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 December 2: Poetry: 'Walking Away' by Cecil Day-Lewis and 'Mother, Any Distance' by Simon Armitage / Fiction Writing

Week beginning December 9: Extract from 'The Hobbit' by J. R. R. Tolkien / Fiction Writing

Week beginning December 16: Extract from 'The Fish I Didn't Catch' by John Greenleaf Whittier / Nonfiction Writing

Week beginning December 23: Extract from 'The Silver Chair' by C. S. Lewis / Analytical Writing

Week beginning December 30: Extract from 'Lark Rise' by Flora Thompson / Descriptive Writing

Week beginning January 6: Extract from 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens / Analytical Writing

Week beginning January 13: Extract from 'My Experience in Elocution' by John Neal / Fiction Writing

Week beginning January 20: Extract from 'Surprised by Joy' by C. S. Lewis / Fiction Writing

Week beginning January 27: Extract from 'The Weak Spot' by Richmal Crompton / Fiction Writing

Week beginning February 3: Extract from 'Three Men in a Boat' by Jerome K. Jerome / Nonfiction Writing

Week beginning February 10: Poetry: 'Adlestrop' by Edward Thomas / 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost / 'I Started Early, Took My Dog' by Emily Dickinson / Fiction Writing

Week beginning February 17: Extract from 'Story of a Bad Boy' by Thomas Bailey Aldrich / Nonfiction Writing

Week beginning February 24: Extract from 'American Notes' by Charles Dickens / Fiction Writing

Week beginning March 3: Extract from 'The Magician's Nephew' by C. S. Lewis / Analytical Writing

Week beginning March 10: Extract from 'Smith' by Leon Garfield / Fiction Writing

Week beginning March 17: Extract from 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens / Analytical Writing

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