New
New
Lesson 11 of 20
  • Year 11
  • Eduqas

Writing and developing a response to an unseen poem

I can write and then build on a response to an unseen poem.

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Lesson 11 of 20
New
New
  • Year 11
  • Eduqas

Writing and developing a response to an unseen poem

I can write and then build on a response to an unseen poem.

Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and

Copyrights help

These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.

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These resources were created for remote use during the pandemic and are not designed for classroom teaching.

Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. When approaching an unseen poem, you might ask questions about the voice, perspective, structure and imagery.
  2. In order to build on that initial response, you might use discussions in order to build on your ideas.
  3. Dunmore's 'Next Door' may be interpreted as the speaker being judgemental of their neighbours.
  4. On the other hand, it may be interpreted as an exploration of how we are all reflections of each other.

Keywords

  • Ambiguous - open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations

  • Reflection - casting back a light or heat, mirroring or giving back or showing an image

  • Merge - combine or cause to combine to form a single entity

  • Perspective - the position from which something is viewed

  • Judgemental - to express a bad opinion of someone's behaviour, often because you think you are better than them

Common misconception

Analysing a text is an individual exercise.

Having discussions around a text can help us build on our ideas and reconsider different ways of interpreting the text.


To help you plan your year 11 English lesson on: Writing and developing a response to an unseen poem, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

It would be useful for pupils to share their discussions with the rest of the class so that there is a large pool of ideas to consider when building on their response.
Teacher tip

Equipment

You will need a copy of Helen Dunmore’s ‘Next Door’ which is available in the additional materials.

Content guidance

  • Depiction or discussion of sensitive content

Supervision

Adult supervision recommended

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

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