PowerPoints for teaching all 15 of AQA’s GCSE Love and Relationships Poetry cluster. Presentations include key themes, ideas and questions for students. Designed to supplement your teaching of the poems. 15 PowerPoints included. All designed by Mr_Gradgrind.

This resource includes a top-band exemplar piece of creative writing about the touching relationship between an old man and a dog. As per Section B of AQA’s English Language Paper 1 (worth 40 marks), this creative writing is a response to an image, which is also included here in a PowerPoint. Students could read, annotate, and discuss this response either before or after trying to produce a story of their own from the image. The creative writing exemplar could equally be used as a model to other GCSE pupils not studying the AQA syllabus.

Help students to score high marks in the hugely significant 40-mark persuasive writing question of AQA’s English Language Paper 2 (Section B). This top-band exemplar response (responding to the statement: ‘Superheroes are bad role models for children.’) always engages students with its relevance, reasoning and relatability. Layered with an abundance of lingustic techniques, sophisticated vocabulary, advanced punctuation, and coherent structure, this exemplar response is perfect for showing students how to impress examiners in this challenging part of the exam.

11 specially designed posters on linguistic techniques designed to aid students’ learning of key vocabulary. Each poster uses an example to explain each technique. Perfect for your classroom or corridor displays! Features: Simile Metaphor Personification Alliteration Rule of Three Hyperbole Repetition Onomatopoeia Rhetorical Question Imperative Oxymoron

This top-band essay on Priestley’s presentation of Sheila in ‘An Inspector Calls’ is an excellent exemplar for students. At the end of the essay is a highlighting key for students to unpick the essay’s techniques and structure, allowing for detailed discussion of the exemplar in class. This resource is particularly useful for challenging HA pupils to reach the top bands.

This lesson includes three resources designed to teach Tatamkhulu Afrika’s harrowing apartheid poem ‘Nothing’s Changed’. Included is a PowerPoint with some background on Afrika’s life and Apartheid, and questions on the poem; a copy of the poem with contextual notes (as per Section A of the AQA exam); and a top-band exemplar response to a Section A question. This final resource is a detailed and sophisticated essay analysing Afrika’s poem. These resources are perfect for those studying POLITICAL AND SOCIAL PROTEST WRITING at A level with AQA, but could be adapted to teach the poem in a broader context.

This 47-slide lesson explores Charlotte Mew’s poem, ‘The Farmer’s Bride’. The poem is studied as part of AQA’s ‘Love & Relationships’ anthology. This lesson explains Mew’s life and context against the backdrop of the Suffragette movement, before exploring the poem’s language, themes, imagery, structure, and form in comprehensive detail. Questions, discussion points and tasks for students are included throughout. Extended essay questions are set at the end of the lesson, and an exemplar essay introduction is provided for one of the questions. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

This 40-slide lesson is a thorough and comprehensive study of Daljit Nagra’s poem, ‘Singh Song!’, included in AQA’s GCSE English Literature ‘Love and Relationships’ poetry anthology. The lesson unpicks key themes of excitement, passion, rebellion, identity, duty, romance, and infatuation. Also included are small questions for students and a ‘mock’ essay question in which students must compare ‘Singh Song!’ to another poem, just like in the real AQA exam. PowerPoint is saved as PDF.

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 36-slide lesson explores the character of Feste in Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’. With academic scrutiny, the lesson analyses one of Shakespeare’s most complex comic characters, beginning with an overview of his key lines, attributes, and role in the plot. This then leads to analysis of Feste’s name, key vocabulary that we might use to describe him, and how his role as a jester grants him special privileges and licence. Important historical and theatrical context is explored alongside Feste’s character, and we look at the development of Shakespeare’s ‘Fools’ across his plays. Feste’s relationship with music and song is analysed, as well as his engagement with the play’s fascination with disguise when he becomes ‘Sir Topas’. Interesting viewpoints from a range of critics, directors, and actors are discussed. Crucially, we also explore how Feste’s character relates to the key themes of the play and is central to the comedy of ‘Twelfth Night’. We look at how Feste interacts with other characters in the play, such as Malvolio, and compare him to Viola in his liminal and transgressive state. The Carnivalesque atmosphere of the play is analysed in light of Feste’s character. Questions, discussion points, and essay questions are featured throughout. Students are encouraged to consider Feste’s character at a high level, so this lesson would be ideal for students aged 16+. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

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 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 Roderick Ford’s poem, ‘Giuseppe’. The lesson begins by encouraging students to think about how acts of atrocity have been justified throughout history, looking at one case study example. We then look at Ford’s writing career before delving into the poem itself and establishing its narrative. Language and imagery are deconstructed before analysing the poem’s form, structure, rhythm and rhyme. The backdrop of the Second World War, specifically concerning Sicily, is discussed, and the poem’s use of frame narrative and narrative distancing is considered. The numerous characters featured in the poem are explored, as well as the problematic gender dynamics of the poem. We zoom in on various symbols and key moments from the poem for close analysis. Students then consider the idea of ‘truth’ in the poem, before considering how the poem could be read via various critical lenses. Key vocabulary and key themes are also given to students to facilitate high-level analysis. At the end of the lesson, there are critical-thinking questions for pupils to consider about the poem, before an idea for a suitable poem to compare to ‘Giuseppe’ to strengthen comparative analytical skills. The lesson is ideal for those studying ‘Giuseppe’ as part of Pearson’s ‘Poems of the Decade’, but could easily be used for any purpose. Two files are included: one saved as a PDF (to retain font and layout); the other is saved as the original PPT so that teachers can edit the file accordingly.

This 22-slide lesson explores Sujata Bhatt’s poem, ‘Muliebrity’. The lesson begins by considering western cultural conditioning regarding images of dung and excrement, before delving into Hindu beliefs regarding cows and how this should affect our reading of the poem. Sujata Bhatt’s life and work is introduced, and statements from Bhatt relating to her own childhood are explored in light of the poem. Close attention is paid to the poem’s language, particularly the use of extended metaphor and olfactory imagery. The poem’s form, structure, and rhyme are explored, and key vocabulary is presented to allow students to write about the poem with precision and sophistication. The poem’s key themes are discussed, and its tone and message are debated in light of multiple readings. Questions and discussion points are featured throughout the lesson. At the end of the lesson is an exam-style question. PowerPoint saved as PDF.

Explore how Dickens uses Fezziwig in ‘A Christmas Carol’ to convey his message of charity, togetherness and humanity in the 19th century. This PowerPoint considers Dickens’ characterisation of Scrooge’s former employer, how he functions as the symbolic antithesis of Scrooge, and why the Spirit takes Scrooge back to the convivial Christmas party of his youth. Includes extract from the novella in which Fezziwig is introduced for students to highlight and annotate.