Biographies: Alexander the Great - The Complete Series (7 lessons)

This Alexander the Great KS2 English scheme of work challenges your Year 5 children to learn about one of the greatest military leaders in history and use what they learn to write their own biographies about him. Through a series of carefully constructed lessons that build knowledge and understanding, your KS2 class will explore the features of a biography, learn about Alexander the Great's life, achievements and legacy, then put it all together in a final piece of writing.

With detailed lesson plans, slideshow presentations for the teaching input and a range of activities for each lesson, this Alexander the Great KS2 lesson pack provides everything you need to teach this engaging scheme of work. By the end of the seven ready-to-teach lessons, your class will have gained an overview of the life of this remarkable historical figure, be familiar with the features of biographies, and have planned, written and edited their own biographies about Alexander the Great.

Teaching ancient Greece this term? Check out our collection of KS2 Ancient Greece lesson packs and resources.

Features of a Biography

The first lesson in this scheme of work gives your class a brief introduction to Alexander the Great before exploring the features of a biography. During the teaching input, children will read a biography of Aristotle (Alexander the Great's teacher) together on the included slideshow presentation, and use this to identify features such as subheadings, paragraphs, tense, fronted adverbials, factual information and formal language.

During their independent learning activities, they can then spot these features in a biography on Philip II of Macedon (Alexander the Great's father) or use this biography to answer comprehension questions. Differentiated model texts, differentiated checklists, a glossary, a worksheet and Question Cards are all included to support these activities, as well as an easy-to-follow lesson plan.

Chronological Order

In this lesson, children will explore different events in the life of Alexander the Great and arrange them in chronological order. A quick recap of the difference between BCE and CE is given in order to help them to do this. They will also explore how to use fronted adverbials to help sequence events. An engaging slideshow is included for this teaching input.

Once they have explored this together as a class, children can then either order differentiated Event Cards chronologically, adding in fronted adverbials where appropriate, or they can match a set of Domino Cards where one side has a fronted adverbial and the other has an event. Both activities will give your children an overview of the main events in the life of Alexander the Great by the end of the lesson. A worksheet and an Alexander the Great Timeline are also provided.

Lesson 3

Précising Longer Passages

Now that your class has a basic overview of the events of Alexander the Great's life, it's time to delve a bit deeper! After a quick quiz to recap what they know on the teaching input slides, children will read longer passages of information about different events in his life then learn how to write a précis to summarise the information.

After doing several examples together as a class, children can then have a go for themselves. There are two different activities to choose from, both of which are designed to be adaptive to suit different learning levels. Differentiated Paragraph Sheets and Précis Sheets, alongside the lesson plan, are all provided to make these activities completely ready to use in the classroom.

Lesson 4

Facts and Formal Language

In this lesson, your class will define the difference between fact, fiction and opinion, looking at a variety of sentences and identifying which category they belong to. Once children are secure with this, they can then look at statements that have been written in both a formal and informal style. Which would be used for a biography and why? By the end of the teaching input slideshow, children will be able to confidently answer this question.

During their independent activities, children can then sort differentiated Sentence Cards onto corresponding worksheets depending on whether they are fact, fiction or opinion, and whether they are written formally or informally. Alternatively, they can rewrite formal facts informally or vice versa on provided Fact Cards.

Lesson 5

Planning a Biography

Now that your class has a broad knowledge of the events in the life of Alexander the Great, it's time to start planning their biographies! The slideshow for this lesson demonstrates how to use subheadings and bullet points to plan what should be included in the final piece of writing.

Once they are confident in how to structure their plans, children can then choose the subheadings they would like to include and write bullet-pointed information to help them plan what they will include in their Alexander the Great biography. A variety of resources are available to support children in doing this, including differentiated worksheets and planning sheets.

Lesson 6

Writing a Biography

Children now have a solid plan for writing their biography on Alexander the Great, so now they have to actually write it! During the teaching input, the included slideshow presentation demonstrates how to expand bullet points into full sentences, reminding children about using devices such as fronted adverbials and relative clauses. Several examples of sentences are used to demonstrate the different ways the bullet points could be expanded, challenging children to identify which they think works best for a biography and why.

Children can then work independently to write the first draft of their biography from the plans they have created on a Writing Frame, or from the basic plan provided. Differetiated checklists are included to help children include all the features of biographies that they have learnt about, as well as an Alexander the Great Timeline, Sentence Starter Cards and Subheading Cards.

Lesson 7

Editing a Biography

Your class has now written the first draft of their biographies on Alexander the Great so now it's time to get editing! The slides go through the first draft of a biography (which has some deliberate mistakes to spot and plenty of scope for improvement) so that children can learn how the editing process works. As well as looking for errors in spelling and punctuation, your class will also consider how sentence structures can be changed and improved, how word choices can be changed to make writing more formal and several other factors.

During their independent learning time, children can then either edit their own biography against a differentiated checklist of criteria, or use Rating Cards to rate each other's work. Writing Frames and Model Texts are also provided, alongside a lesson plan.

Once they are happy that their biographies are as good as they can be, children can then write up their biographies using plain paper, digital word processing or the template provided.