Get to grips with the plot by writing an event (e.g. Malvolio’s angry appearance in Act 2 Scene 3) in the centre of a sheet of paper and draw rings or ripples around it to represent events that occur as a result of it, and their wider implications.

Write names of characters on cards and place them face down. Set a timer for two minutes, then turn over a card. Before two minutes is up, write down two quotations about that character, two themes explored through the character, and one critical approach that could be applied to them.

Choose five key events or moments in the play and practise paraphrasing them in your own words, using appropriately chosen noun phrases: for example, ‘the comic, yet also poignant, incarceration of Malvolio’.

Take any essay title in which you have to argue a point of view. Write down five ideas for that argument as sentences, and then write five counter-sentences alongside them, linking them with a connective such as ‘Yet’, ‘However’, ‘On the other hand’, etc.

Try different ways of starting paragraphs. For example, begin with a clear topic sentence such as ‘Sir Toby’s behaviour goes beyond comic fun …’, or express the same idea, but with the counter-argument foregrounded before the main clause, ‘Although Malvolio may be said to deserve punishment, Sir Toby’s behaviour …’, and so on.