02 / RESOURCES
Myths & Legends
EEF-aligned, classroom-ready resource packs for KS3 History — every lesson built around an enquiry question and structured dialogue.
KS3 · Year 8 – 30 Lessons – Oracy Resource Pack
Twenty-nine lessons built around structured dialogue — from myths met in paint and verse, through retelling them in prose and pupils’ own writing,
to a performed telling and a verdict on what each new version changes.
Myths & Legends
Why do old stories keep being retold — and what does each new telling change?
Oracy activities:
- Image Provocation
- Hot-seat
- Critical-lens switching across rival retellings
- Choose-a-position before judgement
- The Storyteller’s Toolkit
- Oral storytelling performance
Structured writing support:
- Oral rehearsal before writing
- Modelled paragraphs with success criteria
- Sentence stems for evaluative writing
Twenty-nine lessons. One overarching enquiry. Every lesson built for structured dialogue. Deliver the full unit or select the composition for your own programme.
How the unit builds, lesson by lesson
Twenty-nine daily lessons take pupils from reading myth in paintings and poems, through writing their own descriptive and narrative work, to performing a myth aloud. Each card shows what pupils actually do and the talk that drives it.
Across the unit pupils collect a six-part Storyteller’s Toolkit — one technique at a time (how to open a tale, the storyteller’s voice, the refrain, pace and pause, the rule of three, the ending) — to use in the final performance.
Assessment marks the three assessed lessons: descriptive writing (Lesson 13), narrative writing (Lesson 27) and the oral performance (Lesson 29).
Phase A — Reading myth across forms
Talk and listening only — no formal writing yet
Opening the unit
Reading a Painting
Pupils read Bruegel’s painting of Icarus in silence before they’re told the story, sharing what they notice — every reading is welcomed. They collect their first storytelling tool: how to open a tale.
Poems about art
Williams Answers the Painting
A poet answers the same painting. Pupils debate: does the poem respect the painting or argue with it? The class doesn’t have to agree.
Personal response
Suffering at the Edges
Why is the tragedy painted in the corner while ordinary life goes on? Pupils respond and discuss, and collect a second tool: the storyteller’s voice — slowing for sadness, lifting for wonder.
Close reading
Hunters in the Snow
In pairs, pupils study a second Bruegel painting — noticing and naming the detail themselves before any explanation.
How writers work
de la Mare’s Winter
Listening first, pupils work out exactly how the poet makes winter feel cold and real.
Comparing
Two Winters, Two Poems
Pupils compare two winter poems and judge which works better, and why — weighing, not just describing.
Close reading
The Lady of Shalott
A close reading of Tennyson’s famous poem. Pupils collect a third tool: the refrain — a line that returns and gathers power.
Symbols
The Mirror, the Web, the Curse
Together the class works out what the mirror, the web and the curse stand for. Pupils write their own questions for discussion.
Poetic form
The Run of the Line
In pairs, pupils explore how line breaks change the way a poem sounds and what it means.
Phase 1 — Descriptive writing
Talk now feeds the writing: rehearsing aloud before the first written assessment
Writing together
Describing from the Poem
A ‘tone walk’ gets pupils up and speaking the mood, then the class builds a description together, line by line.
Describing with the senses
The Execution Scene
Pupils study Delaroche’s painting in silence and gather precise, vivid detail to describe. (Handles a historical execution sensitively.)
Narrative voice
The All-Seeing Voice
Listening to two contrasting voices, pupils work out what an all-knowing narrator sounds like.
Assessment
Writing the Description
Pupils write an extended description, then peer-assess it against clear success criteria.
Editing
The Sound of Writing
Pupils redraft their writing for sound, reading it aloud to hear how it lands.
Phase 2 — Retellings & whose voice
Myths remade by novelists: building an argument, and asking whose version we hear
Building an argument
Skin of the Sea
Pupils write a PEEL paragraph and add a counter-view, so every point meets its objection. They collect a fourth tool: pace and pause.
Writing together
The Rhythm of Sentences
The class crafts sentence rhythm — short against long — testing each one aloud.
Structure
Telling It Out of Order
What happens when a story doesn’t start at the beginning? Pupils re-read for how the order of telling shapes meaning.
Hot-seating
Chaucer’s Pilgrims
Pupils question a character in role — writing and asking the questions themselves.
Writing together
Making Characters Convincing
The class talks through and shares the small details that make an invented character feel real.
Whose voice?
Whose Story?
The same events told through rival voices. Pupils argue both readings and must offer a counter-view. (Discusses the violence of the Trojan War.)
Close reading
The Song of Achilles
A war story retold as a love story. Pupils collect a fifth tool: the rule of three.
Comparing
Two Retellings Side by Side
Pupils weave two modern retellings and their ancient source into a single judgement, and write a final question for discussion.
Phase 3 — Compose & perform
Pupils plan, write, rehearse and finally perform a myth of their own
Personal response
The Fisherman and the Jinni
A tale from the Arabian Nights where telling a story is how you survive. Pupils respond to storytelling as power.
Taking a position
Where Power Lies
Pupils choose a position on where the real power lies, then build a case from the evidence and write a question for discussion.
Story structure
The Shape of a Story
Using a ‘story mountain’, a tone walk and a prediction game, pupils talk a story into shape.
Planning
Planning Your Myth
Pupils plan their own myth, then a partner pressure-tests the plan to make it stronger before they write.
Assessment
Writing Your Myth
Pupils write their original myth from beginning to end. They collect the final tool: the ending.
Rehearsal
Preparing to Perform
A performance clinic teaches the four delivery skills — voice, pace, eye contact and gesture — then pupils run a full dress rehearsal with feedback.
Capstone
Telling It Aloud
The final assessment: pupils perform their myth to an audience and receive feedback on all four strands of oracy.
What’s included:
A complete, classroom-ready pack — built around structured dialogue,
mapped to the oracy framework, and grounded in the EEF evidence base.
Teacher resources
- 29 fully-planned lessons (starter, main, plenary)
- Lesson-by-lesson teacher guidance
- Unit overview with enquiry arc and oracy framework mapping
- Ground rules for talk and exploratory talk stems
Student resources
- Student-facing lesson slides with embedded tasks and talk frames
- Sentence stems for justifying, challenging, building, and shifting thinking
- Evidence cards, source extracts, and data sets
- Modelled writing and structured writing scaffolds
Framework alignment
- Mapped to the four strands of the oracy framework (Physical, Linguistic, Cognitive, Social & Emotional)
- Built on EEF evidence for dialogic teaching – including exploratory talk
- Aligned to the KS3 National Curriculum for History
Format
- Free to download and use in your classroom
- Delivered as a single downloadable pack
- Editable throughout