analysis – Anthony Cockerill

A Christmas miracle for the English classroom (it involves a film, but students are learning too!)

Writing about Robert Zemeckis’s motion-capture adaptation of A Christmas Carol teaches students to develop an individual response to a ‘text’. It’s that time of year again. The last week of term arrives and Merry Christmas erupts into merry hell as… read more
Teach your students to ace AQA’s GCSE English Language P1, Q2

Essential advice that draws on examiners’ reports, past papers and students’ responses, with some great downloadable extracts and helpful resources. 1. Encourage your students to explore deeper layers of meaning. ‘Some [students] offered a basic, generic comment, for example, ‘it… read more
Help your students feel much more confident with GCSE English Language, Paper 2, Question 4

When they’re tackling Paper 2, it’s crucial our students know exactly what each question is demanding of them. Here’s how. In my Year Eleven class, Josh is a Great Dane, on account of his height, which is somewhere in the… read more
Teach your students how to compare poems for GCSE English Literature, Paper 2, Section B

Learn some of these brilliant strategies for teaching really effective poetry comparison for GCSE English Literature, Paper 2, Section B. One of the elements of our students’ exam performance we identified as a weakness in last summer’s examination series was… read more