This is an annotated version of ‘Request to a Year’ (PDF) which includes suggested starter / discussion, personal responses, topics, structure / form observations etc. Note: This is only a subjective suggestion created by a teacher (I am only human!). I would have loved to have this at the release of the poems, and I sincerely hope that it helps and supports your delivery of the poem! (I also have a COMPLETE bundle / booklet with ALL of the CIE poems from Songs of Ourselves that includes a Word Document version and a blank anthology for students in my shop).

This is an annotated version of ‘On Finding a Fly Crushed in a Book’ (PDF) which includes suggested starter / discussion, personal responses, topics, structure / form observations etc. Note: This is only a subjective suggestion created by a teacher (I am only human!). I would have loved to have this at the release of the poems, and I sincerely hope that it helps and supports your delivery of the poem! (I also have a COMPLETE bundle / booklet with ALL of the CIE poems from Songs of Ourselves that includes a Word Document version and a blank anthology for students in my shop).

These resources directly correlate to the lessons / SoW that I have on sale in my ‘shop’, but they can be used entirely in their own right alongside other approaches to the teaching of the text. It includes a range of tables for language analysis, worksheets and point-quote-match-ups for example. Naturally, it is available as part of the bundle for Journey’s End in the shop that makes the best sense.

This is an anthology created to help teach the Stories of Ourselves prose collection for the 2024-27 exam series - CAIE IGCSE. The texts have been removed - for copyright purposes (though they could easily be added back in or studied / read separately to this anthology). BUT, the resource includes key contextual background, some simple (but fun / useful / effective) starter questions or discussions. Some of the ‘most important’ - albeit that is subjective, clearly there will be alternative opinons! But there is space to add further quotations AND to engage in essay planning. Texts in the syllabus / anthology booklet: ‘Nick’, Christina Rossetti – p. 9 (Text p. 13) ‘The Woman’s Rose’, Olive Schreiner – p. 23 ‘The Black Ball’, Ralph Ellison – p. 33 ‘The Gold Watch’, Mulk Raj Anand – p. 53 ‘When It Happens’, Margaret Atwood – p. 67 ‘The Man Who Walked on the Moon’, J G Ballard – p. 83 ‘A Walk to the Jetty’, Jamaica Kincaid – p. 103 ‘Showing the Flag’, Jane Gardam – p. 121 ‘Haywards Heath’, Aminatta Forna – p. 137 ‘Fluke’, Romesh Gunesekera – p. 150 This is to help organise the students and give more structure and coherence to the resources; it is particularly helpful if you have a good reprographics technician who can turn these into lovely wire-bound booklets for the students. Please note that this is purely the student copy - so there are no annotations or suggested answers / essay plans etc. in this resource . I have my own annotated copies - if people are interested, please message here; if there is enough interest, I will add the Teacher Resource version.

This is a poetry podcast in support of ‘Coming’ - currently on offer as part of Stories of Ourselves on the CIE English Literature specification. It is a great resources for both teachers as students alike. It includes detailed analysis of the entire poem, a suggested division into main topics / paragraphs and some suggested personal responses.

This is a poetry podcast in support of ‘In Praise of Creation’ - currently on offer as part of Stories of Ourselves on the CIE English Literature specification. It is a great resources for both teachers as students alike. It includes detailed analysis of the entire poem, a suggested division into main topics / paragraphs and some suggested personal responses.

This is a poetry podcast in support of ‘Cetacean’ - currently on offer as part of Stories of Ourselves on the CIE English Literature specification. It is a great resources for both teachers as students alike. It includes detailed analysis of the entire poem, a suggested division into main topics / paragraphs and some suggested personal responses.

This ‘Purple Hibiscus’, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adihie, workbook is designed to be printed as a booklet / wire-bound handout to help students to organise their notes on the text and teachers with their planning. It is designed to help lesson planning - as it included starter activities for discussion or mind-mapping for each chapter as well - though its main focus is to help students to extract some of the most important quotations from the text (whilst also helping them to practise important passage-based skills along the way).

This is a poetry podcast in support of ‘Stormcock in Elder’ - currently on offer as part of Stories of Ourselves on the CIE English Literature specification. It is a great resources for both teachers as students alike. It includes detailed analysis of the entire poem, a suggested division into main topics / paragraphs and some suggested personal responses.

This is a poetry podcast in support of ‘The Caged Skylark’ - currently on offer as part of Stories of Ourselves on the CIE English Literature specification. It is a great resources for both teachers as students alike. It includes detailed analysis of the entire poem, a suggested division into main topics / paragraphs and some suggested personal responses.

This is a poetry podcast in support of ‘The Buck in the Snow’ - currently on offer as part of Stories of Ourselves on the CIE English Literature specification. It is a great resources for both teachers as students alike. It includes detailed analysis of the entire poem, a suggested division into main topics / paragraphs and some suggested personal responses.

This is a poetry podcast in support of ‘London Snow’ - currently on offer as part of Stories of Ourselves on the CIE English Literature specification. It is a great resources for both teachers as students alike. It includes detailed analysis of the entire poem, a suggested division into main topics / paragraphs and some suggested personal responses.

This is a poetry podcast in support of ‘Afternoon with Irish Cows’ - currently on offer as part of Stories of Ourselves on the CIE English Literature specification. It is a great resources for both teachers as students alike. It includes detailed analysis of the entire poem, a suggested division into main topics / paragraphs and some suggested personal responses.

This bundle contains thoroughly detailed annotations of each of the poems contained within one of the key CIE poetry anthologies; this includes suggested observations about structure and how one might sub-divide the poems into different topics. It also includes a student-friendly and ready-to-print anthology with good spacing for annotations and extra notes pages between each poem. Note that each poem comes with a suggested ‘starter’ or discussion activity (e.g. some with links to videos or picture stimulus with suggested answers / ideas). They are certainly best used as teacher resources to guide understanding of the poems and to give inspiration for different interpretations - as well as detailed analysis of key language and imagery - but it can also serve as a useful revision resource given directly to students at the end of the course. NOTE: These are only suggested interpretations and are, of course, subjective (I am a teacher and, as such, very much human!). THIS bundle includes Word Document version (if scrambled, ensure that margins are narrow!), PDF document and blank Word Version of Anthology. The bundle includes all of the following poems: ‘The City Planners’ – Atwood, Margaret ‘The Planners’ – Cheng, Boey Kim ‘The Man with Night Sweats’ – Gunn, Thom ‘Night Sweat’ – Lowell, Robert ‘Rain’ – Edward, Thomas ‘The Spirit is too blunt an instrument’ – Stevenson, Anne ‘Long Distance II’ – Harrison, Tony ‘Funeral Blues’ – Auden, W.H. ‘He Never Expected Much’ – Hardy, Thomas ‘The Telephone Call’ – Adcock, Fleur ‘A Consumer’s Report’ – Porter, Peter ‘Request to a Year’ – Wright, Judith ‘On Finding a Crushed Fly in a Book’ – Turner, Charles Tennyson ‘Ozymandias’ – Shelley, Percy Bysshe ‘Away, Melancholy’ – Smith, Stevie