Power and Conflict: Poetry Anthology Resource Packs for GCSE AQA

Explore your chosen cluster of poems with these student-friendly packs. Visual overviews, analysis, mind maps and exam preparation lead students through each poem and theme in the GCSE AQA Poetry Anthology. Everything you need to tackle these poems in class, for homework or as revision.

Invaluable to pupils as it is so comprehensive... Wish I had had it before I started teaching the poems!

S Boulton, English Teacher & Peer Reviewer

1. Detailed Individual and Whole-anthology Analysis!

  • Develop understanding of each poem with insightful and thorough analysis. Each poem is concisely summarised in a visual overview sheet, then investigated in depth.
  • Take a broader look by exploring key themes, ideas and issues shared across the anthology.
  • Key quotation analysis included throughout.

Does everything the busy teacher needs... I would definitely purchase this for my department

P Town, HoD & Peer Reviewer

2. Effective AO Support!

  • Differentiated questions to deepen understanding and encourage informed, personal responses needed to hit AO1.
  • Use short comprehension questions for homework or quick-fire classwork and ‘deeper thinking’ questions to stretch and challenge high flyers!
  • AO2 focused ‘Language Close-up’ and analysis – provides insight on key literary and linguistic features.
  • Valuable contextual and biographical info for each poem to meet AO3 requirements.
  • PLUS! ‘Link’ boxes and comparative mind maps help students discover connections and comparisons across poems.

Excellent resource and one of the best that I have seen for this new specification

S Fallon, English Teacher & Peer Reviewer

3. Excellent Exam Prep!

  • Original exam-style essay questions with indicative content – great practice for the real thing!
  • Helpful exam tips and guidance so students can develop and refine exam technique.
  • Suggested answers for questions and activities – makes peer- or self-marking simple.
  • Includes two sample essay answers per pack with examiner commentary and AO mark-up – students find out what the examiner is looking for and how to improve their answers.

What do teachers say about this resource? (6657)

Superb resource with detailed analysis... Some interesting insights into the poems and clever guides to assist students with comparison and understanding... It is thorough and accurate, and the poetry analysis and theme comparison fit the specification perfectly. The hints about possible answers are really good as they guide the student without revealing actual answers.The levelled sample answers are so helpful. The layout is interesting and inviting, and this would really help teachers to teach the new specification. Exam preparation linked with the comparative mind maps is so useful, and the 'deep thinking' questions can be used for differentiation in the classroom to stretch brighter students. Excellent resource and one of the best that I have seen for this new specification.

S Fallon, English Teacher & Peer Reviewer

I have looked at a lot of resources but this one is by far the best. Yes, it is simple BUT it does everything the busy teacher needs when teaching a packed, linear GCSE that requires students to memorise a lot of content... Ideal for busy teachers, especially for the newer, more intricate poems in the collection. Also ideal for quick and easy cover. It allows students at all levels to gain understanding of the poems through the differentiated levels of questioning. It also provides useful revision material for each poem in a simple, student-friendly way... All poems and points are covered, along with questions to enhance student mastery of each poem but more importantly offering several possible comparisons – one of the things lots of other resources I've looked at don't do. The sample essays are also much needed. I would definitely purchase this for my department.

P Town, HoD & Peer Reviewer

This resource is amazing! Wish I had had it before I started teaching the poems! It's so comprehensive and detailed. I loved the links which suggest comparative poems. I liked the layout of the analysis, which was very child-friendly. I liked the fact that it also looked at themes. Some of the poems like 'Tissue' are really challenging. This resource is invaluable to pupils as it is so comprehensive. Could use each for each poem or as a revision pack. Best resource I have seen so far for the poetry.

S Boulton, English Teacher & Peer Reviewer

I think this is an excellent resource; it is a thorough approach to the teaching of the various poems in the anthology and it is the most thorough approach of those I’ve seen so far.

K Chanter, English Teacher & Peer Reviewer

A very comprehensive resource which offers a large number of ways to interact with and to teach pupils... It is also an excellent resource to have a specific exam board focus rather than materials generically applied to a variety of exam boards. The specific needs and foci of AQA are specifically addressed.

S Freeburn, Teacher & Peer Reviewer

On the whole, I really liked this resource. I thought it was a good balance between covering each of the poems in detail and dealing with the anthology as a whole eg. links between the poems and the types of questions that might be asked to link the poems together.

I thought the idea of a mind map overview for each poem was excellent and would be really useful to students. The analysis page and questions for each poem were also good and I particularly liked the links made to other poems. Additionally, the theme sections towards the end of the resource were useful as a starting point for making connections in response to questions. The list of exam questions and sample answers were also helpful.

It has clearly been written with the new specification in mind and deals with the assessment objectives well.

T Panayiotou, Teacher and Pper Reviewer