6 of the Best KS4 English Teaching Resources for Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Explore identity and what it means to be human in this award-winning dystopian tale…
- by Lloyd Burgess
- Former editor of Teachwire
Never Let Me Go, the 2005 novel from The Remains of the Day author Kazuo Ishiguro, has garnered a lot of praise and attention since its release.
The book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Arthur C Clarke Award and is now a staple in secondary schools up and down the country.
The film adaptation, starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and a plank of wood, is well worth a class watch too if you’re so inclined, and features some lovely visuals that draw out the book’s themes.
This dystopian sci-fi tale revolves around a group of schoolchildren whose entire existence is for the benefit of a small privileged elite, which might seem like one giant leap into the fiction part of the genre, but it appears to have struck a chord with British teens. Can’t think why.
So, if you were looking for some excellent resources to help share this great book with your class, look no further. We’ve rounded up some of the best about, just for you.
And as a bonus, here’s a featurette from the film that features Ishiguro talking about his intentions for the novel and the themes within:
1 | GCSE delivery guide
As far as complete overviews go, you’ll be hard pressed to find better than this in-depth 18-page PDF from OCR.
It covers structure, characters, themes, contextual factors, assessment preparation and even features some useful links and resources at the end.
You’ll find this free resource here.
2 | Literature Circles
You’ll need to sign up to access this one, but it’s free and took me less than 30 seconds.
Once you have, you’ll find 15 PowerPoint files and a word doc to cover a unit on Never Let Me Go.
These are Literature Circle tasks to aid in the study of the text, but also included are the lessons to use to go through the chapters of the novel.
3 | Quotation discussion slides
This handy PowerPoint presentation has picked out some quotations from the text with some discussion questions for each one.
Could be a great way to start your analysis of the book when you’ve finished.
4 | Chapter one questions
If you’re excited to crack on with the discussion right away, here are some questions about chapter one to raise with students as soon as you’ve reached the first break.
5 | Video guides
This BBC Bitesize page features four videos to help with your study of Never Let Me Go.
There’s an entertaining and concise animated summary of the book, as well overviews for the characters, the plot and main themes.
All four videos can be found here.
6 | Slideshow lesson
No need to download, this 63-slide lesson is completely free to use on slideshare.net.
It includes activities such as discussing which book or film cover best suits the story, debating cloning, exploring the retrospective narrative and looking at things like the use of irony in the language and how Ishiguro presents a fear of the future.
There is absolutely loads more too, which you can find here.
Browse resources for Banned Books Week and more revision resources for GCSE English Literature.
