Mrs C Spalding's starter idea worked a treat with all of my Key Stage classes. I adapted it so that it became a main task rather than a starter. See my version here! It promoted discussions and my students were supporting each other as I wanted them to answer different discussion questions about the same text. They filled in the blanks for their own essay question and a variety of insightful answers were appearing across the classroom.
Mega Hexagons:
They're a great way of engaging students with the idea of higher level thinking - visually. Each layer has a different focus. Here's a simple version of the Mega Hexagon. The inner layer focuses on the main character and the outer layers encourage the student to identify, describe and to explain a particular literary feature.
With language analysis in mind: I've adapted this fantastic idea here!
I will continue to incorporate Solo thinking skills and tie it in with DIRT time for PEARL paragraphs.