A full lesson on Patience Agbabi’s ‘Eat Me’ from the Edexcel A level Literature anthology ‘Poems of the Decade’. This is a highly visual resource with tasks on the poem’s themes, imagery, form and structure. The lesson is highly task-based, providing opportunities to flip the learning and have students collaborate and think hard. This resource will be bundled with lessons on the other modern poems from the specification in future.

This resource is a full lesson, which covers the background, form and structure, and imagery of Moniza Alvi’s An Unknown Girl. The lesson was designed for use with students writing their coursework for the Edexcel IGCSE Language A qualification. We wrote our essays on the theme of identity, but the resource could easily be adapted for any question. The presentation is highly visual and word banks are included to support students in the writing of their coursework essay. Analysis of imagery is conducted via group task, where groups have a short section of the poem surrounded by prompts and questions, which they need to annotate their answers to and then present back to the class.

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 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 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.

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.

An upgraded version of this resource with more activities, including exemplar material, a quiz, and support material for extended writing. 2-3 lessons worth of content on Significant Cigarettes, an excerpt from Rose Tremain’s 2007 novel The Road Home, which appears in the Edexcel IGCSE Anthology. These lessons were used to help produce the poetry and prose coursework. Students wrote on the theme of ‘identity’ in three texts. There is a wide range of activities, including guided annotation, discussion questions, analysis and practice paragraph writing. The PowerPoint is 19 slides in length (with an additional 4 slides at the end unused by me in recent teaching), so there should be plenty for you to pick and choose from. The excerpt is not supplied with the lesson.

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 guiding students through the poem ‘Hide and Seek’ by Vernon Scannell, which appears on the Edexcel IGCSE Literature specification. The resource contains: a simple starter activity; guided analysis, breaking down key lines with questions; a plenary activity asking students their thoughts on the moral of the poem. The lesson could be developed with an extended writing activity and additional questions for each section of the poem. These are not included and this resource is not as detailed as some other resources in my shop, hence the lower price point.

A full lesson designed to guide students through the poem ‘Piano’ by D. H. Lawrence, which appears on the Edexcel IGCSE Literature specification. The resource includes: a starter activity; contextual information; detailed questions on language analysis to cover the whole short poem; information on the main features of form and structure.

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 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.

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.

A lesson designed for the extract from 127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston from the Edexcel IGCSE anthology for English Language specification A. The lesson includes two starter activities, a pair of engaging embedded YouTube videos relating to the text, a simple task for annotating the text, an example question 4 from a past-paper with an exemplar response, and a writing frame utilising the PETAL acronym to support students in writing an exam-style response for question 4. This lesson was used with a year 9 class approaching their GCSE years and could easily be used or adapted for use with years 10 and 11 for initial teaching of the text.

A simple lesson to help students get to grips with the meaning and effects of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116. First, a modern translation of the poem is provided so that students can access its meaning, along with definitions for key words. Then, there is an example of how one of the key lines in the poem could be ‘exploded’ , followed by a task instructing students to ‘explode’ a line from the poem themselves. Several exemplars with images are also provided to help students on their way. Finally, there is a PETAL writing frame to support students in responding to the question: How does Shakespeare present love in Sonnet 116?

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.