I provide high quality, tried and tested materials, developed over 17 years of teaching KS3-5. There is material to support G3/4 students as well as material to push for G8 and G9s.
I provide high quality, tried and tested materials, developed over 17 years of teaching KS3-5. There is material to support G3/4 students as well as material to push for G8 and G9s.
This unit contains everything you need to teach transactional writing (letters, speeches, articles, essays, reviews and leaflets) at IGCSE. This unit of work is focused on Pearson Edexcel Paper 1 for English language and teaches the students how to argue, advise and persuade. It includes 25 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson Powerpoints, exemplar answers, newspaper articles, leaflets, essays, reviews and speeches.
Lesson 1: Introduction to transactional writing
Lesson 2: Coronavirus response
Lesson 3: How to counter-argue
Lesson 4: Tough love
Lesson 5: Raising children
Lesson 6: Travel Writing
Lesson 7: Charity speech
Lesson 8: Letter of application
Lesson 9: Write your letter of application
Lesson 10: Technology
Lesson 11: Fame
Lesson 12: English teacher application
Lesson 13: Health leaflet
Lesson 14: Mobile phones
Lesson 15: Parents are over-protective
Lesson 16: Who would you vote for?
Lesson 17: Film censorship essay
Lesson 18: Writing your essay
Lesson 19: Protecting the countryside
Lesson 20: Virgin Atlantic complaint letter
Lesson 21: Meghan and Harry
Lesson 22: Writing your opinion
Lesson 23: Foreign holidays
Lesson 24: Writing a film review
Lesson 25: Writing a book review
This scheme of work contains everything you need to teach Imaginative Writing at IGCSE and will save you hours of preparation! It is focused on Paper 3 coursework, but can easily be adapted for Paper 2 exam preparation. It includes 24 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson PowerPoints, short stories and extracts, IWB interactive resources, quizzes, writing checklists and activities to exploit drama. Each lesson targets a different area of the mark scheme for the students to master.
Lesson 1: An introduction into imaginative writing
Lesson 2: How to structure a story using a story mountain
Lesson 3: How to write an effective opening
Lesson 4: Using connectives
Lesson 5: Creating characters with depth
Lesson 6: Writing about a party
Lesson 7: Focus on punctuation in ‘The Hero’
Lesson 8: Avoiding cliche in “The 100% perfect girl”
Lesson 9: Using dialogue
Lesson 10: Multiple narrative voices in “Not My Best Side”
Lesson 11: Writing a story using a unique voice
Lesson 12: Structure in ‘The Fugitive’
Lesson 13: A Day in the Life of a Nobody
Lesson 14: Writing a personal response
Lesson 15: Creating titles
Lesson 16: Expanding and planning
Lesson 17: Topic sentences
Lesson 18: Openings and endings
Lesson 19: Endings
Lesson 20: Narratives and dialogue
Lesson 21: Opening lines
Lesson 22: Creating a sense of place
Lesson 23: Show don’t tell
Lesson 24: Narrative Tenses in The Beach
This unit contains everything you need to teach Midsummer Night’s Dream at KS4. It is focused on essay writing skills, analyzing extracts for English Literature and bringing the play to life. It includes over 25 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson powerpoints, contextual information, exemplar essays, interactive resources, quizzes, activities to exploit drama, extract analysis and opportunities for online research. Page numbers refer to the Cambridge Shakespeare edition.
Each lesson is focused on a scene from the play, so you can easily cut this unit down to focus specifically on a key scene and a theme from the play.
Lesson 1: Context
Lesson 2: Online research
Lesson 3: The Globe
Lesson 4: Character research
Lesson 5: Language
Lesson 6: Plot and characters
Lesson 7: Act out the play
Lesson 8: A1S1 Theseus and Hippolyta
Lesson 9: A1S2 The Mechanicals
Lesson 10: A2S1 Puck
Lesson 11: A2S1 Oberon and Titania
Lesson 12: A2S1 Demetrius and Hermia
Lesson 13: Language
Lesson 14: A2S2 The love potion
Lesson 15: A3S1 The rehearsal
Lesson 16: A3S1 Bottom and Titania
Lesson 17: A3S2 Oberon and Puck
Lesson 18: A3S2 The lovers
Lesson 19: A3S2 Young love
Lesson 20: A4S1 Bottom
Lesson 21: A4S1 Explanations
Lesson 22: A5S1 The play
Lesson 23 A5S1 The end
Lesson 24: Blockbusters review game
Lesson 25: Revision cards
This unit is a great way to teach summary, language and perspective skills at KS4. It is focused on AQA English Language GCSE Paper 2. It prepares students for Q2 summarise the differences, Q3 writer’s use of language and Q4 perspective and point of view. It includes 24 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson powerpoints, exemplar answers, online research and historical articles . Page numbers refer to the Arrow Books edition.
Lesson 1: Context research online
Lesson 2: C1 Maycomb County
Lesson 3: C2 Education
Lesson 4: C2 Analysing Miss Caroline
Lesson 5: C3 Comparing Atticus’ and Scout’s point of view
Lesson 6: The Case of Ruby Bridges
Lesson 7: C4 Analysing Atticus Finch
Lesson 8: C5 Analysing Miss Maudie Atkinson
Lesson 9: C6 Building tension
Lesson 10: C7 Scout’s understanding of the world
Lesson 11: C8 The Fire
Lesson 12 C10 The Rabid Dog
Lesson 13: Analysing Miss Dubose
Lesson 14: C12 Race relations
Lesson 15: C13 Comparing Aunt Alex with Ms Dubose
Lesson 16: C15 The Lynch Mob
Lesson 17: C16-21 Summarising the trial
Lesson 18: C21 The Verdict
Lesson 19: C23 Comparing Bob and Atticus
Lesson 20: C24 Analysing the Missionary Ladies
Lesson 21: C25 Racism and Prejudice
Lesson 22: C28 The Attack on Jem and Scout
Lesson 23: C29 The Aftermath and Boo Radley
Lesson 24: C31 The Ending
If you are teaching Frankenstein, this unit contains everything you need to allow students to connect a 19th century Romantic novel with the great issues of today, such as the environment, artificial intelligence and what makes us human.
This unit has everything you need to teach Frankenstein at KS3. It contains 25 lessons that take you through the text using differentiated extracts. It is fully resourced with context readings, theme discussions, extract analysis, persuasive writing opportunities, online research on The Romantics, critical articles and opportunities to practice extract into essay writing. Please note this unit does not look at the whole text, it analyses key extracts from the novel.
Lesson 1: an introduction to plot and context
Lesson 2: Walton’s letters
Lesson 3: C1 Victor and Elizabeth
Lesson 4: C4 University Life
Lesson 5: C5 The Creature
Lesson 6: C6 Elizabeth’s letter
Lesson 7: C7 Child killers
Lesson 8: The Trial of Justine
Lesson 9: C8 The Gothic and The Romantic
Lesson 10: Romantic Research
Lesson 11: C10 The Ice Field
Lesson 12: C11 The Creature’s Tale
Lesson 13: C15 The Importance of Appearances
Lesson 14: C16 Revenge
Lesson 15: C17 The Bride of Frankenstein
Lesson 16: C19 The Orkney Islands
Lesson 17: C20 The Dangers of Science
Lesson 18: Who is the real monster?
Lesson 19: C23 Elizabeth
Lesson 20: C24 The End
Lesson 21: Extract analysis on ‘Regret’
Lesson 22: Walton’s Letters
Lesson 23: The Trial of Victor Frankenstein
Lesson 24: End of unit quiz
Everything you need to revise Jane Eyre at KS5. This unit includes 8 revision lessons and is fully resourced with lesson powerpoints, contextual information, exemplar essays, extracts and critical articles. The lessons cover character and theme questions. Page numbers refer to the World Classics edition.
Lesson 1: Oppression
Lesson 2: Essay Writing
Lesson 3: Religion
Lesson 4: Integrating context
Lesson 5: Integrating critics
Lesson 6: Love
Lesson 7: Freedom
Lesson 8: Essay feedback
This unit of work is designed as a pathway through the text Wild Boy at KS3. The unit contains 21 lessons and looks at areas such as plot structure, character relationships, aspects of a detective novel, the author’s use of pathetic fallacy and more. It is fully resourced with an extract assessment, descriptive language worksheets, plot quizzes, contextual information and assessment writing frames. Page numbers refer to the Walker Books edition.
Lesson 1: The Prologue
Lesson 2: The Circus: setting the scene
Lesson 3: Fairground characters
Lesson 4: Clarissa Everett
Lesson 5: The author’s use of animal imagery
Lesson 6: Creating mystery
Lesson 7: Character foils: Clarissa and Wild Boy
Lesson 8: Escape through the sewers
Lesson 9: Designing a WANTED poster
Lesson 10: Use of pathetic fallacy
Lesson 11: Analysing the murder scene
Lesson 12: Discovering the hidden room
Lesson 13: A Victorian Workhouse
Lesson 14: The Church
Lesson 15: How the writer builds tension
Lesson 16: The Machine
Lesson 17: Circular Structure
Lesson 18: The Suspects
Lesson 19: The Finale
Lesson 20: Planning your assessment
Lesson 21: Writing your assessment
This Unit of Work has been designed as a way through the novel ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar. It contains 19 lessons and is designed to exploit areas like descriptive writing, writing a summary, analyzing characters, constructing the plot, the format of a letter, how writers build tension and designing a film storyboard. It also contains two assessment opportunities on Stanley Yelnats and the significance of the title. The page numbers refer to the Bloomsbury edition.
Lesson 1: An introduction to Holes
Lesson 2: Chapters 1-3: Camp Green Lake
Lesson 3: Chapters 4-6: Impressions of Stanley Yelnats
Lesson 4: Chapters 7-9: Use of flashback in literature
Lesson 5: Creating a factfile
Lesson 6: Survival guide poster and plot quiz
Lesson 7: Chapters 10-12: Writing a letter home
Lesson 8: Chapters 13-15: The Warden
Lesson 9: Chapters 16-18: Kate Barlow’s lipstick
Lesson 10: Chapters 19-21: Building tension
Lesson 11: Chapters 22-24: Using flashbacks
Lesson 12: Chapters 25-28: Kissin’ Kate Barlow
Lesson 13: Chapters 29-30: Using pathetic fallacy
Lesson 14: Chapters 31-33: Zero’s escape
Lesson 15: Chapters 34-36: Comparing Stanley and Zero
Lesson 16: Chapters 37-39: Climbing Big Thumb
Lesson 17: Chapters 40-43: Formulating an escape plan
Lesson 18: Chapters 44- 47: Buried treasure
Lesson 19: Chapters 48-50: The End
This unit contains everything you need to teach Streetcar at KS5 for AQA A-level English Language and Literature. It includes over 20 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson PowerPoints, contextual information, exemplar material, quizzes, extracts and critical articles. Each lesson targets a scene in the play, a theme, a character or an exam extract. I have used it for the last 5 years to teach top students who have gone on to achieve A* grades and study English Literature at Oxford and Cambridge.
Page numbers refer to the Penguin Modern Classics edition. This scheme of work has been designed for the AQA A level course. It looks at areas like:
Lesson 1: Naturalist and Expressionist theatre
Lesson 2: Context research on the deep south, the civil war, post WW2 immigration, 1940s New Orleans, The Southern Gothic and Tennessee Williams’ family
Lesson 3: Context presentations
Lesson 4: Impressions of Blanche
Lesson 5: Past Paper on “bitterness”
Lesson 6: The significance of Belle Reve
Lesson 7: Williams’ use of staging
Lesson 8a: The Poker Game and Sonnet 43
Lesson 8b: Past Paper on “loneliness”
Lesson 9: Blanche and The Southern Belle
Lesson 10: The allure of aggressive men
Lesson 11: Comparing Blanche and Stella
Lesson 12: The Southern Gent and Shep Huntleigh
Lesson 13a: Violence in Streetcar
Lesson 13b: Past Paper on “anxieties”
Lesson 14: Essay writing
Lesson 15a: Fantasy and self-deception
Lesson 15b: Past Paper on “tension”
Lesson 16: Elia Kazan’s influence
Lesson 17: Is Stan a victim or a villain?
Lesson 18: The relationship between Blanche and Mitch
Lesson 19a: Essay marking
Lesson 19b: Past Paper on “anger”
Lesson 20: Sherman’s march through Georgia
This unit has been designed for teaching the ‘Mean Time’ option for the AQA poetry section C for A-level English Language and Literature. It has 20 lessons and covers every poem in the anthology. It is fully resourced with past papers, exemplar answers, poetic technique quizzes, mark schemes and notes on the poems.
Lesson 1: An introduction to poetry
Lesson 2: Rhyme, rhythm and meter
Lesson 3: An introduction to Carol Ann Duffy
Lesson 4: Context reading and research
Lesson 5: Context quiz
Lesson 6: Captain of the 1964…
Lesson 7: Nostalgia
Lesson 8: Before You Were Mine
Lesson 9: Beachcomber
Lesson 10: First Love
Lesson 11: Valentine
Lesson 12: Planning an essay
Lesson 13: The Biographer
Lesson 14: Litany
Lesson 15: Stafford Afternoons
Lesson 16: The Cliche Kid
Lesson 17: Small Female Skull
Lesson 18: Never Go Back
Lesson 19: Close
Lesson 20: Mean Time
This Unit of Work has been designed as a pathway through the Paris Anthology for AQAEnglish A-level Language and Literature. It contains over 33 lessons and covers all of the extracts, as well as lessons to compare the extracts using past papers. It is fully resourced with a linguistic toolkit, features of spoken language mini tests, word class worksheets, past papers, exemplar essays, opportunities for online research and homework tasks.
Lesson 1a: Introduction to The Anthology
Lesson 1b: Grammar and Lexis
Lesson 2: Stories Are Waiting - Eurostar Advert
Lesson 3: Mile by Mile by R Piggott
Lesson 4: Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson
Lesson 5a: The Most Beautiful Walk in the World by John Baxter
Lesson 5b: Comparing The Most Beautiful Walk with Neither Here Nor There
Lesson 6: Paris City Guide by Lonely Planet
Lesson 7a: An introduction to Spoken Language
Lesson 7b: Anna and Zara’s narratives
Lesson 8a: Breathless - Waiting for Goddard
Lesson 8b: Breathless - Roommates
Lesson 9a: Around the World in 80 Dates by Jennifer Cox
Lesson 9b: Writing Guide
Lesson 10: What do you wish… by Trip Advisor
Lesson 11: Visiting Paris conversation: Mike and Sophia
Lesson 12: Rick Steves’ Walking Tour of the Louvre
Lesson 13: French Milk by Lucy Knisley
Lesson 14: Understanding Chic by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
Lesson 15: Memories of Places in Paris: Isabelle and Sophia
Lesson 16: Encore Une Fois by Just Another American in Paris
Lesson 17: 18 Months Later by Just Another American in Paris
Lesson 18: Comparing Encore Une Fois and The Most Beautiful Walk
Lesson 19: Traveling to Paris by Gransnet
Lesson 20: Paris for Children by The Rough Guide
Lesson 21-24: NOT FOR PARENTS by Klay Lamprell
Lesson 25a: Hemmingway research
Lesson 25b: On Paris by Ernest Hemmingway
Lesson 26: Foreign Correspondent by Peter Lennon
Lesson 27: Paris Riots 1968 by British Pathe
Lesson 28: The Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne
Lesson 29: Letters from France by Helen Maria Williams
Lesson 30: Fine French Food by Lonely Planet
Lesson 31: The Sweet Life by David Lebovitz
Lesson 32: Eating in Paris: Isabelle, Mike and Sophia
Lesson 33: Comparing Eating in Paris and The Sweet Life
This scheme of work is designed as a pathway through the play and an introduction to drama at KS3. It includes 16 lessons that are easy to follow and focus on aspects like staging, character development, creative writing, autism research and more. Page numbers refer to the Metheun Drama edition.
Lesson 1: Autism research
Lesson 2: Creating Chris’ voice
Lesson 3: Metaphorical and literal
Lesson 4: Siobhan as the narrator
Lesson 5: The detective genre
Lesson 6: Perceptions of Chris’ mother
Lesson 7: Perceptions of Chris’ father
Lesson 8: Stephen’s use of staging
Lesson 9: Research on why children run away from home
Lesson 10: Eidetic memories
Lesson 11: Staging Chris’ journey to London
Lesson 12: Judy and Roger
Lesson 13: Creating coping strategies
Lesson 14: The crime genre
Lesson 15: Assessment on Siobhan
This scheme of work is designed as a pathway through the play and an introduction to drama at KS3. It includes 12 lessons that are easy to follow and focus on aspects like staging, character development, creative writing, the history of the holocaust and more.
Lesson 1: elements of a fable and context
Lesson 2: narrative voice
Lesson 3: descriptive techniques
Lesson 4: vague language and inference
Lesson 5: reading between the lines
Lesson 6: character analysis of Pavel
Lesson 7: comparing Bruno and Shmuel
Lesson 8: writing analytical paragraphs
Lesson 9: Comparing Lieutenant Kotler with Nazi Germany ideology
Lesson 10: Discussing the message of the novel
Lesson 11: Designing a book cover
Lesson 12: Analysing Jackson’s use of staging
Are you teaching Myths, Legends, Fables and Fairy Tales? This unit will help you teach folktales and traditional tales, and it will save you hours of preparation! This unit of work includes 10 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson PowerPoints, contextual information, exemplar answers, quizzes and the classical stories. The unit includes:
Lesson 1: The Norse World
Lesson 2: Analysing settings
Lesson 3: Asgard
Lesson 4: Thor, Loki and Odin
Lesson 5: Comparing Thors
Lesson 6: Loki’s children
Lesson 7: Hel
Lesson 8: Thor and The Frost Giants
Lesson 9: Ragnarok
This scheme of work is 10 lessons designed to test your students’ ability to plan and write creatively using a picture as a springboard for their imagination. It is most effective when used a few weeks before their exam. The focus is:
Lesson 1: structuring paragraphs in a WW1 trench scene
Lesson 2: using varied sentence structures in a train scene
Lesson 3: noun-verb collocation in a forest scene
Lesson 4: the effect of adjectives in an alien planet scene
Lesson 5: paragraph focus in a scene from Private Peaceful
Lesson 6: descriptive techniques in a castle scene
Lesson 7: using tense changes in a stormy sea scene
Lesson 8: individual word choice in a transport image
Lesson 9: creating backstories from AI images
Lesson 10: using a learning mat for a mountain scene
This unit of work has been designed to prepare A-level students for their AQA Paper 2 Unseen Prose exam. The students have to incorporate context into their answers, so the unit contains 13 lessons ranging from Victorian Literature to more modern, multi-cultural texts like White Teeth. Each lesson will take you about an hour to prepare their answer and a further hour to write an essay if you wish to do so. It comes fully resourced with PowerPoint lessons, exemplar essays, guidance on how to write introductions and conclusions, extracts, and examiner advice. The lessons include extracts from:
The Heart of Darkness
I am Charlotte Simmonds
Brick Lane
Digging to America
White Teeth
Gone with the Wind
Catcher in the Rye
Revolutionary Road
Everything I Never Told You
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
I have used this unit with very high achieving A-level students who have gone on to study English Literature at Oxford and Cambridge, so it is definitely targeted towards the top end.
This unit contains everything you need to revise unseen poetry for your A level exam. This unit of work includes 8 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson powerpoints, contextual information and exemplar material. It covers poetry eras such as: Metaphysicals, Cavaliers, Renaissance, Tudor and more modern poems. This unit of work has been designed for the AQA A-level course, but is adaptable to fit other exam board specifications. The scheme of work includes:
Lesson 1: Metaphysical revision of Donne, Marvell, Herbert and Crashaw
Lesson 2: Comparing Cavalier and Metaphysical attitudes to love
Lesson 3: How to approach an unseen poem
Lesson 4: Romantic love in Victorian and modern poetry
Lesson 5: Motherhood in modern poetry and WW2
Lesson 6: Romantic love in 3 modern poems
Lesson 7: Loss in Tudor and Renaissance poetry
Lesson 8: Analysing poems for the influence of context using Kahoot
This unit is a great introduction to poetry from English speaking countries around the world. It includes 21 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson PowerPoints, exemplar essays, past papers, mark schemes, quizzes and opportunities for self-assessment. It is focused on poetry skills, as well as comparing themes between two poems. The final assessment asks the students to compare cultural divisions in Nothing’s Changed and Two Scavengers in a Truck.
Lesson 1: Poetic techniques
Lesson 2: Cultural context
Lesson 3: Limbo by Edward Kamu Brathwaite
Lesson 4: The Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel
Lesson 5: Island Man by Grace Nichols
Lesson 6: Comparing Limbo and Night of the Scorpion
Lesson 7: Blessing by Imtiaz Dharker
Lesson 8: Nothing’s Changed by Tatamkhulu Afrika
Lesson 9: Two Scavengers in a Truck by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lesson 10: Comparing Nothing’s Changed and Two Scavengers
Lesson 11: Assesment Feedback
Lesson 12: Vietnam War context
Lesson 13: What Were They Like? by Denise Levertov
Lesson 14: Vultures by Chinua Achebe
Lesson 15: Comparing Vultures and What Were They Like?
Lesson 16: Mid term quiz
Lesson 17: Search for my Tongue by Sujatta Bahat
Lesson 18: Presents from my Aunts by Moniza Alvi
Lesson 19: Comparing Presents and Search
Lesson 20: Half Caste by John Agard
Lesson 21: End of unit quiz
If your students find Shakespeare dull and inaccessible, this is the unit for you. The lessons are focused on staging a shipwreck, costume, props, bringing the play to life and contextually understanding Elizabethan views of slavery.
This unit includes everything you need to teach The Tempest at KS3. It includes 20 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson powerpoints, contextual information, exemplar material, IWB interactive resources, quizzes, activities to exploit drama and extract analysis. Page numbers refer to the Cambridge Shakespeare edition. There is a final unit assessment on the relationship between Miranda and Prospero.
Lesson 1: Elizabethan context
Lesson 2: Accessing Shakespeare’s language
Lesson 3: The plot
Lesson 4: The characters
Lesson 5: A1S1 shipwreck
Lesson 6: Analyzing the relationship between Prospero and Miranda
Lesson 7: Ariel and magic
Lesson 8: Caliban and slavery
Lesson 9: How Prospero and Miranda’s relationship changes
Lesson 10: Alonso and betrayal
Lesson 11: Gonzalo and loyalty
Lesson 12: Miranda and Ferdinand
Lesson 13: Designing a Tempest poster
Lesson 14: Nature and nurture
Lesson 15: Prospero’s plan
Lesson 16: How the characters change
Lesson 17: The epilogue
Lesson 18: Assessment planning
Lesson 19: Writing your assessment
Lesson 20: Feedback and improve
This unit contains everything you need to teach the Love and Relationships anthology and will save you hours of preparation! It is focused on AQA Paper 2 for English Literature. It includes 23 lessons and is fully resourced with lesson powerpoints, examplar essays, past papers, introduction examples, mark schemes, quizzes and opportunities for self-assessment. It is extremely thorough and allows the students multiple points for reflection to ensure they are confident of which poems to compare on which themes when they sit their GCSE English Literature.
Lesson 1: An introduction to poetry
Lesson 2: Poetic techniques
Lesson 3: Scansion: rhythm, rhyme and meter
Lesson 4: When We Two Parted by Lord Byron
Lesson 5:Love’s Philosophy by Percy Shelly
Lesson 6: Porphyria’s Lover by Robert Browning
Lesson 7: Sonnet 29 by Elizabeth Browning
Lesson 8: Neutral Tones by Thomas Hardy
Lesson 9: Letters from Yorkshire by Maura Dooley
Lesson 10: Quote quiz
Lesson 11: The Farmer’s Bride by Charlotte Mew
Lesson 12: Comparing Farmer’s Bride with Porphyria’s Lover
Lesson 13: Walking Away by Cecil Day-Lewis
Lesson 14: Eden Rock by Charles Causley
Lesson 15: Comparing Walking Away and Eden Rock
Lesson 16: Follower by Seamus Heaney
Lesson 17: Mother any distance by Simon Armitage
Lesson 18: Before You Were Mine by Carol Ann Duffy
Lesson 19: Comparing Before You Were Mine and Walking Away
Lesson 20: Winter Swans by Owen Sheers
Lesson 21: Singh Song! by Daljit Nagra
Lesson 22: Climbing My Grandfather by Andrew Waterhouse
Lesson 23: Which poems compare well