Love Through the Ages Pre- and Post-1900: Poetry Companions for AS/A Level AQA A (first teaching 2015)

Comprehensive companions enhance students' discovery of these new poetry anthologies.

An excellent resource... Does the leg work that busy HoDs and departments don't have time for

R Haywood, HoD & Customer (Post-1900)
  • Designed to be co-teachable for AS and A Level.
  • AO references throughout link learning directly to the exam.

Carefully structured to guide students through the entire process towards writing top-graded essays, these companions:

  1. Introduce the key skills for analysing poetry
    Explanations and examples of all the poetic terminology needed. Form, Structure and Language are all explored (areas where students sometimes struggle in understanding).
  2. Focus on each poem
    • Pre-reading engages students through independent research
    • Glossary aids understanding of unfamiliar terms
    • Questions with suggested answers aid analysis and build confidence
    • Critical views focus on AO5, while extension tasks stretch the more able
  3. Link it all together
    Explores common themes, so that students can learn to compare and contrast while also undertaking useful revision.
  4. Help students to develop essay technique
    • Essay-writing advice – understand what the examiners will be looking for
    • Sample plans – learn to structure essays for best results
    • Exemplar essays – know what is required for the highest marks!

Very good, especially for planning and revision... Succinct [and] very user-friendly

HoD & Customer (Pre-1900)
Plus! For pre-1900 only: Help auditory learners – all 14 poems are on an accompanying CD
  • Readings can be played in class or uploaded onto a VLE
  • Breathe life into study – fully engage students
  • Familiarise students with key aspects of spoken poetry – including metre, rhyme and rhythm
  • Read aloud by experienced West End actors!

What do teachers say about this resource? (6569)

What an excellent resource – I want one! Would be a perfect companion to teaching the new specification for the first time... The 'PoetBook' pages were an excellent and engaging way to connect pupils with the authors and their contexts which they desperately need to engage with. I also liked the strong references and worksheets for form, structure and language as this is an area that AS students find a nightmare. Linked directly to the assessment objectives... It interprets the spec exactly.

K Chanter, English Teacher & Peer Reviewer (Pree-1900, 1st edition)

Very good, especially for planning and revision... Succinct [and] very user-friendly.

HoD & Customer (Pre-1900)

Great! Has been really helpful in setting revision homeworks... Logically laid out... Creates a consistent framework for prep and revision... Find the dosh – buy it!

D Foley, Teacher & Customer (Pre-1900)

The resource is very comprehensive; I liked the poem-by-poem activities to provide teachers with starting points for annotations and class discussion... The practice essays at the end were very helpful and clearly laid out – students would like these a lot and find them useful. The exemplar essays will prove a useful classroom tool for exploring different strengths and weaknesses... The resource would undoubtedly enhance learning particularly because of the inclusion of the targeted questions and the exemplar essays. Students will have a thorough understanding of the different demands of the examination.

C Webb, Head of Sixth Form & Peer Reviewer (Pre-1900, 1st edition)

What do teachers say about this resource? (5986)

An excellent resource providing a useful starting place when teaching a new anthology... Provides links to other resources – does the leg work that busy HoDs and departments don't have time for.

R Haywood, HoD & Customer (Post-1900)

Offers some challenging approaches to the poetry and is well-focused on the AQA specification, both in terms of tasks and assessment at AS and A Level... I particularly liked the idea of 'Poetbook' for students to be able to build up biographical and ideological details about each of the poets. The inclusion of extension tasks – especially those using real world resources to generate comments for AO5 and therefore leading to the development of AO1 arguments – was excellent as it is nice to be able to reflect the real world in approaches to literary texts. The provision of answers for all of the questions was good, especially with the tight focus on the various AOs. Similarly, sample essay answers are always useful to help students develop their own essay writing technique... The resource provides an opportunity to students to work independently and, as such, would work well as a revision tool in itself, or to allow teachers to support smaller groups of students while other students could continue working on their own.

R Shakeshaft, HoD & Peer Reviewer

I was impressed by the comprehensive nature of the resource... I liked the way in which the initial questions were followed by a series of more probing points and critical viewpoints so that students are encouraged to develop a more in-depth response... I particularly liked the fact that there were essays from each section of the exam paper and there were different ideas about essay planning which is always a tricky area... Activities are linked particularly effectively to the different assessment objectives... Well geared up for the AQA A syllabus [with] a solid understanding of the demands of the different assessment objectives.

C Webb, Head of Sixth Form & Peer Reviewer (Post-1900)

A really good resource with an excellent focus on the exam... The direct links to the specification are excellent [as are] the references to form, structure and language... The sample essays and AO tables are really good and would be very useful in the classroom... A brilliant first teaching / revision tool for the anthology.

K Chanter, English Teacher & Peer Reviewer