This engaging and fully resourced lesson is designed for students studying the Edexcel IGCSE English Language (4EA1) specification, focusing on the non-fiction anthology text A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat by Emma Levine.

Students are guided from initial engagement with unusual sporting contexts through to analytical writing, with clear modelling and structured support throughout.

Lesson Overview

• Starter activity exploring unusual sports to build engagement and context
• Introduction to the concept of tension in narrative writing
• Guided reading and annotation of the extract
• Identification of key techniques (e.g. dialogue, metaphor, sentence structure)
• Tension graph activity to track structural development across the text
• Focused language “zoom-in” task (speed, noise, lack of control)
• Extension tasks exploring tone shifts and multi-sensory description
• Analytical grid task on how Levine uses language and structure
• Model exemplar paragraph for support and modelling expectations for a typical Paper 1 Question 4
• Sentence starters and vocabulary bank to scaffold analytical writing
• Independent paragraph writing task
• 3–2–1 plenary/exit ticket to consolidate learning

What’s Included

• Fully editable PowerPoint
• Separate language analysis grid (differentiated choice between two)
• Structured activities with clear instructions
• Scaffolded analytical tasks
• Model paragraph and sentence starters
• Built-in differentiation and extension opportunities