

Spend no more than 5 minutes answering this question and then move on.

If it helps, put the time you need to move on by.

Question 3
You may have noticed that I've skipped from 1 to 3 (if you didn't, maybe it's time for half term...). That's because we're advising students to answer Question 1 and then Question 3 before going back to Question 2. This may seem odd but Question 3 is about a single text whereas Question 2 and Question 4 are about both sources. It seems to make the paper a bit more manageable for students to do the two questions about one source first (though Question 3 may not be about the same source as Question 1).

As with Question 2 on Paper 1, we're probably a bit more comfortable with this question than some of the others and it's worth utilising our comfortability, and students' natural inclination to make inference, to build students' confidence that they've got this - they've been doing this sort of thing for years!

The AQA course leader made the point that this question is about making intelligent comments NOT identifying fancy techniques. Students can get top marks by exploring a word in depth - let's not fall into the trap of over-complicating things.
What we're telling our students:

This question is pretty much the same as Question 2 from Paper 1 - the same skills are being tested so if you can crack it in one paper you can do it in the other.

Put a highlighted box around the lines you are being asked to answer about.

This question doesn't have any bullet points. It might be worth putting them in to remind you of the things the examiner is expecting you to write about: words and phrases; language features and techniques; sentence forms.

To write APES STOMP next to the bullet about 'language features and techniques' to remind yourself of SOME of the techniques that writers use (this is not an exhaustive list but a useful tool for lots of students and an acronym devised by Mrs KT @books4kooks).

Highlight the focus of the question e.g. to describe the storm.

Even though this is worth more marks than Paper 1 Question 2, 3 is still the magic number! Find three words or phrases that most grab your attention in relation to the question. What effects do these words/phrases have? Can you identify any techniques the writer has used in your selections?

The following are BANNED (they are vaque and could be made about ANY text):

1. Makes the reader want to read on

2. Puts an image in the reader's mind (OF WHAT!?!?!?)

3. Makes it interesting/engaging

4. Makes it flow

Say a lot about a little. Don't select things you don't think you can explore - that's the danger of feature spotting rather than picking things that grab your attention.

Fully explore the effect of the language used by the writer - what does it make the reader think, feel or imagine?

Spend no more than 10 minutes answering this question and then move on.

If it helps, put the time you need to move on by.

Question 2
I have already shared a post that includes some useful advice from Jo Heathcote for answering this question and question 4 which I picked up at the English PiXL conference at the end of January. You can find the post here.

This is not a comparison question - it is an AO1 task and is a test of basic comprehension. We need to avoid our students over-complicating this question.
What we're telling our students:

This question tests you AO1 synthesis skills. Synthesis means bringing different things together; it does NOT mean compare.

Some useful linking language when writing about differences: In contrast / Whereas / However / Whilst / On the other hand / More / Less

Highlight details. The examiner wants to see you using quotations from both sources. As a rough guide, aim to use 2-3 quotations from each text.

What does summary mean? Remember to keep things succinct. You do not need to analyse the language devices of the quotations you select but you will need to make inferences.

Spend a couple of minutes writing a mini-plan. For each source make brief notes about the effects of the weather (or whatever the focus of the question is).

Can you summarise the differences in a word or phrases e.g the effects of the weather are long term in Source A and temporary in Source B.

Strategy 1 for structuring your answer: Statement - Quotation - Inference - Link - Statement - Quotation - Inference

Inference vocabulary: This suggests... This Implies... This conveys...

Spend no more than 8 minutes answering this question and then move on.

If it helps, put the time you need to move on by.

We picked up Strategy 2 for structuring answers by looking at this full mark exemplar and picking it apart.

Strategy 2 for structuring an answer: Source A Statement - Quotation - Inference x 2/3 then Source B Statement - Quotation - Inference - Difference x 2/3
Question 4
Unlike Q2, this is a comparison question and is about the writer though not just about what the writer is doing but what they are thinking, feeling, imagining and experiencing. It's about the methods they use to show those thoughts, feelings, imaginings and experiences.

Just because the question says 'whole of the source', the students should NOT feel they need to write about everything that is there - they need to be selective. Selection is the key to success in the time that students have to answer this question. Students should ask themselves: What is the writer's intention in each text? What message is each writer trying to give me?

Highlight compare - what comparative conjunctions might we use in our response?

What are synonyms for perspective?

Highlight methods - what are we being expected to write about?

Highlight references - remember that the examiner is expecting you to support your points with quotations.

Find 2 to 3 quotations from each text that you think show the writers' perspectives. Challenge: Do the perspectives change through the text?

Plan your response by noting down these quotations and analysing/exploring the techniques the writers have used to convey their perspectives.

Are there some obvious pairings of quotations between Source A and Source B? Each pair will make for a comparative paragraph in your response.

I hope that proves helpful to other English teachers trying to wrestle with Paper 2 Section A though I suspect lots of it is familiar. If you have any questions or comments I'd be happy to respond.

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You can find my post about Paper 1 Section A here. Back in December I attended AQA's Effective Exam Preparation course for the new English Language GCSE. It was a really informative day and has been instrumental in helping me to design how we prepare our year 10 students for their English Language exam this...

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When it comes to Paper 1 Section A, 3 really is the magic number (except when answering question 1 of course...). This simple message is helping my students to quantify exactly what they need to do for each of the questions. I also enjoy the spontaneous burst into song whenever I say the words '3 is the magic number'!

Back in December I attended AQA's Effective Exam Preparation course for the new English Language GCSE. It was a really informative day and has been instrumental in helping me to design how we prepare our year 10 students for their English Language exam this Summer (I will blog at some point about why we're entering year 10s for English Language a year early). This is a post to share what I learnt and approaches to answering Paper 1 Section A which you may want to use in your own classroom.
Paper Specific Booklets and Metacognition
One of the best takeaways from the course was the idea to create booklets using SAMS4. Every student in year 10 now has a Paper 1 Booklet (Paper 2 to follow) that includes SAMS4 source material and questions along with exemplar essays and mark schemes. We then use metacognition lessons to: model exam strategy; model how to write answers; unpick the AOS and the mark scheme; mark exemplar answers and to make note of important reminders e.g. to read ALL of the information available to them on the question paper.

Students have responded really well to this approach. The best thing has been seeing elements of the metacognition lessons appearing in the answers students have written for their most recent Paper 1 Section A attempt - it's fascinating to see what has stuck. I'll be posting about the impact of these metacognition lessons soon...
Assessment Objectives
The course leader shared some student friendly AOs which we have used to help us unpick the Assessment Objectives and make them more accessible for students. Once students have a good understanding of what skills are being tested it really informs their approach to different questions because they know which AO is being tested.

[Picture to follow - just tracking it down... bear with!]
Question 1
We want ALL of our students to get 100% in this question - a message which we have repeated throughout the year. This question, testing AO1, is placed first to ease students into the paper and is, on the face of it, pretty straightforward. However, if we don't teach this question well, it is very easy for students to make silly mistakes and lose marks. It is important that we consider how a student might make this question difficult for themselves and prevent these pitfalls.

A useful activity, after looking at how to approach this question and then letting students select their four things, is looking at some seemingly plausible answers and discussing whether or not they think the examiner will award a mark. This helps students to, in the words of Jo Heathcote, understand how to 'examiner proof' their answers.
What we're telling our students:

If it helps, rephrase the question to aid focus e.g. Things I learn about the bird in this extract are...

On the source, put a highlighted box around the lines you are being asked to answer about (this may seem silly but we want to do what we can to ensure students don't answer about the wrong bit of the text - it also highlights pretty quickly students who struggle with 'getting' what the numbers down the side of the text are).

What is the focus of the question? What precisely are you being asked to select from the article?

The key word is 'List' - there's no need to waste time on inference. You might be able to say all sorts of interesting things about the significance of the colour of the bird but you won't gain any marks by including them here... sorry!

Use a pronoun at the start of every point e.g. It was black.

Spend no more than 5 minutes answering this question and then move on.

If it helps, put the time you need to move on by.

Question 2
We're probably a bit more comfortable with this question than we might be some of the others on the paper (ahem... Q3) and it's worth utilising our comfortability, and students' natural inclination to make inferences, to build students' confidence that they've got this - they've been doing this sort of thing for years!

The AQA course leader made the point that this question is about making intelligent comments NOT identifying fancy techniques. Students can get top marks by exploring a word in depth - let's not fall into the trap of over-complicating things.
What we're telling our students:

Ignore 'could' above the bullet points and replace with 'should' (with the caveat that sentence forms may or may not be the most useful bits of evidence to explore).

To write APES STOMP next to the bullet about 'language features and techniques' to remind yourself of SOME of the techniques that writers use (this is not an exhaustive list but a useful tool for lots of students and an acronym devised by Mrs KT @books4kooks).

Think first: What is the effect? What are we being made to think, feel or imagine? Now think: How is the writer making me think, feel or imagine these things? Which words or phrases have they used to do this?

3 is the magic number. Identify 3 words or phrases that make you think, feel or imagine something in relation to the question. What effects do these words/phrases have? Can you identify any techniques the writer has used in your selections?

The following are BANNED:

1. Makes the reader want to read on

2. Puts an image in the reader's mind (OF WHAT!?!?!?)

3. Makes it interesting/engaging

4. Makes it flow

These statements are vague and could be made about ANY text

Say a lot about a little.

Spend no more than 10 minutes answering this question and then move on.

If it helps, put the time you need to move on by.

Question 3
There has been a lot of fuss about Q3 which I completely understand - I'm still getting my head around this one. Whilst I've seen fellow tweachers teaching their students terms such as anaphora, I don't think this question demands that level of terminology (the AQA course leader said as much). Whilst we English teachers spent the last year fervently digging out fancy terms for analysing structure, the realisation has started to dawn that this question is much more about perspective and focus and movement (note my polysendetic list) than it is synecdoche, epizeuxis or chiasmus.

I'm not saying we shouldn't teach students this language of structural analysis, and there will be times when it's illuminating, but we shouldn't be overloading students with this stuff just because of this question (especially given that it's not warranted).
What we're telling our students:

Where in a text is the source from? Why might this be significant? What does it tell us if this is taken from the beginning of a novel (for example)?

Ignore 'could' and replace with 'should' - these bullet points should guide your answer.

3 is the magic number. You are going to write about three different ways in which the text is structured to interest you as a reader.

Whose view is the text written from? What time? Where?

What does the writer focus your attention on at the beginning (bullet one)? Why?

In a word, summarise what each of the paragraphs are about - what do you notice about the focus of each? Where does it shift? What's the effect?

What else do you notice about the structure of the text? You might consider: connections and links across paragraphs; introductions and developments; reiterations; repetitions, threads, patterns, motifs; the sequence through the passage; narrative perspective; summaries and conclusions; outside to inside perspectives (vice versa) and movement from big to small (ideas/perspectives).

Spend no more than 10 minutes answering this question and then move on.

If it is helpful, write the time that you will need to move on by.

Question 4
It's very easy to over-complicated Question 4. If we boil it down, though, all students need to do is say how far they agree with the statement (from a limited scale of 'a bit' to 'completely') and explain why using evidence which they then explore.
What we're telling our students:

On the source, put a highlighted box around the lines you are being asked to answer about.

You will likely AGREE with the statement that you have been given (though you may include one point about why you don't entirely agree).

What are your first impressions? Is Alex struggling to cope and how do we know he is?

3 is the magic number. Find three parts of the text that you can use to respond to the statement and write about them.

Plan your response. How do each of those parts of the text show that Alex is struggling to cope? What techniques does the writer use?

Do NOT include an introduction - this is a waste of time.

For some students, PEACH has been a useful acronym to structure their three paragraphs (I will track down who I can credit this idea to): P - Personal Opinion e.g. I agree that... E - Evidence e.g. This is clear when... A - Argue e.g. This suggests... However... CH - Choice of words e.g. The word 'ghost' has connotations of...

Spend no more than 2o minutes on this question (unless you've gained time from other Section A questions) and then move on. You MUST leave 45 minutes for Question 5.

If it helps, write when you need to move on by.

I hope that proves helpful to other English teachers trying to wrestle with Paper 1 Section A though I suspect lots of it is familiar. If you have any questions or comments I'd be happy to respond.

My post on Paper 2 Section A is here.

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On Paper 1 Section A (3 is the magic number)

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When it comes to Paper 1 Section A, 3 really is the magic number (except when answering question 1 of course...). This simple message is helping my students to quantify exactly what they need to do for each of the questions. I also enjoy the spontaneous burst into song whenever I say the words '3...

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Will check your writing for clarity and offer suggestions for improving

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Free Technology For Teachers – A TeacherMeade site

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This padlet includes a breakdown of each question on both papers.

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All resources 'magpied' from others with special thanks to @Team_English1 

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-Full of wonder and surprise and...
Betcha by golly wow! (wow!) (wow!)

Prince - Betcha by Golly, Wow - Emancipation

Whenever anyone shares their work their generosity always amazes me. Teachers on twitter,in particular, are so kind and helpful. This is because most have one thing in common; they all want children up and down the country to succeed. And it's their generosity with ideas, knowledge and kindness that always makes me think "wow"!

So, this blog as well as a few other recent ones (my most requested resources) "Extraordinary" (my best twitter steals) (my not such good ideas) is another little way of me saying thank you. To be fair my folders may not help you at all, maybe just helped me sticking in one place, but I hope it does help.

One thing about planning that can take time is finding articles or extracts, so below are links to some (hopefully) useful folders with a load of articles or extracts in them. Each folder is a working progress so I will continue to add to them.

If you have any documents you want to add please find me on Twitter (@FKRitson) and I can add you to the dropbox account. Also has a collection of 19c texts to use with the new AQA spec - if you have anything to add drop him a line too!

I repeat, these are all working documents, so I am constantly adding, re-naming or plain sorting- I'm aware some are a little untidy! They will get tidier as now they are 'public'.

1) List of theorists

This is for AS/A-Level English teachers, a table of some theorists.

2) Articles (19c)

Some non fiction articles to help with AQA new spec - I am in process of trying to catalogue by date then brief description of what each is about (big job, going slowly)!

3) Modern articles

Mainly from The Guardian - but lots of articles that you 'could' pair up with non-fiction 19c articles. The same as (2) I will slowly sort these with better titles.

4) Extracts for analysis

Extracts for normal classroom analysis from classic and modern literature. I have sorted these in author then book. These may be fiction or non-fiction. Please help me add to this!

There are over 300 extracts here:

Below you'll find a link to lots of resources for the new AQA spec language and literature. I need to make it clear that this has been made possible by the kind and very generous Twitter #TeamEnglish staff that have all agreed to allow me to post their resources here in one place. Please help yourself... but what would be even better is to help us by adding to it!

5) AQA Language resources

6) AQA Literature resources

7) AQA Extract booklets (via AQA)

8) AQA Short Stories (old spec......)

If any of you can remember the old AQA Sunlight on the Grass Anthology (spec 4705 I think), they were a collection of short stories for GCSE students. Well, below is a link to each one and resources AQA kindly made up for each one. When you follow this link, there are 12 folders, in each folder is the short story, word and PDF (except Flight - will have to see what's happening there) and you will find a bunch of teaching resources for the story. Enjoy!

9) Questioning Templates

10) Glossary of Terms

Various glossaries - GCSE, A-Level and others I've acquired!

11) Sentence Starters

Again over time I've collected these, some are mine - some aren't. I will try to credit those that are not mine.

12) Speaking & Listening Resources

Again, from kind generosity of other teachers I have started to collect some S&L resources.

13) Links to other blogs with free resources!

Here are some links to other blogs with kindly donated free English resources (I will add to this as I remember them!:

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Full of wonder and surprise and... Betcha by golly wow! (wow!) (wow!) Prince - Betcha by Golly, Wow - Emancipation . Whenever anyone shares their work their generosity always amazes me. Teachers on twitter,in particular, are so kind and helpful. This is because most have one thing in common; they all want children up and down...

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Songs and Activities for English Language Learners

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Songs can be an effective way to introduce or reinforce a grammar topic. Click on the topics below for companion songs and activities. Adjectives in the Song “True Colors” Adverb Clause…

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Meta link: resource list in a resource list!

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Meta link: resource list in a resource list!

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English teachers are a privileged lot. Of course, there is the poetry, the novels, the discussion, debate, philosophy, the odd spelling, the plays, the spell-binding craft of writing and the essential power of reading. Well, not only all that stuff - we also have some great online resources and bloggers. This compilation is an updated collection of websites for the busy but brilliant English teacher:
Useful English Language and Literature related websites:
- #TeamEnglish has proven an indispensable hashtag on Twitter to help English teachers share resources, seek out answers and much more. Do have a scan. There is an account too: @Team_English1

- Virtualsalt is ideal for a list of rhetorical devices, literary terms and word roots and prefixes.

- Merriam Webster, purveyors of American dictionaries have some great articles and more here.

- EyewitnessHistory presents a really useful range of 20th century texts here.

- A range of exceedingly good English teachers have gathered a vast array of debating topics here in ' The Debate Bazaar '.

- The same group have also helpfully collated essay titles in this huge ' Essay Emporium '.
English examination boards:
In direct competition, the English exam boards do appear to be getting better at communicating and sharing useful resources. You can find them all here: AQA, OCR, Edexcel and WJEC. Also, #teameduqas is a handy follow for those teachers whose schools follow that specification.
Recommended English-specific blogs:
There are a huge number of blogs that I would recommend for general teaching and learning, but here is just a small selection of more English-specific blogs that are regularly updated and focus on matters of teaching English:

- ' Learningfrommymistakes blog is unadulterated English blogging goodness.

- Sarah Barker's excellent blog, The Stable Oyster is worth cracking open to pick out pearls (sorry).

- Rebecca Foster's The Learning Profession has accrued a wealth of good English blogs.

- Jamie Thom's new blog Teacher Gratitude is a handy new blog.

- Rob Ward's blog - Rob Ward's Resources has really cracking resources that I've shared.

- Mark Robert's blog Mark Roberts Teach produces some of the blogs I regularly share.

- Douglas Wise's douglaswise.co.uk has some really good blogs, especially the literacy shorts.

- Freya Odell's anewhoffod is a blog with a wealth of linked resource you can tap into.

- Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day is an immensely vast site from an ace US blogger.

- Mr Hanson's site Mr Hanson's English has lots of literary insights for English teachers.

- Mr Pink - obviosuly a Twitter handle has the website All Ears which takes a witty slant on English.

- Mrs C Spalding's Teacher's Notes blog has a great page on teaching & learning with useful ideas.

- Carl Hendrick is an English teacher with a great blog Chronotope with an fancy title.

There are so many good blogs I simply didn't have the space to include - this is simply a sample (apologies if I have missed any obvious blogs). Any other suggestions are welcome in the comments section. Remember, you can chat to some of these lovely people on a Monday might at 8pm using the hashtag #Engchatuk.
Interesting Video Nuggets:
- This animation on the ' History of the English Language ' is a really handy resource to use in English at all levels.

- James Geary has produced an interesting talk on the magic of metaphor in his ' Metaphorically Speaking '.

- Click Revision is a general revision website that covers a range of popular texts - see here.

- Dominic Salles has a huge amount of English related videos and is worth a look - see here.

Hopefully you find the rest of my blog readable and useful, alongside my book on teaching English, ' Teach Now! Becoming a Great English Teacher ', too. Of course, after you have sunk hours into all that reading, have a great year ahead!

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Teaching English: Online Reading & Resources

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English teachers are a privileged lot. Of course, there is the poetry, the novels, the discussion, debate, philosophy, the odd spelling, the plays, the spell-binding craft of writing and the essential power of reading. Well, not only all that stuff - we also have some great online resources and bloggers.

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Engage every student in every lesson with Actively Learn's award-winning ELA, science, and social studies curriculum platform.

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Enhancing our children's enjoyment in, and engagement with, their writing is no mean feat.

Every time a child picks up a pencil and begins to write they are having to juggle several skills simultaneously: their ability to organise a text, their use of language, their application of grammar from basic to complex, not to mention handwriting and consideration of spelling rules. As a consequence, improving attainment in writing for all groups of children can prove a constant challenge, particularly those with special educational needs and disability (SEND).

Like many schools, we have long recognised the benefits of mixed-attainment classes and teach English without sets. Within this framework, I have been exploring how to maximise the impact of collaborative learning and believe paired writing has a significant part to play.

Paired writing approaches

Paired writing can take a variety of forms, from working as 'prove it' partners, to collaborating on particular stages in the writing journey, all the way to producing a shared written outcome.

Embarking on the writing process together immerses all children in the types of high-quality discussions that inspire improved outcomes. Partners can experience how to experiment together with language, grammar and word order to achieve the best effects. It also means those at lower current attainment levels can be exposed to enhanced vocabulary and a wider bank of ideas for writing.

What are the essential elements necessary to make paired writing a success?

Here are five points I believe are crucial:

1. Children should be explicitly taught how to act as 'critical friends'

This is the foundation of making the process a success. We need to model how to discuss the learning, how to work together effectively and set up clear structures (e.g. question prompts, scaffolds) to give children the skills to provide appropriate support and challenge to their peers.

2. Partners need to be carefully chosen and regularly changed

To have maximum impact on all learners, a variety of groupings need to be used regularly. As teachers, we need to ensure that we are clear of the desired outcome of the paired opportunity. For example, exposing a less confident writer to the higher-quality vocabulary of a more confident writer; or pairing a low current attainer with a partner working within age-related expectations when we wish them to be searching for proof of success in each other's work.

3. Opportunities must still be provided for independent writing

Independent writing is important and still very much has its place. Over the week or unit of writing, children need opportunities to demonstrate their skills and the teacher needs the chance to observe/assess individual understanding and the impact of partner work.

4. A 'help desk' can be used to provide support or challenge for those who need it

Working alongside children as they write can be highly informative and teachers should use the opportunity to model writing skills, for example, editing for sense, talk for writing, scaffolding with colour-coded grammar. You can do this by setting up a table in the corner for yourself that you call the 'help desk'. It can be invitation-only (i.e. children selected from the previous day's AfL), but also works well when open-to-all, as partners can come and be supported to develop their skills to write together.

5. Success criteria must be clear and accessible to all

In order to support each other in developing and improving writing, the children need a shared understanding of the success criteria. A good rule of thumb is to ensure the first success criteria at the Must or I can level is carefully chosen to be accessible to all learners in your classroom.
Zara Chambers is lead practioner for learning at Hiltingbury Junior School in Hampshire

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Why paired writing works and five ways to make a success of it

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Enhancing our children's enjoyment in, and engagement with, their writing is no mean feat. Every time a child picks up a pencil and begins to write they are having to juggle several skills simultaneously: their ability to organise a text, their use of language, their application of grammar from basic to complex, not to mention handwriting and consideration of spelling rules.

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Create short films for free!

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This is a bite-sized taster of what ForSkills do. Our full bank of hundreds of expertly crafted video tutorials and resources are available, ad-free, within ...

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This is the complete text of the fun and random series on aspects of punctuation and punctuation marks....

1 '
Punctuation

one must wonder
if the word "Punctuation"
is a relative of "Punctured';
for, as you must have noticed,
a prose passage
with no punctuation
is as good as punctured...
poetry is cunning;
she uses punctuation as she wishes
and still remains pregnant
with meaning, if you know what I mean

2..
the definitive full stop

Say 'Hello'
to the Full Stop
before it shuts you down

Say 'Hello'
to
the American period
the definitive full stop that says: 'That's it, folks! '
in other words
it says: 'Enough! ' 'That's it! '
' I'm done! ' ' I'm finished! '
But some people never get that, do they?
they just keep going on;
but now I'll take my cue
and say no more.
FULL STOP.
PERIOD.

3! ! !
exciting poem with exclamation marks! ! !

Oh noble exclamation mark!
I expel! I exclaim!
Oh most excitable exclamation mark!

Oh, to see you
sends blood racing
in my veins!
Oh, I love you
once!
twice! !
and I love you thrice! ! ! !
- oh, was that four times? ? ? ?
Oh, be not jealous
I brought in your
distant relative
the crooked and deformed question mark
for I not only love you
!
! !
! ! !
! ! ! ! -
but I love you forever, most excitable exclamation mark! ! ! !
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! .......and forever! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ..............

Oh noble exclamation mark!
I expel! I exclaim!
Oh most excitable exclamation mark!

4 _ _ _ _
The dash

don't be dashing round
oh you so young and dashing dash;
so energetic -
you just bewilder us all

O dash -
what a dash you make for it;
O dash -
what surprises you have in store

O dash -
you're not connective tissue
like the hyphen;
but dash -
you are a more dramatic fellow

I did use you once, dash -
but my sentence tripped and fell;
so now when I call on you
I ensure I've got you tied -
like a dog to the leash

don't be dashing round
oh you so young and dashing dash;
so energetic -
you just bewilder us all

5, , , , ,
the comma

the comma
a most prosaic-looking fellow
never gets into a coma
though he's useful enough
to give you a pause or break;
the comma separates and lists
and where the word-traffic may be in danger of crashing
into one another, bumper to bumper
the comma comes in like road markers
and ensures smooth flow:
don't kiss bumpers; kiss your commas

6......
the irritable full stop

the full stop
was quite irritated
with the colon
and he said to the colon:
"What are you doing? "

And colon said: "What? "

And full-stop said:
"Can you tell me what you doing
imitating me like that
and doing a double at that?
You look such a poor imitation of me
floating one above the other! "

"O, " said the colon, and continued:
"It's plain to see, Sir -
you're quite drunk;
you've had one glass too many
and you're seeing double
like all drunks do..."

7; ; ; ; ; ; ;
the semi-colon

it would appear the semi-colon
has an identity crisis;
it might appear
it can't decide if it's a dot
or a comma
and so does an acrobat act;
but really the semi-colon does more than that
for it does
complex listings the comma can't manage
and can say things quite cleverly, like:
"All things are expensive; life sucks."
So really this semi-colon
is not a semi - but indeed a full-blown device

8, , , , , , , ,
the apostate, I mean the apostrophe

'
there was a comma
which was so light
it started to float;
the other down-to-earth commas
ganged up and banished
that comma that dared to cross the line
and so that deviant comma stays there in mid-air
like a feather
and you can see it if you
keep your eyes open

' '
and since its fall, or rise,
it's been called the apostate -
I mean, the apostrophe
Mind you, it's not to be taken lightly
for it can settle legal cases
as it indicates who things belong to
(like if it is John's money
or Nicole's)

' ' '
and in matters of communication
it can abbreviate things
and make the style more conversational

' ' ' '
But I'll tell you when it's not so happy:
if you say, for instance: "Its Monday"
or "The dog wags it's tail" -
ah, then the apostrophe hates you
and it really wishes it could land on your head
like a bag of lead

9 ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' '
Quotation marks

"Americans" prefer two
and then one within;
The 'British' think one is splendid
and two within -
as for the rest of the world,
I think,
we're pretty easy on this

10 - - - - - - - - - -
the hyphen

the hyphen
though not as huge as an elephant
still does gargantuan jobs
for amongst a host of things it does
it can bring words together
to make them one
as in "face-to-face discussions"
or "three-point turn"
or when my wife gives me that
"don't-spill-that-coffee-or-I'll-kill-you look"

11...........
the ellipsis...

The ellipsis
was sulking and
in a pensive mood....

And so I said: Well?

And Ellipsis said: What?

I said: You're sulking...

And Ellipsis erupted
like pimples on an adolescent's face:
You wrote poems on every tribe of my race;
you wrote of the full stop and the comma and the dash
and about every other freak that jumps up
on a printed page...
And now you ask me, why I sulk!

So, I said cautiously,
what do you want me to do?

So, write me a freaking poem on me -
The Ellipsis!

And I scratched my head, and I said:
A poem about the Ellipsis?
Hmmmm...

12
., ; ! ! ?
; : ? , .?
punctuation sky

imagine
you are walking in the cool night
and you turn round the corner
and Behold! before you is the open sky
full of glowing punctuation marks
the commas and semi-colons
and the full-stops and exclamation marks
O all so brilliant, so brilliant
O the question marks
and the dashes and the hyphens and the ellipsis
and the dots and the quotation marks double and single
and all marks floating and brilliant in the night sky
Imagine!
O Imagine!
And then what would you do -
O what would you do
when you see these brilliant marks?
these quirky marks...

Would you be astounded
and shout:
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
or would you feel confounded and go:
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
or be silent and say:
....................................
or be philosophical and muse:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

O what would you do
when you are before the Punctuation Sky
Vincent van Gogh never thought to draw?

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Punctuation Poems Poem by Raj Arumugam - Poem Hunter

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This is the complete text of the fun and random series on aspects of punctuation and punctuation marks....

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An amazing site which shows how writing can be developed from a simple sentence to something more involved and engaging.

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Website full of randomly generated exercises for creative writing

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This site provides (completely free) writing prompts and exercises to help you get started with creative writing and break through writing blocks - and some fun anagram vocabulary games.

Generate random story ideas, plots, subjects, scenarios, characters, first lines for stories and more. Did I mention it's all free? Have fun :-)

- Update March 2022: the Anagram Game now includes a choice of dictionaries
- The site now includes an Anagram Solver
- The Scrabble Trainer now includes practice in J, K, Q, X and Z words

Generate a random first line for a story.

Prompts to encourage freewriting.

Generate a plot-line at the click of a button.

Generate two characters, a setting, a situation and a theme. Change the elements until you are happy with your plot.

Another freewriting exercise. Make connections between random nouns.

Writing prompts to help with dialogue writing.

Create a 'What If?' scenario to write about.

Browse my collection of writing exercises.

For poets and songwriters. Enter a word to find rhyming and similar-sounding words.

Generate a selection of words and use the suggestions to kick-start your writing.

Create your own story title.

Create a character outline.

There's now a section dedicated to writing prompts for children of primary/elementary school age.

Generate a fictitious,'English-sounding' town name.

Get plot ideas for your own story-writing by looking at the plots of over 100 popular films.

Use images to help you write.

Generate random traits for your characters.

Generate an occupation for your character.

Choose first and last names for characters.

Develop your character into a well-rounded person, quirky habits and all.

Exercise your brain and keep your vocabulary in good shape with this free anagram game.

Another anagram game - each word must contain the middle letter.

Enter a list of letters and discover all the words you can make with them.

Have fun improving your Scrabble vocabulary.

Because every aspiring author needs a back-up plan...

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This site provides (completely free) writing prompts and exercises to help you get started with creative writing and break through writing blocks - and some fun anagram vocabulary games. Generate random story ideas, plots, subjects, scenarios, characters, first lines for stories and more. Did I mention it's all free?

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A huge collection of background, mood and ambient music.

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Original, 10 minute ambiences and music for Tabletop Role Playing Games.

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Learners can create customized maps - could be useful for storytelling, research, summarizing...

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Maps when you need them

Find all your maps in the Your Places menu on Google Maps.

Chart your favorite places or explore a new city.

Discover new destinations

Save maps you find on the web and use them on-the-go.

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Maps when you need them Find all your maps in the Your Places menu on Google Maps. Chart your favorite places or explore a new city. Discover new destinations Save maps you find on the web and use them on-the-go.

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Create interactive fiction

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Inform is a natural-language-based programming language for writers of interactive fiction.

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Once Upon a Picture - Images to Inspire - Teaching Resources

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Once Upon a Picture - Images to Inspire - Teaching Resources

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Instead of groans at the beginning of a writing lesson, your class were excited to pick up their pencils and you were the teacher that sparked their imaginations!

Even your most reluctant writers are generating adventurous vocabulary, perfecting punctuation and filling the page with no signs of stopping!

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Engage even your most reluctant writers with inspiring images, fun writing prompts and daily short burst writing activities that improve writing stamina.

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Welcome to The Literacy Shed - the home of visual literacy. Here at Literacy Shed we aim to provide teachers with high quality films and animations that can be used in the primary classroom to enhance the teaching of reading and writing. All of the films on the site we think are suitable for primary aged children although some films may not be suitable for younger children. We urge that teachers watch any films before showing them to children.

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A website for teachers filled with ideas for literacy teaching using visual resources such as film, animation, photographs and picture books.

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The Poetry Hour believes that poetry can be for everyone. Explore meme creation, video content, celebrities, essays and of course, incredible poets and poetry.

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Getting out of the classroom: guided treasure hunts; interactive searches & tasks

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App for multimedia guides, interactive scavenger hunts and treasure hunts for smartphones and tablets.

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Multimedia presentation tool

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Easy way to create slideshows

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Make a promo video for your company or business in minutes with Promo.com

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Make a promo video for your company or business in minutes with Promo.com Make a promo video for your company or business in minutes with Promo.com Try for Free! Our free promo video maker allows you to make any video ad you want that will have customers and clients ready to purchase.

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Amazing repository of lesson ideas, tasks and resources.

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This is a free site which can create photo collages. Useful to use with Thinglink.

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Fotor's photo editor lets you edit photos in just a few clicks. It covers various free online photo editing tools, so you can crop images, resize images, add text to photos, make photo collages, and create graphic designs easily.

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Fotor - Free Online Photo Editing & Graphic Design Tool

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Fotor's online photo editor helps you edit photos with free online photo editing tools. Crop photos, resize images, and add effects/filters, text, and graphics in just a few clicks. Photoshop online has never been easier with Fotor's free online photo editor.

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Music videos & written karaoke!!

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LyricsTraining is the new way to learn English and other languages through music and the lyrics of your favourite songs

Improve and practise your listening skills with the best music videos. Fill in the gaps to the lyrics as you listen and sing Karaoke to your favourites

Thousands of teachers, all over the world, are already using LyricsTraining to teach languages and motivate their students through this unique immersion process

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Learn Languages with Music Videos, Lyrics and Karaoke!

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Enjoy learning languages for free playing with the music videos and filling in the lyrics of your favorite songs: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish and more.

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1000s of copyright free images to be used with Canva

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4.5 million+ Stunning Free Images to Use Anywhere - Pixabay - Pixabay

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Find your perfect royalty-free image or video to download and use. ✓ Royalty-free ✓ No attribution required ✓ High quality images.

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Design loads of different documents using images - could be used with Thinglink...

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Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool. Use it to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos and more.

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Create interactive images

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ThingLink: Create unique experiences with interactive images, videos & 360° media

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Easily create interactive and immersive visual experiences for online communication and learning. Start a free trial!

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A nifty piece of software which allows you to edit/clip video clips on the web as well as adding your own audio and annotations/questions.

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Easily create beautiful interactive video lessons for your students you can integrate right into your LMS. Track students' progress with hassle-free analytics as you flip your classroom!

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Collection of letters from history

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On October 31st, 1918, as the First World War neared its end, celebrated war poet and officer of the Second Manchesters Wilfred Owen wrote home to his mother. Sadly, this would be his last letter. Four days later--exactly a century ago--Owen was shot dead as he led his company across the Sambre-Oise Canal. His mother was informed of his death a week later, on Armistice Day, by telegram. In 1919, Wilfed Owen was awarded the Military Cross.

Transcript follows. The original handwritten pages of Owen's final letter can be seen on the website of The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford. His poetry can be found at the Poetry Foundation.

Dearest Mother,

I will call the place from which I'm now writing "The Smoky Cellar of the Forester's House". I write on the first sheet of the writing pad which came in the parcel yesterday. Luckily the parcel was small, as it reached me just before we moved off to the line. Thus only the paraffin was unwelcome in my pack. My servant & I ate the chocolate in the cold middle of last night, crouched under a draughty Tamboo, roofed with planks. I husband the Malted Milk for tonight, & tomorrow night. The handkerchief & socks are most opportune, as the ground is marshy, & I have a slight cold!

So thick is the smoke in this cellar that I can hardly see by a candle 12 ins. away, and so thick are the inmates that I can hardly write for pokes, nudges & jolts. On my left the Coy. Commander snores on a bench: other officers repose on wire beds behind me. At my right hand, Kellett, a delightful servant of A Coy in The Old Days radiates joy & contentment from pink cheeks and baby eyes. He laughs with a signaller, to whose left ear is glued the Receiver; but whose eyes rolling with gaiety show that he is listening with his right ear to a merry corporal, who appears at this distance away (some three feet) nothing [but] a gleam of white teeth & a wheeze of jokes.

Splashing my hand, an old soldier with a walrus moustache peels & drops potatoes into the pot. By him, Keyes, my cook, chops wood; another feeds the smoke with the damp wood.

It is a great life. I am more oblivious than alas! yourself, dear Mother, of the ghastly glimmering of the guns outside, & the hollow crashing of the shells.

There is no danger down here, or if any, it will be well over before you read these lines.

I hope you are as warm as I am; as serene in your room as I am here; and that you think of me never in bed as resignedly as I think of you always in bed. Of this I am certain you could not be visited by a band of friends half so fine as surround me here.

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Correspondence deserving of a wider audience

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Free resources! Have at it! (Be aware - resources grouped by US grade level)

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For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.

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Access thousands of reading lessons and our comprehensive ELA curriculum, CommonLit 360.

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CommonLit | Free Online Reading Passages and Literacy Resources

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CommonLit is a comprehensive literacy program with thousands of reading lessons, full-year ELA curriculum, benchmark assessments, and standards-based data for teachers.

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Shares some tips for how to use language to make your fiction really come alive.

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How to write descriptively - Nalo Hopkinson

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Clip looking at how language devices are used in rap. Use as introduction to language analysis. PLEASE NOTE: language some people may find offensive (use as wider discussion of language and EDI?)

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Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time

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A visual representation of the '7 stories'. Useful to show the archetypes, suggest learners try similar with their favourite book, film, play.

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The fundamental concept behind Kurt Vonnegut's master's thesis in anthropology at the University of Chicago was, in Vonnegut's words, "that stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper."

Vonnegut's thesis was rejected* ("because it was so simple, and looked like too much fun," according to him), and he left the university soon thereafter, sans degree, to take a job with the public relations department at General Electric; but he would champion his theory defiantly, with characteristic wit and charm, for the rest of his days, both in writing and in lectures like this one:

Now, Vonnegut's musings on the universally plottable shapes of stories have been cleanly and creatively reimagined by graphic designer Maya Eilam, in a rare, appropriate use of the otherwise hackneyed infographic format:

The addition of contemporary examples is a great touch. What other examples can you think of that adhere to Vonnegut's shapely archetypes?

Complement with: The 22 rules of storytelling, according to Pixar.

On Twitter, Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats has compiled nuggets of narrative wisdom she's...
Read more Read
*Vonnegut readily admitted that he was a miserable anthropology student. In fact, if his account of history is to be believed, Vonnegut's "Shapes of Stories" proposal is one of at least two theses rejected during his pursuit of a master's degree. According to Vonnegut, the university turned down another thesis "on the necessity of accounting for the similarities between Cubist painting and late-19th Century Native American uprisings," claiming it was unprofessional. Vonnegut, as was previously mentioned, left school in 1947 to work for GE. Fourteen years later, UChicago accepted Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle as his thesis, and awarded him the M.A. degree based on "the anthropological basis of his novels."
[ Maya Eilam via Open Culture]

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The Universal Shapes of Stories, According to Kurt Vonnegut

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The fundamental concept behind Kurt Vonnegut's master's thesis in anthropology at the University of Chicago was, in Vonnegut's words, "that stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper."

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Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Tips for Great Writing

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Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Tips for Great Writing

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Blog post which includes links to tips/advice from other authors. Use when looking at short stories/narrative & descriptive fiction.

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"Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia."

The year of reading more and writing better is well underway with writing advice the likes of David Ogilvy's 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller's 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac's 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck's 6 pointers, and various invaluable insight from other great writers. Now comes Kurt Vonnegut (November 11, 1922-April 11, 2007) - anarchist, Second Life dweller, imaginary interviewer of the dead, sad soul - with eight tips on how to write a good short story, narrated by the author himself.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things - reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Complement with Vonnegut on the shapes of stories, the secret of happiness, his daily routine, and his life-advice to his children, then dive into this evolving omnibus of famous writers' collected advice on the craft.

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Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Tips on How to Write a Great Story

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The year of reading more and writing better is well underway with writing advice the likes of David Ogilvy's 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller's 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac's 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck's 6 pointers, and various invaluable insight from other great writers.

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Link to TED-Ed 'Riddles' playlist. Might be good for lesson starters.

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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A short animation covering basics of simple, compound & complex sentences. Used as intro. to grammar session or for 'homework'

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A brief overview of simple, compound and complex sentences.-- Created using PowToon -- Free sign up at http://www.powtoon.com/youtube/ -- Create animated videos and animated presentations for free. PowToon is a free tool that allows you to develop cool animated clips and animated presentations for your website, office meeting, sales pitch, nonprofit fundraiser, product launch, video resume, or anything else you could use an animated explainer video.