A high-interest, engaging teaching unit for Murder on the Orient Express, designed for Year 9–10 English classrooms. This resource uses a gripping mystery narrative to build advanced skills in comprehension, critical analysis, and visual literacy while keeping students engaged and motivated.

Through engaging learning activities, students explore how characterisation, cinematic techniques, and narrative structure work together to shape meaning, while developing confidence in discussion, interpretation, and analytical writing.

What’s included
• A complete set of 6 teaching decks
• Character analysis deck (Hercule Poirot and key suspects)
• Context deck (Agatha Christie, interwar period influences, adaptation context)
• Themes deck (justice, truth, morality, revenge, deception)
• Cinematography deck (camera work, lighting, mise-en-scène, sound, editing)
• Suggested 4-week teaching sequence with engaging learning activities
• Analytical paragraph writing deck (guided support for structured responses)
• Each deck includes related learning activities and discussion questions
• The decks are designed to cover each key element of teaching a text, from understanding and analysis through to extended written response

Teaching approach
This resource is activity-based rather than a scripted lesson-by-lesson program. It is designed for teachers to select and adapt tasks to suit their own lessons and classroom needs. Activities are built around established classroom routines and are intended to be teacher-facilitated. The unit emphasises discussion, interpretation, collaborative learning, and rich analytical activities rather than worksheet-driven instruction.

How to use
• Convert to PowerPoint: Upload the PDF to PowerPoint (File → Open) to automatically convert into editable slides
• Use in Google Slides: Upload to Google Drive, right-click, and open with Google Slides
• Use digitally or print: Upload to your LMS (Google Classroom, Canvas, etc.) or print for handouts
• Canva option: Upload the PDF to Canva to edit, customise, and export as PowerPoint