In years gone by, I’ve tended to treat the unseen poetry component of the GCSE English Literature course as a bit of a ‘bolt on’ – something I’m more than a little bit ashamed to admit. Not this year though. Here’s a quick run-through of how I’ve approach the teaching of it so far.
I select poems that I know well and like, and that I think my class will also like. The six I’ve focused on so far are listed below. I’ve put them onto a single document, which you can access by clicking here.
After a brief discussion, I take the class through my interpretation of the poem and annotate it under a visualiser. I then hand over to them. Typically, I direct the students towards a poem that’s thematically linked and ask them to annotate it with the questions below in mind. After about 10 minutes or so, I ask for feedback.
When that’s been done, I usually move onto some quick vocabulary work (e.g. reporting and analysing verbs or literary terminology) and then either embark on some planning or writing. If it’s the latter, I tend to provide some sentence starters like the ones below to help students shape their points.
Thanks for reading –
Doug