My Last Duchess - Robert Browning

This engaging, comprehensive lesson aims to improve students’ understanding of Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue ‘My Last Duchess’, through focusing comprehensively upon the subject matter, language, and structure of the poem. By the end of the lesson, students demonstrate their knowledge of the poem analytically, through assured, appropriate, and sustained interpretations.

The lesson follows a step-by-step learning journey, in which children learn through:

• Inferring key meanings about the content of the poem using the language in the title;
• Securing contextual understanding of who the real-life Duke may be, and of Robert Browning, the poet;
• Reading and interpreting the poem, using a provided line-by-line analysis, and interactive group activities;
• Developing their understanding through inferring and analysing key language and structural choices;
• Peer assessing each other’s learning attempts.

Included is:

• Whole lesson PowerPoint - colourful and substantial; (including hyperlinks to informative and engaging videos)
• Copy of poem;
• Deeper thinking worksheet (and teacher answer sheet);
• Analysis template with success criteria for creating well-structured responses;
• Comprehensive lesson plan.

There are also opportunities for group learning, peer assessment, and whole class discussion. This was originally taught to middle-ability year 9/10 groups, but can easily be differentiated for groups of different ages and abilities. All resources are provided in both Word (inside the zip file - to allow for editing) and PDF (to prevent formatting issues).

All images are licensed for commercial use, and image rights are listed on the last page of the presentation.