Michael Sherman

The students can discuss the Hays Code of 1930 and produce an essay. Suggested Categories (directed towards body paragraphs): things they think were definitely right, things definitely wrong, and things that might have been ok for the 1930s but wouldn't do now. It might be noted that the qualification 'necessary for plot development' encouraged movie makers to produce stronger plots, and that the period in which this Code was in force has a good claim to be 'the Golden Age of Hollywood'. Some ex

A fun classroom activity in which students explore a poem and combine their insights into an eye-catching poster.

Students can complete as they watch the movie 'Accidental Hero'. It takes up the story about 30 minutes in, just after the TV people start looking for the unknown person who rescued the plane passengers.

A reading passage on the subject of conjuring and female equality. It tells the story of Sophie Lloyd, who challenged the all-male membership policy of the Magic Circle, Britain's prestigious professional association for conjurors, by passing herself off as 'Raymond'. She succeeded, but when they announced they were admitting women and she told them she was already a member, they weren't amused!

This is a follow up from watching the movie 'The Truman Show' In the movie 'The Truman Show', there are some suggestions that Christof is a Nazi. His accent is clearly not American. We can imagine him as one of the talented Germans, some with Nazi connections, brought to the US after WWII. Students can read the biography of Wernher von Braun and adapt it with the help of the notes. Some imagination is needed to supply Christof's surname, the title of his first soap opera, etc. (I had picture

A fairly high-powered literary quiz, the subjects Beginnings and Endings, Dedications, Drink and Drugs, Names, Fictional books, Birth, Sex and Death, Money, Age, Quotations, Attributions and Odds and sods. Something for everyone here! Use however you like.

To be used with the first four paragraphs of A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid (available online). A process guide to one way of writing a commentary on a prose passage. After this students can be given another passage and asked to write one on that.

Students read and discuss the poem to produce a poster. The discussion puts the poem in its context and focuses on still important issues such as the position of women and the relationship of art and morality.

Students unscramble sentences to produce introductory paragraphs on Mobile Phones, the 1944 Ardennes Offensive, and Barbie

An easy kit for writing a review of a play. Should work with school or commercial drama.

This essay compares The Crucible by Arthur Miller and If This is a Man by Primo Levi

A description of the dangling participle error, with sentences for students to correct, and suggested answers.

An information gap exercise in which students complete an information sheet with details about Shakespeare's and modern theatre. They should be able to complete the information on film and TV themselves! Comes with teacher's notes for use and follow-up. It uses British spelling because I am British but it is easy to change.

Worksheets for students watching the movie The Truman Show. They include simple listening comprehension but contain material for more advanced group work following different elements of film.

Three examples of how literature can be treated as news stories. They are taken from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Graham Greene's The Fallen Idol and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.They can be used as examples, or scrambled for reassemblage to practise the 'Inverted Pyramid' method used in news writing.

This is a rap on Shakespeare's life and times. It serves an introduction to work on Shakespeare. Divide the class into 4-6 groups. Cut the rap up into a piece for each student (ideally - but if there are absentees it works just as well), and get them to connect the pieces by using the sense and the rhyme. There should also be a rhyme to make connections between groups. When all the pieces and groups are linked, get them to perform the rap. As a follow-up, students can be asked to prepare pre

Students complete a summary of C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew. Can be done after reading or divided into chapter segments.

This introduces students to the in some ways remote world of To Kill a Mockingbird. Give one partially-filled paper to one half of the class and the other paper to the other half. Students are to meet individually and fill in the gaps by asking and answering, not by looking and copying. A complete page is included for the teacher.

Revision Questions on the plays Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams, Abigails's Party, by Mike Leigh, Girlfriend in a Coma, by Douglas Coupland, and Under the Skin, by Michel Faber.Ideal for self-study, but can be set for a class.

Students have to present their recent reading as if they are the agents for an unpublished work. The rest of the class, in groups, represent publishing houses who compete in an auction to buy the work.