Find your voice with Benjamin Zephaniah

Kick off an unforgettable classroom experience with a virtual author visit! In this episode of Author in Your Classroom, children hear from the late Benjamin Zephaniah.

The podcast extracts bring his voice straight into the classroom, sparking excitement and creativity. Students get to hear Benjamin talk about his journey, his inspirations, and the power of storytelling, making writing feel personal, vivid, and full of life.

Teaching overview

This unit helps children discover and develop their own voice, or the voice of a historical character. Activities are lively and interactive. They start by reflecting on stories from their own lives, thinking about small, memorable moments that could become a story. Then they explore voices from history, choosing a narrator who witnessed events firsthand, just like Leonard in Windrush Child. Podcast clips and PowerPoint slides guide discussion, showing how Benjamin Zephaniah captures character voices with detail, emotion, and perspective.

Children draft first-person stories, experimenting with narrative point of view, character feelings, and authentic dialogue. Lessons include planning, writing, sharing, and redrafting, encouraging collaboration and self-reflection. Teachers can display work on a ‘Finding Your Voice’ working wall to celebrate progress. The sequence also introduces poetry, using Benjamin’s works like Talking Turkeys to show students how language can sing, inspire, and entertain.

By the end of the unit, children have crafted stories with strong voices, explored historical and personal perspectives, and discovered how writing can mirror and expand the world around them. This pack combines podcasts, extracts, planning sheets, and working wall resources for an engaging, hands-on approach that gets every child writing with purpose and heart.