Creative Amplify (CA)
Multimedia book report with embedded research
Each student builds a six-slide book report on a class novel. Slides include: a chosen cover image with rationale, a character mood-board with three image choices, a key-passage slide with embedded student-recorded audio of them reading aloud, a setting slide with research images, a thematic slide with a one-line thesis, and a recommendation slide. They present to the class for three minutes each.
Tools: Google Sites, PowerPoint
Interactive poetry analysis with audio reading
Each student builds a single page presenting their analysis of one poem. The page has the full poem at the top, an embedded audio recording of the student reading the poem aloud, hover-text annotations on six key lines (with the annotation appearing when the reader hovers over the line), and a 200-word thematic essay below. They publish the page for the class to read.
Tools: Google Sites
Recorded podcast review of a class novel
Each student records a 90-second podcast review of a class novel. The review must include a thesis, two pieces of textual evidence read aloud, a recommended audience and a music bed chosen for the novel's tone. They submit individually to the teacher's class podcast feed.
Tools: GarageBand
Creative Transform (CT)
Pair podcast on literary analysis with audio quotes and sound design
Pairs record an eight-minute podcast analysing one motif across a novel they have studied. The podcast must include three pair-recorded readings of quotes from the text, a music bed chosen to match the motif's emotional weight, and a thesis defended with at least two pieces of evidence. Pairs publish to a class podcast feed.
Tools: GarageBand
Branching narrative built in Twine, played by classmates
Each student builds a branching short story in Twine. The story has at least three decision points and four endings. Each branch must explore a different theme (loyalty, identity, fear, hope). At the end of the project the class plays each other's stories and writes a short response on which branches felt the most justified by the writer's craft.
Tools: Twine
Multimedia thesis essay submitted as an interactive web page
Each student picks a contemporary global issue (gender pay gap, plastic pollution, AI in education). They build a single web page that argues a thesis. The page must include an embedded video clip with their commentary, hyperlinks to two primary sources, and an interactive thesis map (a clickable diagram showing claim, evidence, counterclaim, response). They peer-review three classmates' pages using a structured rubric.
Tools: Google Sites
Interactive Amplify (IA)
Class adds phonics words to a shared word wall
The teacher names a target phoneme (e.g. /ai/ as in rain). Each child takes a turn (in small groups, on a shared tablet) to add one word containing that phoneme to a class Padlet. The IWB displays the wall growing in real time. The teacher highlights phonemes within each word as the class scrolls.
Sound-to-picture matching on shared whiteboard
Each small group has a Jamboard frame with a row of pictures (cat, hat, mat, sun, fan, cap) and a row of phoneme cards. Children drag each phoneme card to the picture it matches. The teacher displays all groups' frames on the IWB and the class compares choices, with the teacher correcting any mismatches as a class.
Tools: Jamboard
Story-retelling voice memos to a class library
The teacher reads a short story to the class. In small groups, children take turns recording a voice memo of one sentence retelling the story in sequence. The class then plays back all sentences in order, listening to themselves tell the whole story. The teacher draws out which moments different children chose to emphasise.
Tools: Seesaw
Class posts main idea to a Padlet column
The class reads a short story together. Each student then posts what they think the main idea is, in their own words, to a class Padlet. The teacher scrolls the wall, picks four notably different responses and asks the contributing students to defend.
Tools: Padlet
Emotion labels dragged onto poem lines
Each student gets their own Jamboard frame with the same poem displayed and a row of emotion-word stickers (joyful, anxious, hopeful, weary, defiant). They drag the stickers onto specific lines. The class scrolls all thirty frames and the teacher highlights any line where students placed contrasting emotions, asking three students to explain.
Tools: Jamboard
Predicting next chapter on a class wall
After reading the latest chapter of a class book, each student posts a one-sentence prediction for what happens next to a class Padlet. The class votes on the most likely. The teacher then reads the next chapter aloud and the class compares predictions to what actually happened. Students post a one-line reflection on what their prediction missed.
Tools: Padlet
Climate persuasive paragraphs with structured peer review
Each student writes a 150-word persuasive paragraph on a climate change action they want their school to take, in their own page of a shared class Doc. After 25 minutes, three named peers comment on each paragraph using a fixed prompt frame: one rhetorical strength, one rhetorical weakness, one suggested rewrite. Students revise their paragraph in the final 15 minutes based on the three comments.
Tools: Google Docs
Pairs annotate a persuasive speech for rhetorical devices
Each student receives a copy of a famous persuasive speech (one of Greta Thunberg at the UN 2019, Malala at the UN 2013, JFK 1961 inaugural). Their copy lives in a shared Google Doc. Using the suggesting-mode comment tool, each student highlights three rhetorical devices (e.g. tricolon, anaphora, contrast) and writes a one-line note explaining the effect on the listener. The class scrolls a master view of all three speeches; the teacher calls out two strong annotations.
Tools: Google Docs
Three short story openings, classified by structure
Each student gets one of three short story openings (an in medias res start, a frame narrative start, a slow descriptive start), allocated by the teacher so the class is roughly evenly split. They identify two structural choices the writer made and two effects on the reader, posting each as a sticky note on a shared Padlet column for that opening type. The class then scrolls all three columns and the teacher leads a comparison of how each opening shapes reader expectation.
Tools: Padlet
Lady Macbeth across two scenes, annotated
Each student receives the texts of Act 1 Scene 5 and Act 5 Scene 1 of Macbeth in a shared Google Doc, one document per student. Using suggesting-mode comments, each student highlights three lines per scene that show Lady Macbeth's psychological arc, with a one-line note on what each line reveals. The class scrolls a master view in plenary; the teacher pulls out the cleanest before-and-after pairs and asks the contributing students to defend.
Tools: Google Docs
Two short stories, narrative voice posted to a class wall
Half the class reads Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour; the other half reads Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. Each student posts to one of two columns on a class Padlet: a label for the narrative voice (intrusive, unreliable, third-limited, etc.) and one quoted line that justifies the label. The class scrolls both columns and discusses which voice is more controlled by the writer and which leaves more to the reader.
Tools: Padlet
Live polling on a poem with class debate
The class reads a poem together (e.g. Carol Ann Duffy's Education for Leisure or Jackie Kay's Old Tongue). After the read, the teacher posts a Mentimeter poll with three competing readings of the central theme. Each student commits to one. The class sees the live spread, then in pairs writes a 30-second defence of their choice. The teacher calls three pairs from each side to argue; the class re-polls at the end to see who shifted.
Tools: Mentimeter, Google Docs
Critical lens panel on a literary text
The teacher posts a single short extract from a class text (e.g. the opening of Mrs Dalloway, a sonnet from Shakespeare). Each student is assigned one critical lens (feminist, Marxist, postcolonial, psychoanalytic, ecocritical) and posts a 100-word reading of the extract through that lens to a class Padlet. The class scrolls all readings and the teacher draws out where lenses agree, disagree and illuminate different aspects of the text.
Tools: Padlet
Stanza-by-stanza poetry close reading
The teacher allocates one stanza of a long poem (e.g. The Waste Land) per student. Each student writes a 200-word close reading of their assigned stanza in their own page of a shared class Doc. The class scrolls the full annotated poem in plenary; the teacher pulls together themes that recur across stanzas and students whose readings illuminate adjacent stanzas.
Tools: Google Docs
Editorial comparison of published criticism
The teacher posts three published critical essays on the same text in a shared class Doc, each on its own page. Students read all three, then add suggesting-mode comments on lines they find most or least convincing, with reasoning. The class plenary scrolls comments, the teacher highlights critical disagreements between students and lines that drew the most attention.
Tools: Google Docs
Passive Amplify (PA)
Audiobook with vocab popups
Each student listens to a chapter of a class novel through an audiobook app. When the narration hits a flagged vocabulary item, the audio pauses and a definition popup appears for the student to read before tapping continue. Students listen for 25 minutes; the teacher tracks completion in the app.
Adaptive comprehension reader
Each student reads through an adaptive reader that adjusts text complexity based on their reading speed, comprehension question accuracy, and time spent on each page. Stronger readers see denser passages; weaker readers see simpler vocabulary and shorter sentences. The teacher reviews the app's per-student analytics afterwards.
Tools: Lexia
Documentary clip with embedded check-in pauses
The class watches a 15-minute documentary clip that has been pre-loaded into Edpuzzle with five embedded checkpoint questions. The video auto-pauses at each question; each student answers on their own device before the video continues. The teacher reviews per-question accuracy after.
Tools: Edpuzzle
Passive Replace (PR)
Coraline opening clip with comprehension Form
The unit is on writing to describe. Year 7 will write their own atmospheric story openings next lesson, but first they need a strong example to anchor the work. The teacher has cued up the first four minutes of the animated Coraline as a class viewing, then released it on the LMS so each student can watch on their own iPad.
Students watch the clip once at their own pace, headphones on. Then they answer eight comprehension questions on a Microsoft Form: four on setting (what makes the house feel old, the colour palette, the camera angles), two on atmosphere (the role of weather and silence) and two on the writer's craft (why the parents are introduced last, why the cat speaks first).
Tools: YouTube, Microsoft Forms
Rhetorical devices slide-deck recap before persuasive writing
The unit on persuasive writing started two lessons ago with a teacher-led introduction to rhetorical devices. Today is a 30-minute recap before students start their own writing next lesson. The teacher walks through a five-slide PowerPoint: one slide each on ethos, pathos and logos, plus two slides showing how a single sentence shifts when each device is added. Students follow on their iPads, with the slides shared via the LMS so they can scroll back as needed.
The lesson ends with a six-question Microsoft Forms quiz. Each question shows a short sentence and asks students to identify which device is doing the heavy lifting. The teacher reviews the live class results in the last three minutes and re-explains anything that produced under 60% correct.
Tools: PowerPoint, Microsoft Forms
Quizizz vocabulary recap for An Inspector Calls
Year 9 are halfway through their An Inspector Calls unit. Today's starter is a 20-minute vocabulary recap on Quizizz. The teacher has built a 15-question quiz drawing on the key terms the unit has covered so far: sociological vocabulary (capitalist, collective, philanthropy), Edwardian setting words (drawing-room, parlour, suffragette) and stagecraft terms (lighting cue, dramatic irony, climax).
Students self-pace through the questions on their iPads. Each question shows the word and four definition options. At the end the class scoreboard appears for ten seconds; the teacher does not call out individual scores. The recap exists to fix the vocabulary in working memory before the source-analysis lesson that follows.
Tools: Quizizz
Lessons that look CT but are not
Useful counter-examples when you are checking your own lesson placement on the PICRAT grid.
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and key stage. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.