Revision - Teaching tips and favourite games!
- Susan de Lautour
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Notes
Where are they? Remember, a collection of worksheets on Google Classroom is impossible to study from. They need ‘the notes’. If these are supplied in digital format, and if your school budget is overflowing (!), then print key notes for them. Otherwise, encourage students to print their own. The best case scenario is that students have compiled notes in their physical books throughout the year.
Some students might need help to put their notes together. Have them organise their notes into units of work/parts of the exam – eg:
Unfamiliar/unseen texts work:
Language features
Structural features
Exemplars and answer structure.
Annotated texts and practice activities
Text Studies (eg, novel, short stories, poetry, film) – organise under elements/aspects of literature – eg:
Structure
Setting
Character – development and what causes that development (relationships, setting…)
Symbolism
Language features (more so for poetry)
Main idea – the overview – show how everything else points to that main idea.
Context (that background understanding)
Rote Learning (and Testing)
There is no point in tests and games if students haven’t rote learned things first. Otherwise, they just play the game, don’t know the answer, fool around, or a mate tells them and it’s in one ear and out the other…sigh… Rote learning is a MUST!
Flashcards
Flashcards aren’t just great for key terms (cliché, conjunction, metaphor…), they’re also great for text studies. For example, have “SYMBOLISM” on one side of the card, then the symbol and what it represents on the other. Don’t just make them, though, add using them to your lesson plans – give students goals such as learning five each week, spot-test students, have students test each other. These are great for lesson starters.
The tests you're SUPPOSED to cheat on! Yes!
1.Create quizzes of 10-20 questions about the things students really must know by heart.
2.Give the quiz to your students a week before they sit it. Go through the answers with them, ensuring each writes them in.
3.Students then take the test home to rote learn.
4.A week later, they sit the test.
Greatness is achieved, so students and parents glow, and best of all, your students have just rote learned key information. For ready-made tests try these!
The MAIN IDEA MAP
A great one for text studies. Here’s how:
Students write the main idea of the text in the middle of a page.
Around the outside they make notes of the things that illustrate that main idea.
Once students have made their notes (with a little scaffolding from you), have them learn these, then throw random ‘stop, drop and map’ quizzes to see how much they can reproduce from memory.
Tips:
Ensure students organise the different aspects of literature (eg: symbolism, turning points, character development, political setting, quotations…).
Using arrows to point from each aspect to that main idea helps ingrain the concept of these things ‘feeding’ that main idea.
Games for consolidation
Students don’t get the answer to something from a game and think “oh, I must commit that to memory”. No, they’re just playing a game! Where games are great though (apart from having a little fun) is for consolidating what students have learned.
Here are five favourites that Jo and I have picked out:
Para-tag
Okay, this isn’t exactly a game, but I’m sure you could gamify it with a points system or by making the writing part into a race. Here’s how:
Give students a list of language features you want them to know. For the activity on the right, we were practicing persuasive language skills.
Students work in pairs. Each partner chooses four language features from the list that they want their mate to use in a paragraph.
Give students 5-10 minutes to write their paragraphs using the language features their mate selected for them.
Each student proofreads their work, then hands it to their mate for annotation.
Further ideas:
You could easily give students lists of figurative language devices, sound devices or creative ways to begin sentences for narrative skills practice.
You could give students a list of punctuation.
How about having students add to their annotations, not just the name of the technique their partner used, but notes about the effect of each, too?
How about a list of common errors. Students must use the common errors and their partner must find and correct them.
What about getting students to proofread each other’s work? (I’d have them focus on annotating first, though. One thing at a time!)
I have… Who has…?
An oldie but a goodie! Create cards like the ones you see opposite (we have a set in this resource if you want to save a bit of time). Here’s how to play:
Shuffle the cards, then distribute one (or more) to each student.
The student with the START card reads their “Who has…?” aloud.
The student who has that language feature answers, “I have [language feature]. Who has…? [their example]”.
Continue the chain until you reach the card that has an answer but no question – ie, the FINISH card.
Tips:
Number the cards so you can quickly put the set back in order.
Make sure your start card and end card link.
If students lack a bit of confidence, they could work in pairs.
Dice game
Adapted from a fun family game I saw on a reel somewhere, students love this one. They work individually or in pairs or threes to play each other.
Here’s how it’s played:
Students place a card like the one you see on the right in front of them. Add a treat to the middle (if you don’t want to use a sweet treat, use a token giving a 10 minute rest time from class or something).
One side, eg, side A, rolls their die. They must then answer the question aligned with their number. The opposition has the answers, so can check if side A is correct. If they are correct, then they draw a line from that number to the treat, and then they roll again. Side A continues to roll until they get a number they’ve already got a line to, or they get an answer incorrect. Then, it’s side B’s turn. The side that’s first to draw all six lines to the treat gets the treat.
I didn’t realise this when I first made this game, but the bonus is that students argue over the quality of each other’s answer, so they think about the terms even more! To grab these ready-made, click here!
Further idea:
Instead of just language features, parts of speech, etc, you could create games that include questions about that novel or poem you’ve just studied.
Song lyrics
Have students hunt for lyrics in their favourite songs. Another oldie, and always popular! Gamify it with time limits – “For a treat, you must find four language features in four minutes”. Or how about judging who can bring you a song with everything identified correctly AND the best notes about the effect of each?
Tips:
Sometimes lyrics need vetting, so getting students to choose their own can be dicey! Also, not every song is as loaded with language features as you might like. It’s a good idea to print out song lyrics from various artists and have students choose which one they prefer.
Because they’ll be annotating, it’s easier to print lyrics rather than sharing them with students digitally.
Caption that
Love it or hate it, social media is here. Embrace it for a bit but giving students an opportunity to play around with language features as they spot and use them in captions. Of course, you can’t have them sitting on social media in class, so create a few first, then get students to create others. See the example on the left! Gamification? Use the same sorts of ideas we’ve discussed for song lyrics above.
Tip:
Don’t limit yourself to language features; write captions about something to do with your text study.
There you have it, a few of our revision favourites, along with some tips to help things run smoothly. Do remember though, games are better for consolidating what’s already learned! Enjoy!
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