Crushing Unseen Poetry

This course helps students build their understanding of poetic terms in unseen poems. It provides guidance on effective annotation skills & adopting a controlled approach to responding to themed questions. Students will develop a stronger grasp of poetic devices, and the use of pace, tone & rhythm.

Session 1
Knowledge of Language:The first session will cover poetic terminology, helping students to revise key terms that relate to language and meaning. We will also cover the concepts of the persona (or voice), tone, pace and overall message of the poems. Then we will consider numerous short poems by Siegfried Sassoon to consolidate understanding.

Session 2
Knowledge of Structure: Using the Sassoon poems and a new Wordsworth poem, we will discuss structural features like stanzas, titles, rhyme schemes, enjambment, caesura, repetition and listing. Students will also be invited to begin practicing annotation of a second Wordsworth poem from a structural viewpoint themselves.

Session 3
This session examines a poem by Imtiaz Dharker: this group timed annotation practice will pay attention to sensible ways of marking the poem page itself. We will identify various poetic features covered in the previous sessions, before considering how the annotations we make on the page can help organise our thoughts for clear, detailed planning.

Session 4
During this hour session, we will examine an unseen poem question under timed conditions. After hearing the poem read aloud, students will have 10-15 minutes to make annotations on the selected poem and make their plans. We will then discuss how they approached the question and planning process.