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OCR Unseen Poetry Teaching Companion (2015 exams)

A comprehensive companion for anyone teaching the new strengthened GCSE OCR English Literature specifications which includes 15 set poems as part of the A664 unseen contemporary poetry element (exams from 2015).

The resource has been designed to help students to become familiar with the skills needed to respond to an unseen poem in an exam by using the following techniques:

  1. Explaining how to approach analysing an unseen poem and what the OCR exam expects
  2. Analysing all set 15 poems in reference to their over-riding heading of ‘Imagery and Language’, ‘Voice and Tone’, and ‘Form and Structure’ in a student-friendly tone and easy-to-follow format with engaging activities
  3. Practice exam questions and responses as exemplars

Imagery and Language
  • Gillian Clarke, My Box
  • Seamus Heaney, Blackberry Picking
  • Sylvia Plath, Mirror
  • Dannie Abse, Imitations
  • Ted Hughes, Wind
Voice and Tone
  • Carol Ann Duffy, Stealing
  • Benjamin Zephaniah, What Stephen Lawrence has Taught Us
  • Elaine Feinstein, Dad
  • Tony Harrison, From Long Distance
  • Douglas Dunn, I am a Cameraman
Form and Structure
  • Wendy Cope, Strugnell’s Sonnets
  • Simon Armitage, Mother Any Distance
  • Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning
  • Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken