Unseen poetry teaching pack

Last updated: 15/11/2023
Contributor: Trevor Millum
Unseen Poetry cover
Main Subject
Key stage
Resource type
Teaching pack

Take a step by step approach to building your students’ confidence in understanding and analysing unseen poems.

‘The way to understand poems, whether unseen or not, is to get under their skin – and that requires active strategies, which this teaching pack and resources provide.’

Trevor Millum, writer and poet

This time-saving teaching pack includes seven pairs of carefully-selected poems for comparison alongside a resource workbook, providing you and your students with all you need to prepare for the unseen poetry element of the GCSE exam.

What's included?

  • 7 pairs of poems
  • a resource workbook for students to complete
  • detailed teaching notes for each poem
  • a mix of older and contemporary poems
  • exam-style questions for all exam boards.

What's inside?

Introduction 

Top tips for approaching an unseen poem 

Unit 1

  • ‘At the Draper’s’ by Thomas Hardy 
  • ‘Remember’ by Christina Rossetti 
  • Comparison resource 
  • Exam questions

Unit 2

  • ‘Late Love’ by Jackie Kay
  • ‘Love and Friendship’ by Emily Brontë 
  • Comparison resource 
  • Exam questions 

Unit 3

  • ‘Finding the Keys’ by Robin Robertson 
  • ‘October’ by Robert Frost
  • Comparison resource 
  • Exam questions 

Unit 4

  • ‘Calling Card’ by Tracey Herd 
  • ‘For Meg’ by Fleur Adcock 
  • Comparison resource 
  • Exam questions 

Unit 5

  • ‘A London Thoroughfare. 2am.’ by Amy Lowell 
  • ‘Frost Fair’ by Rowyda Amin 
  • Comparison resource 
  • Exam questions 

Unit 6

  • ‘Long Life’ by Elaine Feinstein 
  • ‘Fish oil, exercise and no wild parties’ by Beatrice Garland 
  • Comparison resource 
  • Exam questions

This sample activity from the student workbook looks at ’Calling Card’ by Tracey Herd.

Inside the poem

1. Make a note of the images Herd uses which are connected with words. Which are the most effective, in your opinion? Give your reasons.
    
2. Read through the poem again, noticing how many words and phrases seem to create images of scattering, of movement. Is there anything that is still?
    
3. In a poem of this length, it is impossible to discuss everything. Often the exam question will give you a focus. If not, decide to concentrate on a particular theme.  Here are some possibilities: 

  • the power of words
  • the contrast between the prosaic and the unusual
  • coming to terms with the death of a young person

Jot down some notes for a paragraph or two on one of these themes.
 

Unseen Poetry pack
£15.00
Free for Premium Subscribers.

All reviews

Have you used this resource?

5

05/08/2021

Thankyou. This is great.

sUE RIDDLE

16/02/2021

5

15/02/2021

5

09/02/2021

Incredibly useful - thank you!

31/01/2017

A humane, comprehensive resource. Written by a poet and teacher with considerable experience, so there is deep understanding of poetry as well as how this is examined at GCSE. The 'Teaching notes' are detailed and informed, and the 'Student workbook' activities are sensitively structured to encourage personal understanding and engagement with the poems, closely aligned to providing students with the exam skills that will best convey this as well as meet assessment requirements across all of the major examining bodies.

Mike Ferguson

17/01/2017

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