Do you have a 12/13 year old?

[weebleswaddle]

What texts and grammar are they doing in English/English Literature at the moment and are they doing any creative writing at school?
Thank you!

Animal Farm atm and yes, different types of writing.

I have one and I teach about 60 of them.
I'm currently teaching poetry analysis, we are looking at how the poets have presented war / conflict.
My son is doing a crappy word challenge every lesson and reading a book by a footballer. As you can imagine, I'm less than impressed. I would love him to come to my school instead but it isn't feasible.

In my class, we are also reading Stone Cold by Robert Swindells.

Thank you both!
rosieprobert please could you tell me more about the poetry, which poets and how you are exploring themes? I am in an unusual situation, abroad, the teacher is needing ideas about how English could be taught to native english speakers - dc is bilingual, and his classmates are being taught English as a second language, and if I come up with a feasible idea I think the teacher would run with it. The teacher is happy to differentiate but at the moment the work dc is getting is still very basic. Any ideas about what I could suggest about creative writing would be really helpful too. Yes it sounds as though your son would do better at your school!
I was thinking about it, I am sure we were doing things like Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Jane Austen at this age but I might not be remembering correctly?

I am just going to clarify that this is being led by the teacher, who is new and is also English. Previously dc just did the work the other kids did. The new teacher wants to set different work for English children but isn't sure what.

Still Animal Farm? Crikey, ours did that 19 and 10 years ago.

This is what mine are going to be covering for gcses if that helps.

Other useful resources are Twinkl and BBC bitesize to get an idea on resources for that age group.

Thank you very much, very helpful!

Would love to know what other 12/13 year olds are doing, plus what grammar is being covered - just out of interest really, and in case we go back to UK next year

Thanks again

I was at secondary school in the 1990s and we didn’t do Jane Austen, Chaucer and Shakespeare until years 10 & 11. They were all on the GCSE syllabus back then, and probably still are.
DS is in year 8 and they’re reading The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon.

We've been studying conflict poetry and the students did an analysis of Dulce et Decorum Est.
If you use Twitter, there's an educationalist called Stuart Pryke who shares resources and schemes of work on Dropbox. Great stuff the teacher could adapt etc

i am coming back to this after a while. We did Chaucer and Summer Night's Dream in year 7, Twelfth Night and Great Expectations year 8, and from then on one Shakespeare play per year and one or two of the classic novels, with some poetry in between.

The school I went to was fairly academic, I am not sure if that makes a difference, then or now.

Sorry, Midsummer's Night's Dream!

That looks great, thank you

They did Of Mice and Men last half term and even watched the same film that I saw almost 30 years ago!

Michael Morpurgo would be a good shout for this age, have also done The Hunger Games

Or Jacqueline Wilson. At school at that age we did Goodnight Mr Tom which was OK. If I was to do any Shakespeare maybe Romeo and Juliet but I can't stand a Midsummer Night's Dream. Really don't get why Of Mice and Men is so ubiquitous, it's a grand book but I don't see why working class masculinity in Depression era America is considered to be of such universal appeal. I think it's just sheer laziness because there are so many resources on it

Noughts & Crosses would also be a good shout. For poetry maybe Seamus Heaney Midterm Break (suckerpunch ending) Ted Hughes' The Thought Fox, Benjamin Zephaniah and/or Tony Harrison for voice, Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage would also be a good shout

Enough with the Wilfred Owen already

I decided to start with the English classics - Jane Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare - will move on to world classics!

They did The Outsiders in the Autumn Term.
Spring term has been a mixture- but of Chaucer, Beowulf, various plays.

Thank you - really helpful to know what people are doing at different schools

The Outsiders is another ubiquitous and inexplicable choice - it wasn't even written in English ffs

just finished animal farm. In writing, just finished a unit on crime fiction - focus on creative writing.

Earlier in Y8 and Y7, has done writing units focused on fantasy fiction, ‘strong voices’ poetry, environmental issues, villains, myths, romantic poetry and other bits.

Oh. And Oliver Twist and some Shakespeare in y7 and 8.

I just googled and it says was written in English? What language was it written in?

I was quite surprised you included Seamus Heaney by the way - I did his poetry for A level many moons ago and found it agonizingly bad! What do you like about it?