This is my outline for teaching poetry in Year 7 next term. The PPt The future in poetry will give an idea of the teaching outlined. Our theme is “futures” and students are also being introduced to the notion of Dystopia and Utopia.
The teaching will cover personal versions of these key terms and engage with the conditional in English, as well as exploring schooldays as a source of stimulus for the discussions.
I am using some of Jackie Kay’s early poems about her own childhood as the basis for this study and want students to engage with the tensions between an adult who is positive about her life, looking back on her childhood and recognizing the pain and trauma that it contained.
There will undoubtedly be other activities than those outlined here, and every lesson has some form of literacy starter for which I am indebted to http://literacystarter.wordpress.com/