Books & Projects
Jennifer Webb has written a number of best-selling books for teachers and is working on other exciting projects.
Essential Grammar
The Resource Book Every Secondary English Teacher Will Need
Jennifer Webb & Marcello Giovanelli | Paperback | 2023 | 232 pages
What is grammar? Why is it so central to the teaching of English? How can we teach it with confidence in secondary schools?
Essential Grammar will provide clarity, meaning and teacher expertise to this much debated area of the English curriculum. By exploring grammar as applied to literary analysis and using a range of examples from commonly-taught and popular texts, this highly accessible book provides an extensive overview of how to use grammar to enhance the teaching of academic and creative writing. Drawing on a range of resources, best-selling authors Webb and Giovanelli:
- discuss the context of grammar teaching in schools
- provide a clear overview of concepts and terminology for the teacher
- offer a wide range of examples of how grammar can be applied to the analysis of texts and the development of students' writing
- debunk the unhelpful view of grammar as a list of prescriptive rules and limits
- outline grammatical concepts in a way which is clear and simple to understand
- provide a huge range of practical ways to ensure that teaching of grammatical concepts can be rigorous and successful for all.
This resource, with its grounded and straightforward approach to grammar, will be immediately useable in the classroom with strategies that be used by teachers in their classroom today. For any training and practicing secondary English teachers, Essential Grammar will be a compulsory classroom companion.
It's clear that both authors have put love, care and attention into finding the best way to support the teaching of grammar... The ideas contained within are adaptable and applicable to a myriad of situations... As the title says, it's essential.
Amazon Reviewer – August 2023
How to Teach English Literature
Overcoming Cultural Poverty
Jennifer Webb | Paperback | 2019 | 172 pages
A practical guide to pedagogy in the English classroom, supporting the teaching abstract, classic and challenging texts and concepts. Many teachers are struggling with the new GCSE syllabus for Literature, and this book provides useful resources, strategies and approaches for the key areas of challenge in the English classroom. Full of practical ideas for educators to use in their classrooms, it is the perfect book for any English teachers who want some fresh ideas for approaching GCSE Literature.
Where was this book when I began my teaching sojourns?! Every teacher of Literature should purchase this.. and it doesn’t matter whether you’re an NQT or decades established.. it will remind you WHY you chose to teach such a remarkable subject in the first place —it will refresh your teaching methods —and bring you immense joy and excitement to try the many tips. This has to be the best advice for teaching Literature bar none! Your students will thank you for life.
Amazon Reviewer – April 2019
Teach Like A Writer
Expert tips on teaching students to write in different forms
Jennifer Webb | Paperback | 2020 | 219 pages
Jennifer Webb collaborates with six expert writers to offer practical teaching strategies for the English classroom. With advice for primary to sixth form, it helps in the teaching of writing skills of distinct and specific forms, including: play-writing, novels, spoken poetry, written poetry, journalism and speech-writing.
As an English teacher I am always on the lookout for ways to improve my practice. Having found Jennifer’s first book on the teaching of Literature very useful (buy that one too!) I pre ordered this one as soon as I could. It certainly didn’t disappoint. A call to arms to make sure we, as educators, are teaching our students how to use words. It has lots of helpful ideas in terms of lessons but more widely is reminds you of the power of language and how it is down to us to open up avenues for our students to Express themselves in writing. Cannot recommend enough.
Amazon Reviewer – April 2020
The Metacognition Handbook
A Practical Guide for Teachers and School Leaders
Jennifer Webb | Paperback | 2021 | 131 pages
Metacognition is one of the most highly effective but under-used teaching strategies in all of education. Over-complicated by some, over-simplified by others and misunderstood by many, this area of theory and practice is in need of a fresh look. The Metacognition Handbook provides a clear, practical guide for teachers and school leaders to embed metacognition into classroom practice and school culture to enhance student outcomes. Looking at classroom pedagogy, teacher CPD, transition, and more, The Metacognition Handbook argues a case for evidence informed application of simple but effective ways to boost student independence, self-regulation, self-efficacy and motivation.
I’m an experienced teacher but really wasn’t sure what metacognition is or looks like. Jennifer Webb’s book, like all her books, explains things in a clear and accessible way. I have found it incredibly helpful and interesting, and am thoroughly enjoying being consciously metacognitive in my teaching.
Amazon Reviewer – June 2021
English Literature - Macbeth
Knowledge Quiz - GCSE
Jennifer Webb | Paperback | 2020 | 147 pages
The Knowledge Quiz series is a deviously simple and effective way for students to revise for GCSE subjects across all exam boards (AQA, OCR, WJEC and more).
Put together by subject experts, these easy-to-use books feature tear-out quizzes to help students memorise the large body of knowledge that forms the basis of success in exams. Rather than just flicking through revision cards expecting things to stick in your memory, self-quizzing allows you to complete multiple copies of the same quiz and keep doing them until you get them right every time. At the start of each section you'll find full answers.
This edition will help students to effectively drill the essential facts necessary for success in the Macbeth paper, part of GCSE English Literature.
Fantastic book that is practical and ready to use. It contains quizzes on the acts, themes and quotes formatted in a way that truly shows how knowledge quizzes should be carried out in order to achieve memory retrieval. If you teach/study Macbeth, for this price, buy it.
Amazon Reviewer – May 2020
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