How does Blake Present Anger in: A Poison Tree?

English literature teaching resource focused on William Blake’s poem A Poison Tree. The lesson explores how Blake uses the extended metaphor of a tree to develop ideas about anger, resentment, and the consequences of suppressing negative emotions.

The resource guides students through:

Revisiting prior learning on poetic terminology, including language, form, structure, and monologue.
Building subject vocabulary through the study of metaphor, extended metaphor, stanza, and symbolism.
Exploring the symbolism of trees and considering how they can represent growth, power, life, and human experiences.
Investigating the theme of anger and discussing the effects of dwelling on negative emotions.
Analysing Blake’s extended metaphor of the “poison tree” and examining how concealed anger develops into hatred and a desire for revenge.
Understanding how communication can resolve conflict, while repressed emotions can lead to harmful consequences.

The presentation includes vocabulary activities, discussion tasks, visual stimuli, teacher explanations, guided analysis of the poem, and scaffolded analytical writing tasks. Students are encouraged to support interpretations with evidence, make inferences, analyse language and structural choices, and consider Blake’s intended impact on the reader.