Weekly English Language Arts Club (Age 9-13)

Every week, we will read high quality prose fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or an extract from a play by William Shakespeare. I will provide clear explanations of key background knowledge, vocabulary, themes and structural features of the text we read. There will be plenty of interactive discussion. We will work together on two or three questions like those which appear in standardized reading tests. Finally, we will plan a short piece of our own, which will be written for homework. The writing could be a piece of fiction or nonfiction based on the ideas in the text, or it could be a piece of analytical writing probing the methods used by the author.

Through all these varied activities every week, students will develop their knowledge and vocabulary and their ability to speak and write English with fluency, precision and passion.

The coming weeks will focus on the following texts:

Week beginning March 24: Extract from 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' by Arthur Conan Doyle / Descriptive Writing

Week beginning March 31: Extract from 'Macbeth' by William Shakespeare / Nonfiction Writing

Week beginning April 7: Extract from 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' by C. S. Lewis / Analytical Writing

Week beginning April 14: Extract from 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' by Mark Twain / Fiction Writing

Week beginning April 21: Extract from 'Three Men in a Boat' by Jerome K. Jerome / Nonfiction Writing

Week beginning April 28: Extract from 'Romeo and Juliet' by William Shakespeare / Analytical Writing

Week beginning May 5: Extract from 'The Hobbit' by J. R. R. Tolkien / Fiction Writing

Week beginning May 12: Extract from 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell / Nonfiction Writing

Week beginning May 19: Poetry: 'Absence' by Elizabeth Jennings, 'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop, and 'Where the Picnic Was' by Thomas Hardy / Fiction Writing

Week beginning May 26: Extract from 'Anne of Green Gables' by L. M. Montgomery / Fiction Writing

Week beginning June 2: Extract from 'King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table' by Roger Lancelyn Green / Fiction Writing

Week beginning June 9: Extract from 'I Am David' by Anne Holm / Analytical Writing

Week beginning June 16: Extract from 'Heidi' by Johanna Spyri / Fiction Writing

Week beginning June 23: Extract from 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens / Analytical Writing

Week beginning June 30: Extract from 'The Silver Sword' by Ian Serraillier / Fiction Writing

Week beginning July 7: Extract from 'Macbeth' by William Shakespeare / Analytical Writing

Week beginning July 14: Extract from 'Devil in the Fog' by Leon Garfield / Fiction Writing

Week beginning July 21: Extract from 'American Notes' by Charles Dickens / Nonfiction Writing

Week beginning July 28: Extract from 'Five Children and It' by E. Nesbitt / Fiction Writing

Week beginning August 4: Extract from 'Romeo and Juliet' by William Shakespeare / Analytical Writing

Week beginning August 11: Extract from 'The Horse and His Boy' by C. S. Lewis / Fiction Writing

Week beginning August 18: Summer break

Week beginning August 25: Poetry: 'Ulysses' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and 'The Seafarer' / Fiction Writing

Week beginning September 1: Extract from 'Tom's Midnight Garden' by Philippa Pearce / Nonfiction Writing