20 Active Methodologies for the English Classroom

Get every student thinking, talking and moving in English class. This 56-page teacher guide gives you 20 tried-and-tested active learning methodologies, each set out so you can pick one up and teach it tomorrow.

Written by Clare Madden, secondary English teacher, author of the Touchstones Junior Cycle English series and creator of the My Brain and Me learning-to-learn course.

**What's inside**

Every methodology has:

- **At a glance:** aim, best used for, group size, timing, space needed and the learning outcomes it supports

- **A clear diagram** showing how to set up the room and how the activity runs

- **What you will need:** a short checklist of materials

- **Step by step:** numbered instructions from setup to debrief

- **Why it works:** the research behind it, explained briefly (retrieval practice, spacing, Rosenshine's principles, talk before writing)

- **Teacher tips, adaptations and support ideas**

- **Classroom examples on real texts:** sample prompts with answers in brackets for your teacher's key. Many methodologies have a full page each for Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate.

**The 20 methodologies**

*Retrieval and memory:* Retrieval Relay Race · Carousel Retrieval · Retrieval Board Race · Brain Dump · Mini-Whiteboards · Quotation Retrieval Grid · Quiz-Quiz-Trade

*Talk and dialogue:* Think–Pair–Share · Hot Seating · Four Corners · Balloon Debate

*Collaborative learning:* Jigsaw · Idea Market Place · Placemat · Gallery Walk · Card Sort

*Active reading:* Annotation Relay · Running Dictation

*Drama in the classroom:* Freeze Frame · Role on the Wall

**Texts used in the examples include**

Junior Cycle: Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Of Mice and Men, The Outsiders, Noughts and Crosses, Bog Child, Things Fall Apart, Blood Brothers, Twelve Angry Men, Sing Street, Wadjda, The Breadwinner and more.

Leaving Certificate: Othello, Hamlet, Hamnet, Dracula, The Great Gatsby, Small Things Like These, A Doll's House, The Banshees of Inisherin, Purple Hibiscus, and the poetry of Dickinson, Donne, Yeats, Meehan, Bishop and Kavanagh.

**Who it's for**

- English teachers at Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate (the methods work with any text, at any level)

- Student and newly qualified teachers building a toolkit of active methodologies

- English departments planning shared approaches or CPD sessions

**Format:** 56-page print-ready PDF (landscape A4), in full colour.