Robert Burns resources - secondary

Illustration to 'Contented wi’ Little'

This pencil and watercolour picture was painted in 1790 by David Allan to illustrate a song by Robert Burns. The illustration is available to download from NQ Online with an accompanying critical commentary as part of a collection of images from the Royal Scottish Academy.

Robert Burns and Alexander Nasmyth at Roslin Castle

In 1787 the poet Robert Burns and Alexander Nasmyth visited Roslin Castle, a few miles south of Edinburgh. Alexander made a sketch which his son, the landscape painter James Nasmyth, later turned into this painting. You can download a copy of the picture from the Images from the Royal Scottish Academy site on NQ Online, where you can also find a critical commentary on the work and more information about the visit.

Celebrating Robert Burns - an enterprising approach

Ideas and downloads for cross-cutting projects related to Robert Burns. It includes activities mapped to the four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence.

Tam o Shanter

Details of an interactive CD-ROM, produced by Learning and Teaching Scotland, which includes the entire text of the poem; a full sound recording by a professional actor; the poem's characters; and a variety of props and scenes for setting the poem and creating storyboards. Tam o Shanter comes with a comprehensive educational support pack with activities, work schemes and lesson plans.

'To a Digital Mouse'

The life and works of Robert Burns were the inspiration for a third year art and design class at Auchinleck Academy. In this article for Connected magazine, teacher Pamela Baxter describes how she and her pupils created a new website to celebrate the Scottish poet.

Scottish culture

This section of the National Qualifications site brings together NQ resources with specific links to Scottish culture. The areas covered include Art and Design, English, Gaelic, History, Modern Studies and Music.

Scotland's Culture

Caledonian Medley - 5-14 Music

This part of the 5-14 Music website has teachers' notes and support for Level D 5-14 music, focusing in particular on the 'Caledonian Medley' where pupils perform an instrumental and vocal medley of Scottish music, drawing on work covered in the three other Scottish music modules at this level - 'Silver Darlings', 'Coilsfield House' and 'Ruidhle'.

Scottish music for Access 3 to Intermediate 2

An interactive resource on Scottish music for Access 3 to Intermediate 2 students. It has information about musical styles, forms and structures, traditional instruments and composing techniques, all with lots of recordings, and online quizzes for students to test their knowledge.

Scots soundbytes

Scots poems and songs on the 5-14 Special Focus website, several of which have been created and recorded by children. Other poems are read aloud by the authors. As well as the audio and video recordings, there are suggested classroom activities to help children further develop their understanding of Scots and poetry.

Edwin Morgan poems

Text and audio downloads of poems by Scots Makar Edwin Morgan on the Literacy website. The poetry readings are performed by admirers of his work including writer Liz Lochhead, Professor Jim McGonigal, Hamish Whyte and the Lord Provost of Glasgow, Liz Cameron.

How to film and edit a poem

S1 pupils at Notre Dame High School use digital video to make a film about a poem. The task helps them think about English poetry and literature in a more imaginative and lateral way, boosts creativity and improves their ICT skills.

Using Word to analyse metre

Word has some surprisingly powerful tools to help a secondary class analyse how metre works in poetry. This step-by-step guide in Connected magazine explains how to do it.