Of Mice and Men: Gifted and Talented Challenge Pack for GCSE
A challenging activity pack which stretches your gifted and more able students during their exploration of Of Mice and Men at GCSE. The activities demonstrate how to achieve the highest grades possible using aspects of Bloom’s Taxonomy and give students control over their own learning.
A truly wonderful resource; good guidance, excellent 'stretching' materials and clearly written from an expert perspective
The resource covers the key areas of the play: important events, characters, context, language, structure, form, themes, ideas and interpretations. Within each key area, engaging and thought-provoking activities aim to:
- Prompt the recall of important points, aid comprehension and reinforce clear, advanced understanding
- Support literal and abstract analyses
A fantastic, supportive and encouraging resource
- Enable students to apply their knowledge of the play to a new situation or an unseen extract, encourage individual interpretations and stimulate new, creative and individual ideas
Teacher’s notes and answers have been included for the more challenging tasks.
Achieving that A*!
Exam-style activities are also included throughout the resource to help students practise their essay-writing skills by using an annotated response to show the best way of achieving an A*, suitable for AQA, WJEC, OCR and Edexcel English Literature.Share with others:
What do teachers say about this resource? (5191)
My students enjoyed using the resource and could respond clearly. They especially enjoyed the 'A* Alert' points. It motivated my students (set 3) to achieve more and try harder – excellent controlled assessment results. A fantastic, supportive and encouraging resource.
Having taught the novel for a few years and having explored many resources on it, this resource is one of the best I have ever seen for teaching this novel, particularly to higher ability students.
The level was good and encouraged more-able students to reach their full potential... I liked the layout and the tone – it is absolutely not condescending and addresses students with an appropriately academic tone... I feel that this resource is hugely valuable and enhances learning by looking more deeply into the text, drawing inferences and interpretations from the text that were sometimes extremely subtle... The resource would be effective for any of the exam boards, as the depth of study creates a 'ripple' effect of deeper learning... It is really excellent – there were some points raised that even I had not considered! A truly wonderful resource; good guidance, excellent 'stretching' materials and clearly written from an expert perspective.
I thought it was an excellent resource which thoroughly prepares and challenges more-able GCSE students. It covers all the main themes and topics in depth and has some innovative and challenging tasks. It does all it claims to in the teacher's introduction and will also provide a strong base for students intending to continue to AS/A level. It encourages more-able students to study the text thoroughly in preparation for exams and controlled assessment, whilst also encouraging them to explore a variety of learning styles and techniques. It also encourages group learning as well as individual study.
The booklet is full of interesting activities aimed at higher achieving students... I liked the example student responses and the AO focus boxes and the A* tips... An excellent accompaniment to the novel, and excellent as a revision guide... Thanks – I really enjoyed reading it and will use lots of the activities next term when we are reading the novel.
I think this resource would be very valuable to any English department as it is clear and provides a range of activities to support students through the novella. There are annotated extracts and exemplar essays which will be invaluable to students. Overall I think this resource matches the specification I teach very well as it meets all of the AOs... I like how the questions get progressively [more] challenging... Many G&T resources assume that the students do not need support and have the ability to tackle most activities, whereas this resource caters for all abilities within the higher tier and provides relevant support.
A sophisticated resource that encourages students to be aware of their own learning and how it should be built up... The guide is excellent and the exam specs / mark scheme is valuable... This not only challenges MAT students from the outset, but it falls in line with working at 'Your Own Learning Pace'... Students will want to know why they have hit a limit in their comprehension and aim to push further.