This is a thorough and comprehensive 30-slide lesson on Owen Sheers’ poem ‘Winter Swans’, which is studied as part of AQA’s GCSE Literature anthology on ‘Love & Relationships’. This PowerPoint unpicks key themes of romantic love, separation and reconciliation with close analysis of language, form and structure. Also included are questions/tasks for students and a ‘mock’ essay question in which students must compare ‘Winter Swans’ to another poem, just like in the real AQA exam. Also included is a table for students to complete on the poem to help compartmentalise their notes. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 24-slide lesson explores the character of Lady Bracknell from Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’. Wilde’s presentation of Lady Bracknell is thoroughly deconstructed, with students asked to consider her theatrical heritage via Greek stock characters and the Comedy of Manners. We debate to what extent Lady Bracknell can be called the play’s ‘antagonist’, and how Wilde uses her to catalyse key events or provide comical obstacles in the play. Wilde’s structural use of Lady Bracknell is analysed, and important quotations from her and relating to her are dissected. We think about what we can learn from the stage directions about Lady Bracknell, and discuss how Wilde uses the offstage character of Lord Bracknell to inform Lady Bracknell’s character. We consider Lady Bracknell in the context of the ‘New Woman’ and students are provided with key vocabulary that might be used to analyse Lady Bracknell. Modern theatrical interpretations (including gender inversions) of Lady Bracknell are discussed. Students are also encouraged to think critically about how Lady Bracknell interacts with props and how Wilde positions her at the end of the play. Questions and discussion points are provided for students throughout the lesson. An exam-style essay question is featured at the end. Exemplar sentences and sentence openers are provided for students to enable sophisticated analysis, including purposeful introductions to extended essays. This lesson is ideal for high-level analysis of Lady Bracknell. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 20-slide lesson explores Carol Ann Duffy’s poem, ‘War Photographer’. The lesson begins by considering the role of news and news media, before discussing our relationship with news coverage. Students are encouraged to think critically about how they interact with various news platforms and whether the globalisation of news coverage has lessened or deepened our understanding of the world. Duffy’s life and work is considered, including her friendship with prominent photojournalists. Students look at some of the work of notable real-life ‘war photographers’, considering the unique and challenging role of a photojournalist, and the ethics behind it. We read the poem and explore its language, form, structure, and rhythm. Key vocabulary is presented to students to facilitate top-grade analysis, and the poem’s main themes are discussed. A variety of discursive and formal questions are featured for students, and an exam-style essay question is included at the end. Teachers can use various stimuli to discuss the complex questions that Duffy asks about the role of photojournalism. This lesson is ideal for students ages 13+. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 20-slide lesson explores Fleur Adcock’s poem, ‘The Telephone Call’. Starter activities probe students to think about their attitude to the lottery and its anthropological implications. We then learn about the life and work of Fleur Adcock before reading the poem. Students are prompted to think about the two juxtaposing characters in the poem before delving into Adcock’s use of language, imagery, form, structure and rhyme. The significance of the poem’s 1980s context is also considered. Key themes and sophisticated vocabulary are listed to enable students to conduct precise analysis. We also ask what the poem’s true message may be, posing a variety of interpretations. This resource is ideal for those studying the poem as part of Cambridge IGCSE’s ‘Songs of Ourselves’, but is useful for anyone looking at the poem. Two versions of the lesson are attached: one is a PDF to save the best aesthetics and formatting; the other is a standard PowerPoint where fonts and formatting may be lost but can easily be edited.

This 23-slide lesson explores the character function of Jacob Marley in ‘A Christmas Carol’. Paying close attention to Dickens’s language, imagery, themes and context, this thorough presentation considers how Marley’s Ghost is used to convey the author’s message and how the character functions as a catalyst for Scrooge’s metaphorphosis. Questions, tasks, and discussion points are included for pupils. An extended essay question is included at the end. This lesson is ideal for those studying the text for GCSE, but could be easily adapted to suit KS3 pupils. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 40-slide lesson explores the context and background of Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’. Designed as both an introduction to the play and a revision resource for students to use when recapping the play’s context, this is a comprehensive and detailed exploration of Shakespeare’s sources and influences, as well as the play’s key themes, ideas and critical debates. Students are also equipped with important and precise vocabulary for analysing the play with sophistication. Among other key ideas, students are introduced to elements of tragedy, Jacobean ideas of kingship, Shakespearean staging and stagecraft, Christianity vs. Paganism, and the play’s preoccupation with absurdity and meaninglessness. The anonymous ‘King Leir’ is referenced along with other points about the play’s textual history, and contemporary debates around succession and the unification of Britain are discussed in detail. Images from various productions of ‘King Lear’ are included for discussion, and questions for students are included throughout the resource. The file is included here both as a PDF and PowerPoint. The latter file will not retain precise font choices and formatting.

This 25-slide resource explores Percy Shelley’s iconic poem, ‘Ozymandias’. Students are encouraged to think critically about the function and purpose of statues, making way for discussions about myth-making and deification. They then learn about Shelley’s life and work, before delving into the context behind why he wrote the poem following the British Museum’s landmark acquisition. The resource explores ideas about the speakers and use of frame narrative, the poem’s heavy use of irony, and tensions between art and the artist. Form, structure, and language are analysed, and lists of key themes and vocabulary are provided to equip students with sophisticated tools for analysing the poem. Questions and discussion points are provided throughout the resource. ‘Quick-fire’ questions are given at the end, followed by an essay question. This resource can be used as a lesson or revision resource. It is ideal for ambitious GCSE or KS3 classes. Both a PDF and PowerPoint version of the resource are included.

This 24-slide lesson explores Boey Kim Cheng’s poem, ‘The Planners’. The lesson introduces the life and work of Boey Kim Cheng before interrogating the philosophical relationship between construction and destruction. We consider the purpose of history and discuss the concept of cultural amnesia. Students are taught about the growth of Singapore since its independence from the British Empire. Students then read the poem and delve into its language and imagery. Analysis of extended metaphor leads to exploration of form, structure, and rhyme. We think about the tone and key themes of the poem, and Boey Kim Cheng’s message in view of ever-expanding urban environments and global industrialisation. Students are given ambitious vocabulary to help them to produce sophisticated and precise analysis of the poem. Questions and discussion points are included throughout for students. An exam-style question is also featured at the end of the lesson. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 21-slide lesson explores Maya Angelou’s classic poem, ‘Caged Bird’. The lesson introduces students to the key themes, ideas, and context behind the poem. Angelou’s life and work is discussed and the poem’s use of extended metaphor is deconstructed. Close analysis is conducted of language, form, structure, and rhyme, and students are encouraged to reflect on multiple readings of the poem. Key vocabulary is introduced to help students produce precise and sophisticated analysis when discussing racism, misogyny, and other forms of prejudice and marginalisation. Discussion points and questions are included throughout. An essay-style question is featured at the end of the lesson. This lesson is ideal for students approaching the poem either as part of a learned anthology or to develop their abilities analysing ‘unseen’ or isolated poetry. Owing to the universal nature of the poem, the lesson is suitable for a wide range of secondary-aged students, particularly those aged between 13-16. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 21-slide lesson explores John Keats’ poem, ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’. Students begin by exploring popular depictions of Medieval culture, particularly gender dynamics and attitudes towards heroism in storytelling. Stereotypes surrounding knights and damsels are discussed, and we unpick the concept of ‘chivalry’ from both a Medieval and modern context. We talk about the life of John Keats before reading the poem. The ballad’s language, imagery, rhythm, and structure are discussed. Students are taught ambitious vocabulary to describe each of the characters, and we think about how Keats is subverting stereotypes regarding Medieval attitudes to gender within the poem. The notion of the ‘femme fatale’ is explored, and students are encouraged to conduct close linguistic analysis through a table of key quotations from the poem. Questions, discussion points, and tasks are included for students throughout. The lesson ends with a creative task (which could be set as homework or covered in a following lesson). A copy of the poem is included in this resource. This lesson is ideal for KS3 students, but could easily be used for GCSE students exploring poetry too. PowerPoint and Word Doc saved as PDFs.

This 33-slide lesson explores Patience Agbabi’s poem, ‘Eat Me’. Students begin by discussing key ideas around the relationship between sex and food and society’s beauty standards. We then learn about Agbabi’s work before delving into the poem and establishing its narrative. The lesson then guides students methodically through extensive key ideas related to the poem, including title analysis; intertextual allusions; analysis of language; and analysis of form, structure, rhythm and rhyme. The nature of the dramatic monologue as a form is also discussed, before looking closely at some of the poem’s key images and the use of repetition. Each character in the poem is then dissected, while also looking at key symbols in the poem (eg. the cake, the bed). We also discuss the poem’s colonial undertones. Students are given a list of key themes and key vocabulary to facilitate high-level analysis. There are then some important questions for students to answer once they have explored the whole poem, and a list of potential poems which could be used to compare to ‘Eat Me’ to strengthen comparative analytical skills. This resource is particularly useful for those studying ‘Poems of the Decade’ with Pearson, but could easily be used for any purpose. Two files are included: one has the PowerPoint saved as a PDF so that the fonts and layout are firmly in place; the other is saved as a normal PPT file so that you can edit it.

This 17-slide lesson explores Seamus Heaney’s famous poem, ‘Mid-Term Break’. The lesson begins by deconstructing the poem’s title, before thinking sensitively about funereal procedure and atmosphere. Heaney’s life and work is introduced to prepare students for the autobiographical nature of the poem. Key vocabulary is presented for students to produce precise and sophisticated analysis of the poem. The poem’s key themes, imagery, and symbols are deconstructed, and students are encouraged to think critically about the poem’s language, form, structure, and rhyme. The tone of the poem is considered, and multiple readings of the poem are introduced. Discussion points and questions are included throughout. A visual task invites students to identify key images associated with the poem, which works nicely as an individual or group activity. An exam-style question is included at the end of the lesson. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 20-slide lesson uses Ernest Hemingway’s classic short story, ‘Cat in the Rain’, to teach students about the ‘Iceberg Theory’ and analytical inference. Using Hemingway’s story as the model, students are encouraged to think about how the story functions on a symbolic level in spite of its apparent simplicity and minimalism. Marking the difference between comprehension/fact and inference, students use the story to think about ‘reading between the lines’ in this text and in so many others. Using the cat as a symbol, Hemingway’s story is deliciously ambiguous, and students are prompted to think not only about how writers hide details beneath the surface (like an iceberg), but also how they too can create powerful meanings and effects in their own creative writing. This lesson works well for KS3 and GCSE students. Questions, discussion points, and tasks are included for students. A copy of Hemingway’s story is also included in this resource. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 27-slide lesson explores Ted Hughes’ poem, ‘Hawk Roosting’. The lesson begins with a comprehensive introduction to hawks, noting their mythological associations, biological behaviour, and linguistic connotations. Students then learn about Ted Hughes’ unsentimental depiction of nature in his poetry. The poem is explored in detail, considering how Hughes characterises the titular hawk through his language, imagery, and first-person narrative. The violent and natural imagery of the poem is unpicked. To consolidate students’ knowledge, there is an analytical writing task and a creative writing task. A high-quality model paragraph is included to help students with the analytical/essay writing task, and there is an opportunity for self-assessment. This lesson is ideal for KS3 or GCSE students. PowerPoint saved as a PDF.

This 30-slide lesson explores Linda Pastan’s poem, ‘To a Daughter Leaving Home’. Ideal for Key Stage 3 or GCSE pupils, this lesson deconstructs Pastan’s poem of parental anxiety and letting go, paying close attention to language, imagery, form, structure, and rhyme. Students are encouraged to think about the poem’s metaphorical and allegorical significance, and questions, tasks, and discussion points are included throughout the lesson. Biographical information about Pastan and her poetry is included. A short analytical task is included, and the lesson ends with a creative writing (poetry) activity (which could be used as a homework task). PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 28-slide lesson explores James Reeves’ poem, ‘The Sea’. This poem is a brilliant example of extended metaphor and poetic craft; it is a beloved staple of many Key Stage 3 poetry lessons. The lesson deconstructs Reeves’ use of metaphor and other linguistic techniques, paying attention to the poem’s rhyme and rhythm too. Biographical information about Reeves is provided, as well as a series of questions, discussion points, and tasks for students. Students are asked to write a short analytical response to the poem, and an exemplar response is included in the PowerPoint. The lesson ends with a creative writing (poetry) task that could be used either as a homework activity or class-based task. This lesson is ideal for KS3 pupils, but could be used for GCSE pupils - especially those who find poetry challenging. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 25-slide lesson explores Tennyson’s poem, ‘The Eagle’. The lesson includes a zoological, historical and mythological overview of eagles, considering their connotations and status in various cultures, as well as biographical information on Tennyson. Students are presented with numerous questions, tasks, and discussion points to analyse Tennyson’s poem. Close attention is paid to Tennyson’s language and technique. Students are tasked with an analytical response to the poem (an exemplar paragraph is included) before the lesson ends on a creative writing activity (which could be used as a homework task). This lesson is ideal for KS3, but could be used to help GCSE (particularly SEND) students with poetry too. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 36-slide lesson explores Sujata Bhatt’s poem ‘Search for my Tongue’. The lesson provides detailed analysis of the poem and includes: biographical information about Bhatt, analysis of the poem’s use of language and poetic techniques, analysis of the poem’s structure, form & rhyme, as well as a range of questions, discussion points, and tasks for students to complete. Students are encouraged to think about the significance of language and its relationship to cultural assimilation and identity. The final task at the end of the lesson is an extended writing activity. This lesson is ideal for KS3 pupils, but could be used for GCSE too. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 26-slide lesson analyses and revises the characters of Ignorance and Want in Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’. The lesson considers the characters’ appearance and symbolism, linked closely to the context of Victorian society and the thematic explorations of the novella, as well as Dickens’ Biblical parallels and the characters’ structural significance within the story. Tasks and discussion points are featured throughout, and the lesson ends with an extended writing task on the characters. Though they only appear briefly, this lesson demonstrates the significance of Ignorance and Want as symbols for urgent social issues observed and highlighted by Dickens in Victorian society. This is an ideal lesson for GCSE students, but could easily be adapted for KS3. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 32-slide lesson explores Vernon Scannell’s poem ‘Nettles’. The lesson provides detailed study of the poem and includes: biographical information on Scannell, analysis of the poem’s use of language and linguistic/poetic techniques (including extended metaphor), analysis of the poem’s structure, form & rhyme, as well as questions, discussion points, and tasks for students to complete. The final task at the end of the lesson is a piece of creative writing in which students write their own poem. This lesson could be used for KS3 or GCSE pupils. PowerPoint saved as PDF.