In your group, write a paragraph about the language and literary techniques Kit de Waal uses in the paragraph of ‘The Things We Ate’ that your group analysed (paragraph 2-7). Read paragraph one again. Who do you think ‘she’ or ‘her’ is? Who might she be in relation to the narrator? What can you infer (deduce) from the text? The settings range from New York in the 1950s to a science-fiction future world. Some of the stories have more familiar family or teenage contexts, but all share a focus on relationships and explore themes of race, identity and belonging, love and loss, and redemption. There's also a list of diverse reading recommendations so teacher can encourage more reading for pleasure, and a word bank to help with disciplinary literacy and vocabulary development. Diversify your KS3 English curriculum with 12 lessons on 6 brilliant short stories, from wonderful writers including Alex Wheatle, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Koomson, Bali Rai, Jeffrey Boakye and Kit de Waal.

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The other five stories are contemporary, 21st-century stories and include new writers such as Jeffrey Boakye. What do you think ‘her factory bag’ is, and why do you think she has all this food in it? What might it tell us about the family? As you skim read the story, highlight any words you find powerful or intriguing, and underline any words you don’t know. Compare your ideas in pairs. In ‘The Things We Ate’, the writer Kit de Waal combines memories of food and childhood. Read the descriptions of food again.Stretch and challenge: Is there anything interesting you notice about the way the writer describes food? Harmeet Matharu is a Head of English, author and examiner. She has taught for over twenty years and is passionate about diversity in literature, having written several resources and blogs about the subject and delivered nationwide training on this issue. She’s also a member of NATE's Diversity in English working group.

Diversity in literature | KS3 short stories teaching pack

Learners will understand more about how writers use a variety of narrative voices and perspectives, by looking at first-person confessional narratives and unreliable narrators, as well as third-person omniscient narration. They will also explore experimental flash fiction and the epistolary form, as well as longer stories. Engaging and accessible for year 7, 8 and 9 readers, these powerful short stories have been specifically chosen to encourage more reading for pleasure and to be more representative and inclusive. Many of the activities are carefully scaffolded, with differentiated, ladder up support and sentence starters for writing tasks, as well as a range of stretch and challenge suggestions for early finishers and higher-attaining students. Introduce your students to a range of exciting literary voices they may not have encountered before with an engaging and inclusive scheme of learning, plus lesson plans and classroom resources.In this collection of six complete short stories, students will explore each writer’s craft, as well as how short story writers develop characters, use dialogue, and experiment with form and structure. They will learn how short story authors experiment with openings and endings. Read paragraph 2 and 3 again. The writer, Kit de Waal, uses listing and repetition, which can help to emphasise a point or to show an excess of something. What does this listing tell us? Kit de Waal’s story is experimental and an example of flash fiction (a deliberately short short story, under 500 words). It reads almost as if it is a stream of consciousness, revealing the thoughts and memories of the narrator.