Inside the scheme: Unseen poetry

Transcript

Introduction0:00

This is Between the Lines, and this is the walkthrough of our Unseen poetry scheme of learning. I'm Hannah. If you're teaching this scheme this term, the next half hour is for you. If you lead the department, it's for your whole team, and it's the simplest way I know to make sure that every class doing Unseen poetry gets the same lessons, the same support and the same assessment, whoever is standing at the front. We'll go through the scheme as a whole, then into one lesson, so you can see Know, Apply and Master working on a poem. We'll look at the three levels of support, Securing, Strengthening and Soaring, and how you move students between them in a real classroom. We'll go inside a Feedback Loop kit, the independent practice booklets, the end-of-unit assessment, the catch-up sheets for missed lessons, and the inclusion guide for students with SEND, students with English as an additional language and pupil premium students. Nothing in this video is a sales pitch. You already have the files. This is the staff meeting you'd have if I could come in and run it, so pause it, open the folders alongside it, and make notes on anything you want to change, because every

The scheme at a glance1:03

file is editable and we'd encourage that. Start with the file called Start here, because that is where I'd start a new member of staff. Unseen poetry is written for Literature Paper 2, Section C, unseen poetry. It's 12 lessons of sixty minutes, which is about three weeks, with three levels of support throughout. The lessons run in three sequences: Reading one poem, lessons 1 to 4; Comparing two poems, lessons 5 to 8; The exam, lessons 9 to 12. There are three assessment points. Two are Feedback Loop kits, in lessons 4 and 8, the first on one poem, the second a comparison, and the third is the end-of-unit assessment in Lesson 11, with its feedback lesson after it. The folder list on page two tells you what every file is and who it's for. The teacher handbook, the slides and the Feedback Loop teacher guides are yours. The student packs, the independent practice booklets and the catch-up sheets go to students. The inclusion guide is for you, and the key words list beside it is for them. Page two also has getting started in four steps: read Part 1 of the handbook, print the student packs or share the PDFs, open the slides for Lesson 1, and look ahead to the kit lessons so you know when the progress checks fall. The last pages are the unit at a glance, every lesson with its big question and its assessment point. Twelve lessons sounds short, and it is meant to be. The scheme teaches one reading routine and practises it on twelve poems in themed pairs, so the comparison in 28.2 is rehearsed from Lesson 5 onwards. If you only pin one page to the department noticeboard, pin the unit at a glance,

The teacher handbook2:43

because it's the map every teacher of this scheme is following. The teacher handbook is the long document, and it's built so that nobody has to read all of it before Lesson 1. Part 1, about this unit, takes ten minutes. It opens with the big question the whole scheme is answering: How do you find what a poem is doing when you have never seen it before? Then the intent, and what students can do by the end: read an unseen poem with a routine, what happens, who speaks, how it feels, how the poet does it; analyse imagery, sound, form and structure with precise terminology; write What–How–Why paragraphs that explore more than one reading; compare the methods two poets use; and plan and write answers to 28.1 and 28.2 in 45 minutes. It sets out the exam: two questions on poems students have not seen before: 28.1 asks how the poet presents something in one poem, twenty-four marks for AO1 and AO2, and 28.2 asks students to compare the methods of that poem with a second, eight marks for AO2 only, about forty-five minutes in all, with context not assessed and no AO4. The twelve poems are all in the public domain, chosen in themed pairs and printed in full, so every poem is also practice for the comparison question. Part 2 is the unit map, the sequences and then every lesson in a table. Part 3 is the lesson notes, and this is the part a teacher opens every day. Every lesson has the same layout: the big question and outcomes, a lesson at a glance table with timings and the slide numbers for each phase, the Do Now answers, the vocabulary and the reading, the exploded quotation, the hinge question with a note on what each wrong answer tells you, the Master task at three levels, a model paragraph, the exit ticket, and then teacher notes: subject knowledge, common misconceptions, how to adapt the lesson, and the inclusion notes for that lesson. Part 4 is the assessment guide and Part 5 is the knowledge bank, which runs to several pages, because we think the person at the front should know more than the slide says. We wrote these notes with two readers in mind. The experienced English teacher who wants to check the reading of a line before they teach it, and the teacher who didn't train in English and has been given a Year 11 class in September.

How a lesson works: Know and Apply4:57

Both get the same page, and both get what they need from it. Every lesson runs the same way: Know, Apply, Master. Students learn the shape in the first week, and after that their effort goes into the thinking, because they already know what's coming next. Let me show you with Lesson 3, The shape of a poem. The big question is: How do form and structure carry meaning? Know takes about fifteen to twenty minutes. The Do Now is five quick questions from memory, on earlier lessons and the reading, and students self-mark from the answer slide. Then vocabulary. We teach four words explicitly, not twelve. Here it's sonnet, volta, counsel and vestige. Then the reading: Christina Rossetti's Remember, from 1862, printed in full, with students counting the lines and listening for the word that keeps returning. Apply is about fifteen minutes, and it has two parts. First you explode one quotation together. In this lesson it's "Yet if you should forget me for a while". Before you reveal anything, students try the four empty boxes on the first explode slide: method, zoom in, effect, purpose. Then you think aloud through the full version. The method is the volta at line 9, where a Petrarchan sonnet turns. The word to zoom in on is "Yet": it warns us that the argument is about to change, and "forget" appears for the first time after three uses of "remember". The effect: the tone softens from command to permission, so the reader hears the speaker changing their mind. The purpose: Rossetti uses the turn in the form to show love that can let go, because the speaker wants the lover's happiness more than their memory. That is the whole analytical move the exam rewards, done out loud, once a lesson, for the whole scheme. Then the hinge question, on mini-whiteboards. In lines 1 to 8 the speaker keeps saying "Remember me". What changes from line 9? The right answer is B: the speaker allows the lover to forget, if remembering would make them sad. And this is the bit I'd ask every teacher to use. The handbook tells you what each wrong answer means. A student who picks A, that the speaker gives up on the lover, has seen the change but missed its kindness, so you ask them to read the last two lines aloud. A student who picks C has read "silent land" literally, so you recap euphemisms for death and start them on Securing. The hinge question is how you decide, in thirty seconds, who starts on which level of support.

Master: one question, three levels7:27

That's what it's for. Master is the last twenty-five minutes, and it's where the three levels do their work. Everyone in the room answers the same question as a What–How–Why paragraph. In Lesson 3 it's: In Remember, how does the poet present the speaker's feelings about being remembered? Securing, aiming for a 4, gives a choice of exact quotations, here "Remember me when I am gone away", "Only remember me; you understand" and "Better by far you should forget and smile", a worked example on a different quotation, and sentence starters for What, How and Why. Strengthening, aiming for grades 5 to 6, gives prompts instead of starters: a clear point for What, then choose a quotation from before or after line 9, name the method, repetition, imperative, volta or euphemism, and zoom in on one word, and for Why, what the poet wants the reader to feel when the speaker lets the lover forget, with a checklist. Soaring, aiming for grades 7 to 9, gives a debatable statement to argue with: The speaker of Remember is more generous than loving. How far do you agree? Two paragraphs, the second beginning with an alternative reading. Same poem, same question, same standard. Only the scaffolding changes. Then the model paragraph is shared in the last five minutes. The What line in this one is: In Remember, the poet presents a speaker whose wish to be remembered changes into a wish for the lover to be happy. And the exit ticket is a sentence to finish: The volta at line 9 of Remember matters because... Collect those and sort them into three piles, and you've planned the start of the next lesson. Now, how the levels work in practice, because this is the part that matters most for consistency across a department. The levels describe the support and the target grade. They don't describe the student. We never say lower ability or top set in these resources, and I'd ask you not to either. Students start where the hinge question and the last exit ticket put them, and they move up the moment they can work without the support. That can be within a lesson. The adapting notes say it plainly: anyone who completes the Securing frame in ten minutes moves to the Strengthening prompts for a second paragraph. A student who starts the scheme on Securing should not be on Securing in Lesson 12 because nobody moved them. The What–How–Why paragraph is the same shape every time: a point that answers the question, a short embedded quotation with the method named and one word explained, and what the poet wanted readers to think or feel. In this scheme it's always a paragraph, because the exam asks for analysis and comparison and nothing else, and the quickest way to get good at a paragraph is

Independent practice10:04

to write one every lesson. The independent practice booklets are six weeks of homework, about twenty minutes a week. Each week has one short text about a method poets use, with examples from the poems in the unit, followed by four questions. The six weeks cover imagery; sound; rhythm and line; form; structure; and voice and tone. Students read the text twice, underline the three things that matter most, and answer every question in full sentences, looking back at the text so they're never guessing. And where a question asks them to, students try the method on a poem from the unit, so the booklet practises the exam skill as well as the term. Every level covers the same method and the same examples each week. Securing has word help and sentence starters; Soaring asks for more. A student can move up a level whenever they're ready, just as in lessons. For an unseen paper this is the most useful homework there is, because the methods are the only thing students can take into the exam with them. Nobody can revise the poem.

Feedback Loop kits11:05

Everybody can revise what a volta does. Two times in the scheme, the Master phase is a Feedback Loop kit: a twenty-five minute progress check that fits inside the lesson. Kit 1 is in Lesson 4, and its question is: In Piano, how does the poet present the speaker's feelings about the past? The teacher guide tells you how to run it, step by step. Students read four common mistakes and a tip for three minutes. For this kit one of the mistakes is saying the poem is happy because the memory is warm, when the speaker weeps and fights the memory: "In spite of myself" shows he does not want to be carried back. The tip is to track the time in the poem, because it starts in the present, slides into the past, and in the last stanza the past wins, and that movement is a method you can write about. We put the misconceptions at the start on purpose. After ten years of marking this question I know what students are going to write, so instead of correcting it afterwards, we tell them before they begin. Then nine minutes on three short questions, one each for What, How and Why: two details the speaker remembers from his childhood; to name a method in one line and say what it shows about the feeling; and what the poet might want the reader to feel about a grown man who weeps for his childhood. The teacher guide has the acceptable answers with marks. Then thirteen minutes on one What–How–Why paragraph, with words to describe and terms to analyse printed above it, describing words such as nostalgic, reluctant and overwhelmed, and terms such as sibilance, rhyming couplet and volta, and a checklist to tick before they hand it in. You place the paragraph in one of the six AQA levels, using our indicative content for this task. There is no raw mark, and that's deliberate. A six out of thirty tells a student one thing, that they got six. A level, in AQA's own words, tells them what the paragraph does now and what the next one asks for. Then the sheet that saves the evening: the whole-class feedback sheet. You read the paragraphs, note the patterns, and fill in one sheet for the class. What went well, for example, most of you chose short quotations such as "Betrays me back" and named a method before explaining what the quotation shows. Even better when, and we always say when, never if, for example, push your Why further: say what the poet wants the reader to feel at the end, when a grown man weeps like a child. The four common mistakes are listed with a tally. A level spread, so you know where the class sits. Students to praise and students to support. And a box for what to re-teach at the start of next lesson. That one sheet goes in your mark book, and for a head of department it's the quickest honest picture of a class you'll get. Finally the improvement tasks, one for every level, done in green pen at the start of the next lesson, in place of the Do Now. Level 1: write one sentence saying how the speaker feels about his childhood, add "the heart of me weeps", then one sentence explaining what "weeps" tells you about the feeling. Level 2: zoom in on "cosy" in "the cosy parlour" and write two sentences on how this word, set against the winter outside, makes the past feel safe and warm. Level 5: write about structure: explain how the present gives way to the past across the three stanzas, and what "So now" in the last stanza shows has changed. Nobody rewrites the whole thing.

The end-of-unit assessment14:27

Everybody improves one paragraph from the level they reached. The end-of-unit assessment comes in Lesson 11. Lesson 9 plans a 24-mark answer to question 28.1 in thirty minutes, and Lesson 10 plans the methods comparison for 28.2 in ten. The paper looks like the exam: two poems the students have not seen, question 28.1 on the first for twenty-four marks and 28.2 comparing the methods of both for eight, with planning space and lined answer space. 45 minutes in all, with the instruction to move on to 28.2 at the thirty-minute mark. The teacher guide gives you level guidance for this question, and three complete model answers written at Securing, Strengthening and Soaring, each labelled with its AQA level, Level 3, Level 4 and Level 6, with notes on why each one sits where it does and what would move it up. Essays come back with a level and a comment, and no mark, for the same reason as the kits. Then Lesson 12 is the feedback lesson: students find their level group, read the model answer nearest to theirs, and redraft one paragraph in green pen with the improvement task for their band. For a department, the useful thing here is that every class in the cohort sits the same paper, under the same conditions, placed in levels against the same indicative content.

Missed a lesson: the catch-up sheets15:46

That makes moderation a conversation about student work, which is what it should be. Attendance is the thing none of us can fully control, and it has a bigger effect on outcomes than most things we can. So every lesson in this scheme has a one-page catch-up sheet, in folder nine, Missed a lesson, and the page numbers match the lesson numbers, so you print page 3 for a student who missed Lesson 3. Here's Lesson 1. What you missed, in three bullets, for example: you learned a reading routine for any new poem: what happens, who speaks, what changes, then how the poet does it. The four key words with their meanings. The quotation to know, "No one left and no one came", with a sentence on what it shows. Then catch up in about fifteen minutes: three short steps. For Lesson 1 that's to read Adlestrop twice, once for what happens and once listening for every sound, learn the four words, speaker, unwontedly, pastoral and tone, then write a What–How–Why paragraph on how the poet presents a moment of stillness. A check question: what changes in the last stanza of Adlestrop? And at the bottom, the teacher check-in box: caught up, talked it through with me, needs a catch-up session, and your initials. The answers to the check questions are at the back, for you. The onus is on the student to catch up, and the sheet says so. But our most struggling and most disengaged students will not do it on their own, and they are the students who can least afford the gap. So the sheet is only finished when that box is ticked, and the check-in is the class teacher's job at the start of the next lesson the student attends. My suggestion is the one I'd use myself. When the student comes back, they do the catch-up sheet instead of the Do Now, and the sheet is stapled into their book. The comparison lessons depend on poems from earlier lessons, so a missed lesson in week one shows up in week two. If a student misses a kit or the assessment, they sit it as soon as they're back, before the feedback lesson. And when someone asks what the department does about students who miss learning, the

The inclusion guide: SEND, EAL and pupil premium17:49

answer is in their books, done, with a date and your initials on it. The inclusion guide is the document I'd most like every teacher of this scheme to have read before Lesson 1, and it's also the one that most often sits unopened in the folder, so here it is. It covers students with SEND, students learning English as an additional language, and pupil premium students, and it opens with our approach in one paragraph. In this unit that matters more than usual, because the exam poems are unseen for everyone: nobody can revise the answer, and every student needs the same reading routine. What changes is the support. The destination stays the same: a thesis about the whole poem, a method named, one word explored, and a comparison of methods in 28.2. A student may start with the poem boxed by stanza, a word bank with pictures, or a frame for the first sentence, and move off it as the hinge question and the paragraph show they are ready. For students with SEND the guide works through a short list of moves: box the poem by stanza, with lines numbered where a turn matters; one routine, every poem, with the same four questions on the board in every lesson; grids before paragraphs, the four-box stanza plan for 28.1 and the three-row comparison grid for 28.2; mark sounds and shifts with symbols; hear it before reading it, read aloud twice; and timing made visible, with a printed strip on the desk for the 45 minutes. For students learning English as an additional language: pictures for the nature words, willow-herb, linnets, a coppice gate; old forms explained once, thy, vanish'd, O for; hear the sound effects, since sibilance and half-rhyme are easiest to grasp aloud; frames for comparison with the connective printed; talk before writing, in English or first in the home language; and a translation column on the vocabulary list. For pupil premium students: build the places, with a photo of a rural railway platform or an Irish lake island; copies for home, since all twelve poems are short and in the public domain; question first, then build, starting with what happens or what the speaker wants; context in one sentence, because context earns no marks here but a sentence of it helps understanding; equipment for the assessment, down to a visible clock; and the catch-up sheet as a check-in. Then the part that makes it usable: lesson by lesson notes. For every lesson there are four lines. Pre-teach, the words or idea to cover with a small group before the lesson, in tutor time or at the door. SEND. EAL. Pupil premium. For Lesson 3 the pre-teach is sonnet, octave, sestet and volta, with a fourteen-line grid drawn on the board, so a group that knows the shape before the reading can spend the lesson on what the turn does. The SEND note is to give the poem with the lines numbered and line 9 shaded, and reduce copying with a two-column table, before the volta and after, with one quotation in each. The EAL note: explain the euphemisms "gone away" and "the silent land" as gentle ways of saying dying and death, and add counsel and vestige to the vocabulary list for translation. And for pupil premium students, check every student has the poem in front of them, ask a pupil premium student first what the speaker wants in the first eight lines, and build to the turn together. Those same four lines are printed in the handbook at the end of each lesson's notes, after Adapting the lesson, so the teacher planning the lesson sees them without opening a second document. Beside the guide is the key words list for students: the words from the unit, each with its word class, its meaning, an example sentence and a My notes column for a translation or a picture. Two things I'd say to a head of department. First, what helps students with SEND helps the whole room, which is why the slides are cream, the fonts are plain and nothing flies in from the side. Second, these notes assume you know your students' needs and access arrangements better than we do. They're a starting point written by a teacher, for a teacher, and they're there to

Fonts, printing, slides and editing21:58

be edited. A few practical things that save arguments. Everything uses Calibri for reading and Cambria for headings, because both come with Microsoft Office on Windows and Mac and with Google Docs and Slides. Nothing to install, and no reformatting when a file moves between platforms. The student pages are white, with colour only on small panels, so the packs are cheap to print in black and white. Students who find a tint easier to read can have their pack printed on cream, pale blue or pale lilac paper, which also covers the access arrangement for coloured paper without an overlay. The slides are cream for the same reason, with no slide numbers, no clutter and nothing animated, and every slide carries teacher notes, so in presenter view you see the knowledge students need to take from that slide. Print the student packs once at the start of the scheme. Every Do Now, every poem, every task and every exit ticket is already in there, so nobody is at the photocopier at twenty-five past eight. If students work on devices, share the PDFs instead. And edit. If your class brings a different misconception from the one we've written into a hinge question, change the hinge question. If you want a different Do Now because you know what they got wrong last week, write it. The Word and PowerPoint files are there so you can. Your licence covers editing, printing for your students and uploading to your school's own secure platform. The only things it asks you not to do are share the files outside the school or put

Getting started as a department23:21

them on a public website. So, how to start as a department. Four steps, the same four that are on page two of Start here, and I'd do them together in one meeting. One, everyone reads Part 1 of the teacher handbook. Ten minutes. Two, decide who prints and who shares PDFs, and agree that every student starts on the level the hinge question puts them on, and moves. Three, open the Lesson 1 slides together and walk through Know, Apply and Master once, so the shape is shared. Four, put the kit lessons, 4 and 8, and the assessment in Lesson 11, in the department calendar, so every class reaches each progress check in the same week or near it. Then two things I'd add. Agree the reading routine as a department, what happens, who speaks, what changes, how the poet does it, and use the same four questions in every classroom, because that routine is what students take into the exam. And after each Feedback Loop kit, bring the whole-class feedback sheets to the next department meeting. One sheet per class. The level spread and the re-teach box will tell you more about where the cohort is than any spreadsheet, and the conversation about what to re-teach is the CPD. That's the Unseen poetry scheme. The same structure runs through every Between the Lines scheme, so a teacher who has taught one has taught the shape of all of them, and a student who moves classes mid-year lands in a lesson they recognise. Lesson 3 of every scheme is free at btl.education if you want to show a colleague what a lesson looks like before they open the folders. Thank you for watching, and I hope your classes find the poems as rewarding as mine have.