I've designed this lesson to introduce poetry to KS4 students at GCSE, but it would work as well for KS3 too. It is an overview of what poetry is, building on what they already know. There are several games and activities which are linked to Songs of Ourselves, but easily adapted to any poetry you want to tackle with them. There is a poetry carousel as the main activity, so simply print the poems they will be studying or some poems about poetry for them to analyse. Enjoy!

Everything you need in one place! A four-part lesson with a range of visual, auditory and kinesthetic activities to keep the students engaged and connect with the themes and language of this beautiful poem. The development lesson guides students through the analysis of the poem in detail before setting an essay question on the characters and relationships. There are differentiated activities to match points, evidence and language features in a table to scaffold student answers. I have provided the CIE mark scheme for students before they write the full essay and I have also written and provided an example essay. The students could be given this essay in cut out paragraphs which they have to reorder, they could use different colour highlighters to work out how to structure their paragraphs and embed quotations, and they should read the essay, mark it and provide feedback. This is a lovely poem , excellent for Masculinist studies, on the themes of death, regret, emotions, communication and nature. One of the set texts from Songs of Ourselves in the CIE iGCSE, a mark scheme and outcomes have been provided for this course. These slides can simply be swapped for your own mark scheme if it is different. Enjoy!

THE ONLY END OF TERM QUIZ YOU WILL NEED! There are celebrity names, cropped pictures, cartoon silhouettes, lateral thinking puzzles and an English Literature round and a music intros round just for fun! This goes well with the Speech and Characters video also available in my shop. This multiple round team quiz will keep every student interested. Some rounds could be printed out (I would recommend that for the first picture round so students can keep working on it) but the rest can just be put up on screen for three to five minutes each. Prizes for winners always go down well! After the quiz there are some extra activities to get students thinking about how authors (and real life humans!) create characters and why we do this, comparing quotations from Shakespeare, Russell Brand and Eminem on creating your personal character and place in the world. High ability groups would gain a lot from comparing and contrasting these ideas. Enjoy!

A range of activities related to Emily Bronte's poem Remembrance, also known as "Cold in the earth", a repeated phrase in the poem. This poem deals with themes of grief, loss and death as well as hope. It is one of the poems in the anthology Songs of Ourselves in the CIE English Literature iGCSE, and the mark scheme relates to that exam, but of course you can replace these with your own exam board's mark scheme if it is different. The PowerPoint has everything you need for the lesson: a quiz, a spelling test, a language feature starter, questions to help students annotate the text, an activity on imagery within the poem which could allow students to bring in Drama or ICT, structured outcomes and a final plenary which helps them structure and self- or peer-assess their paragraphs writing about language in the poem. This could easily take place over a couple of lessons, depending on how much time you give students to feedback on their imagery projects. Best of luck to any teachers preparing for exams! I hope this saves you time and energy you sorely need for teaching and marking.

This scheme of work was created for my high ability KS3 group, but this would make a great introduction to the Romantics at any age. This scheme of work was taken on by my whole department and to a chain of academies which we led. There are several Romantic poets covered here: Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Blake, Coleridge, Keats, of course, but also fantastic female poets Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charlotte Turner Smith who wrote passionately against slavery through the narrative voice of an angel. There are 9 packed lessons, all with starters, developments, analysis, outcomes, plenaries, homework....the lot! No preparation needed, no effort; just happy kids who learn a huge amount! Please rate and review this resource pack. I think you'll love it!

Hi everyone! One of my favourite poems from the Songs of Ourselves anthology! I have included a collapsed version of the text for students to create their own poems out of as well as answer some guided questions on. The PowerPoint guides the students through their reading of the poem and analysis, gives some background information on the poet's life and contextualises the poem. There are objectives, a four part lesson and then an essay question with scaffolding to differentiate and an example of a war poetry essay which students can analyse too. In short, plenty of resources and activities to suit every secondary group. Good luck in the exams, everyone! x

A lesson on the poem Meeting At Night by Robert Browning. The lesson opens with a game, then there is guided analysis and a creative project for students to tackle. Objectives, an essay question, potential ideas and a mark scheme are provided for students to practice their essay writing skills. This is a relatively simple poem for students to understand and the language features are fairly obvious. This should free up some time for an exciting creative project which could be completed for homework and seen the next lesson. Why not record them and put them up on your school's website or on YouTube? Tag me in if you do!

Hi! This is a compilation of resources to help students read and closely analyse the meaning, language and tone of Larkin's poem 'The Trees'. My students are reading this as part of the Songs of Ourselves anthology at iGCSE, but it could be an unseen poem for your students or part of a study of Larkin or of modern pastoral poetry. Everything you need is included including critical opinions of the poet and this poem, games, questions, language feature recognition, group work and paired work, all leading to differentiated outcomes by the end of the lesson.

A mini-scheme of work, taking three or four lessons, focused on The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Students develop their skills for GCSE by finding quotations, developing their ability to comment on the environment, characters, relationships and then tackle questions in timed conditions. Each lesson has a starter and self- or peer-assessment plenary. My students loved the plenary for the environment question where they had to make a mask (outline provided) which would protect them from the dystopian world The Road is set in. Their creativity and ingenuity, putting their learning into practice was wonderful to behold. Please don't miss out on it. I found that this lesson was highly accessible for middle ability students and wonderful for high achievers or G&T learners, giving them the range of language and intrigue to explore possibilities and methods. My less able students (predicted 2 or below) achieved expected results and understood what was happening. With them we watched the trailer for the movie first before we read the first chapter together (popcorn!) and then slowly tackled the straightforward questions. I have included answers to the quotation finding exercises and an extra lesson on writing stories associated with dystopian or apocalypse fiction . This was the end of term assessment for reading and writing dystopian fiction. If you want to see more, check out my huge Dystopian Futures SOW at my shop.

At least two lessons of in depth study of London by William Blake. There are tonnes of activities here to guide students of any age through the poem's background, the language, structure and form and write responses based on the meaning and message of the poem. Outcomes and objectives are included throughout with a meaningful plenary to help students see their progress. This is part of my larger SOW on Romantic Poetry, but it is a beautiful poem to study on its own as well. Enjoy!

A complete lesson with a range of activities to engage students with learning about Romantic poetry, introduce Victorian Literature or focus on Blake. There is a substantial amount of context and varied activities from videos, drawing, mind-mapping and, of course, analysis and annotation. This was designed as part of a year 8 scheme of work, but would be suitable for any study of this poem. Starters, objectives, plenaries and differentiated activities are all included.

A poetry assessment lesson suitable for KS3 or KS4 focusing on the poem The Cry of the Children by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Too often we concentrate on the famous men of the Romantic era and bypass significant works by their female counterparts. Redress the balance with me! A starter on historical context, objectives and clear assessment criteria are given to help students achieve an empathetic and critical response to the poem. This was used in both my middle ability and top set classes, but I have also included a PowerPoint on inference to support their answers.

Designed for my bottom set year 9 group who are learning about Victorian England and Romantic Poetry, these lessons became their final reading assessment. The activities are straightforward and engaging, the language is simple, yet asks them to reflect on their own expression and the final assessment has scaffolding including sentence openings and gap fills.

These lessons will have students prepared and confident for any assessment you give them! Great preparation for unseen poetry at GCSE.

One of my favourite poems from Wordsworth, this lesson is structured as a mystery, encouraging students to find clues from the poem to work out what happened to Lucy Gray. I used to find it hard to get students to write about structure, even though they could recognise its effects. This poem makes it so easy for them to spot the features and discuss techniques used to build tension in the poem. This is a complete set of resources which could span at least two lessons. I have included everything you need, from games and activities to language analysis questions and contextual information. Just walk in and teach!

A full lesson with starters, outcomes for the CIE Exam Board, biographical information from a range of sources, activities to guide students' reading and a plenary with self-assessment criteria.

A fully resourced lesson with guided analysis of the poem, different activities to get students reading the poem independently and writing about the poet's background and the context of the poem. There is a stanza analysis carousel and a self-assessment plenary.

A complete and thorough lesson or two on Praise Song with several activities to get students actively reading the poem and analysing word choices and imagery. The outcomes focus on aspects of the poet's culture and background as well as language, structure and form.

This lesson introduces students to the monster Cthulhu through pictures and a listening quiz using the parody song "Hey There Cthulhu". The lesson focus is on using impressive vocabulary, so there is a thesaurus race at the start and a cloze (gap filling exercise) to use new vocabulary in as well as a descriptive writing task. Nothing too spooky here, but enough to get students interested.

These lessons cover, in detail, the first three chapters of the novel and include everything for each lesson: objectives, starters, activities, analysis, character sheets, quizzes, plenaries and the text itself, just in case someone forgets a book (which inevitably happens!). This is a wonderful book to study with year 8 or 9 and fills in a lot of the gaps in their knowledge of the USA between the end of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. It is a sweet story, told through the eyes of our plucky heroine, Cassie as she learns about the unfairness and danger of her society. It holds up some important mirrors to today's society and the political and social issues we all still deal with. This goes well with the 1930s historical context lessons I have uploaded to my store. Look out for part 2, coming soon!