Non fiction texts GCSE English – Teaching pack with starters/plenaries

What's included?

60-page Word doc and 80-slide PowerPoint

Key Stage

KS4

Age

Years 10-11

Subjects

This non fiction texts GCSE English pack contains a selection of 19th- and 21st-century non-fiction articles. There’s also a PowerPoint to use in the lesson, containing thematic starters and plenaries.

Non fiction texts for GCSE English – themes

Captivity – including a description of a slave auction in America in 1859
Exploration and travel – including the last journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa
Healthcare – including an account of Florence Nightingale’s experiences in a hospital during the Crimean War
Education and child labour – including an extract from a parliamentary speech given by Lord Ashley (1768-1851)
Mental health – including a recount of a visit to an American lunatic asylum
Gender – including an article about suffragette, Emily Wilding Davison
Death and mortality – including an article about a man who was delivered alive to anatomists
Domesticity – including an article about the role and responsibilities of a housekeeper
Anti-social behaviour – including an 1898 about ‘young ruffians’ terrorising the streets of Lambeth
Places – including a Bill Bryson interview about London

Where to begin with non fiction

What are the main ideas, themes or characters that are being introduced or developed?
How does the writer’s point of view come across (for/against, positively/negatively)?
How do particular choices of words/phrases/lines within the extract affect the reader?
How do the articles show the similarities and differences across time?
Why is the writer seeking to have this effect?
What other parts, or key pivotal moments of the text does it suggest? What do you imagine the rest of the text to include or explore?
When I read this, what do I think is important? How does it add to, reinforce or change how I think about the topic, themes or ideas that I have been studying?

Kat Howard is an English teacher and founder of LitDrive.org.uk (@LitdriveUK) which helps English teachers connect and share resources. Check out her blog at saysmiss.wordpress.com and follow her on Twitter at @saysmiss.