Literary Lenses Workbook - Critical Theory Reading Activities for Senior English
Build deeper reading and thinking skills with this critical theory workbook for senior English. Students explore texts through six core literary lenses: Feminist, Marxist, Postcolonial, Ecocritical, Reader Response, and Te Ao Māori. Each lens includes short extracts, scaffolded questions, and structured planning support to help students think beyond surface-level meaning.
***Also available in our 'Thinking Up' bundle HERE (save 20%).
Sections include clear definitions of key terms, close reading extracts with annotation tasks, and prompts to support comparative and analytical responses. Additional tools include visual reference pages, comparison charts, higher-level thinking activities, and optional extension lenses such as Psychoanalytic and Structuralist theory.
All tasks are designed to support NCEA Level 3 (AS91479) and Scholarship English, with a focus on original thinking, synthesis, and argument-building.
This resource includes:
⭐ A student workbook covering six core and three extension literary lenses
⭐ Short texts with scaffolded reading, annotation, and essay planning tasks
⭐ Visual guides and comparison tools for text synthesis and revision
You and your students will enjoy:
❤️ Clear, accessible theory explanations
❤️ Extracts that build confidence with both familiar and unfamiliar texts
❤️ Scaffolded prompts to help students build analytical arguments
❤️ A structure that supports NCEA and Scholarship critical responses
❤️ Flexible, low prep tasks suitable for classwork, relievers, or extension
Formats:
🖥️ Microsoft PowerPoint, resized to an A4 page. This means your resource:
- Is completely editable.
- Will easily upload to your Google Drive if you prefer the Googley suite.
- Is printable 📃
🖥️ A PDF version of each document.
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Also helpful are these related products:
✅ Psych! Applying psychological studies to literary characters.
✅ Thinkathon! Summaries, conclusions, sytheses, evaluations, judgments
✅ My Lens; Their Lens - perspective/point of view
✅ Thinking Critically About Texts - Senior Text Analysis
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Sharing/Copying this Resource
Feel free to purchase just one for your department - no need for a copy for each teacher. However:
- Please do NOT share with the school down the road.
- Please do NOT take it with you to a new school.
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