Year 8 English Curriculum Plan

Autumn Term One: Novel Study (6 weeks)

Students to study a novel (possible titles include: A Christmas Carol, The Machine Gunners, Holes, Shadowmancer.) The focus for the novel study should be on students understanding structure and development of plotlines. They must look at description and the creation of atmosphere (in preparation for the assessment.) Students should also begin to consider subtext and the way in which the authorial craft can allow for different interpretations within a text. They should undertake a variety of written and oral tasks connected to the novel, discussing any issues or messages which the text highlights.

Sentence construction, widening vocabulary and use of language appropriate to audience and purpose should all be covered during these lessons.

Assessment: Writing to Describe (A 300 word description focusing on atmosphere and location)

Autumn Term Two: Completion of Novel Study & Advertising Module (7 weeks)

Completion of work on class novel (as above)

Students to study print and radio advertisements, looking at the different styles of presentation in the two media and learning appropriate terminology. Students should look at the way in which advertisements persuade their readers and the devices they use in order to do so. They should consider the use of associations and connotations as well as devices such as puns, slogans, logos and brand names.

Assessment: ‘Reading for Meaning' task based on a non-fiction media text

Spring Term One: Newspapers(6 weeks)

Students should learn the differences between the various sub-genres of newspapers, focusing particularly on the national broadsheets and tabloids and learning the differences between the two. Audience and purpose should be considered with regard to the way that different newspapers select their material and information.

Students should undertake comparative work on different articles which deal with the same story and should also practise their writing skills, thinking about their own use of audience and purpose.

Assessment: Produce a newspaper article which argues a point.

Spring Term Two: Shakespeare & A Midsummer Night's Dream (5 weeks)

Students should produce and independent research project about William Shakespeare's life and work for homework. Once this has been introduced, all students should begin the reading of A Midsummer Night's Dream. This should be done with a focus on the dramatic nature of the text. Students should learn about the presentation of characters and the way in which they can be interpreted in different ways.

They should begin to get to grips with Shakespeare's language, modernising passages, by ‘translating' them into their own words. Students should also create empathic responses to the text, writing in the guise of a character.

Summer Term One: A Midsummer Night's Dream & Reading Fiction (6 weeks)

Students should complete work on A Midsummer Night's Dream (see above)

They should look at various examples of fictional texts with a focus on comprehensions that require longer answers in line with the WJEC GCSE English Paper One Section A. They should begin to learn the difference between questions which require retrieval of information and those which require analysis, interpretation and evaluation.

Assessment: Fiction Reading Comprehension

Summer Term Two: Film Analysis (4 weeks)

Students should watch a film (possible titles include Coach Carter, The Truman Show, The Princess Bride) looking at genre as well as the effects and devices used by the films. They should also look at the way that messages and ideas are put across through film just as they are in literature.

Library Lessons

Students should be taken to the library periodically to allow them to continue to develop good reading habits and may be introduced to the ‘Book Chase' programme.