Poems of the Decade: Activity Pack for AS/A Level Edexcel

Set text for:
Edexcel AS and A Level

Poems of the Decade is a rich collection of poetry by well-known poets and contemporary voices, that vividly encapsulates a wealth of controversies sure to promote debate and discussion. Explore the collection’s diverse themes, from the abstract concepts of love and morality to the most seemingly everyday activities, with this comprehensive and highly engaging Activity Pack. Extension tasks challenge the most able, while comparison tasks for seen and unseen poetry provide essential exam practice for both AS and A Level.

A comprehensive activity pack that exposes students to a variety of methods which work on developing their analytical skills...

...Aims to develop and build confidence with using terminology, identifying poetic form, explaining effects of language and formulating exam answers

L Churchill, English Teacher & Peer Reviewer
Activities include:
  • engaging questions
  • critical thinking
  • close reading
  • pair and group tasks
  • visual, audio and kinaesthetic tasks
  • further research

Accessible for every level and linked to the AOs throughout!

Plus! Answers to all activities included.

  • Prepare
    Pre-reading exercises provide a starting point for study
  • Explore
    Appealing poem-by-poem tasks guide students through the Edexcel prescribed poems, allowing them to gain understanding and analytical skills while remaining engaged
  • Reflect
    Whole-collection activities show the bigger picture, making connections across the anthology, as well as comparison with unseen poetry – perfect exam practice for both AS and A Level!

What do teachers say about this resource? (7483)

I love this resource... It has given me plenty of new and interesting activities to help my students access the poems... [My students] have found the activities engaging... The discussion that the activities has produced have shown a good comprehensive understanding of the poems... The activities have provided my students with a range of skills for analysing poetry... I would definitely recommend this resource as it has enabled me to develop an interesting and fun scheme of work for teaching the poetry.

S Griffiths, Customer & Teacher

Very good. A nice range of activities with a keen sense of purpose. This is a really strong practical classroom-focused A-Level resource - it's stuff you can jolly well get out and use as you teach the poems... This teacher has a lot of empathy for students, and I would buy this resource to supplement my own overly academic and pretentious tendencies - they are really direct, punchy and honest resources that are immediately useful... For me, the strongest section is the 'comparing representations' - this is an excellent idea and it affords pupils the level of independence to really think in an empowered way... Yes I would absolutely [purchase this resource], and aim to deploy maximum passive aggression to oblige my head of department to order it... It's really good to find a resource I would order when I already know the spec well and teach it: it provides me with variety and interest.

B Coulthard, Teacher of English & Peer Reviewer

An engaging resource which provides a series of creative activities to encourage students to interact with, question and debate the poems.

A highly-accessible resource for A-Level students.

Concise introductions to the individual poems which provide an overview for the discussion point, engaging activities which work well with a group, a range of easier and more challenging activities, and a well-laid out teachers’ answers section at the end of the resource.

The range of activities are clearly linked with the assessment objectives throughout the resource, and yet this does not stifle the ability for creativity when working through the poems in the anthology.

The modelling of language analysis for A02 enables students to see how to practically apply their language analysis so they are able to “hit” the higher bands for this AO.

Having a glossary for more complex terminology across different pages works well.

For more-able students, there is also a degree of “stretch and challenge” and encouraging higher-level thinking.

A comprehensive resource which keeps creativity in the classroom and avoids a tick-box approach to the teaching and revision of the post-2000 poems – well done!

J Kearney, Teacher of English & Peer Reviewer

'Such a comprehensive activity pack that exposes students to a variety of methods which work on developing their analytical skills... It aims to develop and build confidence with using terminology, identifying poetic form, explaining effects of language and formulating exam answers... There is such variety that it should appeal to different styles of learner, developing analytical and critical skills... I particularly liked the clear AOs at the start together with direct introduction to the critical reception and context of the Anthology. I loved the way the important basics are tackled first, i.e. brief exploration of what poetry is then straight into the identification of form and the glossary. The variety of analysis really comes into its own when the activities focus on individual poems... The resource enhances learning because it tackles analysis from a variety of perspectives... This resource plays with the standard PEE format, introducing new ways of breaking down ideas and learning terminology... A highly valuable resource...

L Churchill, English Teacher & Peer Reviewer