Two lesson’s worth of material on Maya Angelou’s Still I Rise, designed to get students to get students to engage with the poetic language and structure of the poem. These lessons were put together with the Edexcel IGCSE Language A coursework in mind. There is an array of activities, including a webquest with links, group work, analysis of form and structure, and a focus on imagery. The resource is highly visual and includes a video of Maya Angelou reading her poem. There is also some support material in the form of a word and phrase bank to help students write their coursework essay. We wrote on the presentation of the theme of identity. However, the resources would easily be adapted to another question.

A lesson sequence on Wilfred Owen’s poem Disabled. The lesson is designed with the coursework element of the Edexcel IGCSE in mind. Students answered a question on the presentation of ‘identity’. The lesson is highly visual and contains video clips. Also included are slides on Jessie Pope’s Who’s For The Game? and Owen’s most famous poem, Dulce et decorum est, as they provide students with a strong foundation for their study of Disabled. Included in the lesson are writing support materials such as word and phrase banks and a writing frame. Also included is an exemplar response. There should be enough material for 2-3 lessons.

Contained in this resource are a PDF document and PowerPoint version of display material and quote banks for each major character in Of Mice and Men. The quote banks are divided into four sections according to some of Steinbeck’s main themes and feature a small AI-generated image of the relevant character in the top right. Students can then populate the quote banks with key quotations for each character as they relate to the key themes. Please note: the quote banks are blank for students to fill in. The last slides/pages of the resource contain much larger versions of the AI images (one example can be seen in the cover image), which can be printed in colour and used for display.

A lesson sequence on the excerpt ‘Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan’ from the Edexcel IGCSE anthology. There may be two lessons worth of material here, focused on having students identify and annotate the key features of language and structure. Then, then class are divided in two and provided with tables to complete, which focus them on analysing either the presentation of the people or the place, for question 4 of Paper 1. The resource may be better used with higher ability students, as the majority of the work is student focused, relying on their thoughts and analyses and those of their partner/group. Two AI-generated images have been used for decoration.

A lesson on Kipling’s ‘If-’, which engages students with the poem’s main themes and ideas, and features of language and structure. It contains some background on the poem, information on stoicism (which seems to underpin many of the poem’s ideals), guided annotation, information on form and structure, and an exam-style question with writing frame. The lesson was designed for use with high ability students, studying the Edexcel IGCSE in Literature. The cover image was created using AI and does not reflect the appearance of the the slides in the resource. The image has been uploaded in case you would like to use it.

A full lesson on The Eve of St Agnes by John Keats, taking students through key points of plot, context, form and structure, language features and themes. I used this over a two-lesson teaching sequence.

Up to two lessons’ worth of content on Wilfred Owen’s poem Exposure. This was created and delivered to a middle-ability Year 8 class and provides a number of engaging activities including: Storyboarding Descriptive writing Language analysis (focusing on the presentation of nature, not war) Diary entry imaginative writing AI generated imagery has been used in this lesson, making it very visually pleasing.

A lesson filled with contextual information on Keats’s On The Sea. Discussion points are also provided for Keats’s use of the sonnet form as well as his philosophy of negative capability and the role of the poet. Some images have been created using AI.

An updated version of this lesson, now with more activities and greater aesthetic appeal. The presentation contains key context, activities on form and structure, language analysis, and comprehension questions. The final part of the lesson provides questions to prompt comparisons with other poems by Keats, so that students begin to forge connections and understand Keats’s prevailing themes and motifs.

An upgraded version of this resource. The approach is to compare Ode on a Grecian Urn to Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn by Tim Turnbull. Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn is one of the modern poems studied on the Edexcel A Level Literature course, so this lesson provides an opportunity to revise the poem and develop students’ knowledge of Keats’s Grecian Urn. There are tasks on theme, language, form and structure, and the infamously nebulous final lines of the poem. Also included is simple table for comparing the themes and ideas in the two poems.

A full lesson designed to lead students through the extract from Adichie’s TED talk ‘The Danger of a Single Story’ found in the Edexcel IGCSE Literature and Language anthology. The lesson is recommended for students in years 10 and 11. The resource includes a choice of two starter activities, a linked video of the original TED talk (check the notes section for recommended times to watch with your class), a group discussion activity with prompt cards, a table with key quotations and devices for students to complete with analysis, and a PETAL writing frame to support students in writing an exam-style response.

An upgraded version of this lesson. A full lesson on Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, covering context, form and structure, themes and language. The resource now contains a three-round quiz testing students knowledge of content and context.

A full lesson designed to guide students through the poem ‘Prayer Before Birth’ by Louis MacNeice, which is found in the Edexcel IGCSE Literature specification. The lesson is aimed at students in years 10 and 11. The resource is visually attractive and includes: a choice of starter activity; summary and background on the poem; an embedded YouTube video of a reading of the poem; 7 slides with key lines from the poem and guided questions to help students analyse the poem (these could be used for group work or guided analysis); a short summary of the features of form and structure; an additional task directing students to examine the theme of nature vs industrialisation.

This lesson teaches students how to analyse the language of a poem through a range of activities relating to Counting Tigers by Gillian Clarke. It includes a choice of starter activity, a quotation ‘exploding’ activity, two exemplar responses to an exam-style question on the poem and a writing frame utilising the PETAL acronym to help students write their own response. The lesson is highly visual and there may be enough content to cover more than just one one-hour lesson. I taught this lesson to a low-ability year 9 class, but it could easily be pitched to GCSE students as an unseen poem.

A full lesson on the poem Remember by Christina Rossetti, which appears on the Edexcel IGCSE Literature specification. However, the content of the resource is applicable to any course of study at GCSE level which includes this poem. The resource includes: a starter activity where key techniques in the poem are matched to definitions; an embedded YouTube video of a reading of the poem; a short summary of the poem; guided, step-by-step language analysis through key questions; summary of the main features of form and structure; an exemplar response to an exam-style question (students can then have a go at writing a response themselves).

A full lesson designed to lead students through the poem Half-Past Two by U. A. Fanthorpe which appears on the Edexcel IGCSE Literature specification. The visually-pleasing resource includes: a choice of starter activity; an ‘exploding’ quotations activity with detailed exemplar; guided language analysis with questions on key lines; a PETAL paragraph writing frame to support students in writing a response to an exam-style question. The cover image was created by AI and is included in the resource.

A mini bundle with activities for comparing the following poems from the new Eduqas GCSE specification: Mametz Wood, Dulce et decorum est, Afternoons, Too Autumn and Ozymandias.

A full lesson covering (lots of) context, form and structure, tone and pace, language and interpretations of the poem.

A presentation which considers some advanced aspects of the context, form and structure of John Keats’s To Autumn. It then provides discussion / comprehension questions for the language in each stanza. The resource is suited for more able GCSE learners (i.e. those following the Eduqas specification) and A level Literature students who have selected Keats as their pre-1900s poet.

A full lesson on Keats’s To Sleep, covering context in detail, form and structure, tone, imagery, themes and interpretations.