‘Ambulances’ – Larkin – A Level Poetry Teaching Pack

• Teaching Pack
  A detailed planning document for teachers, offering a choice of activities in each of the four phases with full implementation notes, timings, suggested answers and extensions. It covers:

• Close reading: the opening simile, the stretcher scene, the plain style of “So permanent and blank and true”, and the whispered “Poor soul”.

• Form: the poem’s tightening rhyme and its tetrameter line.

• Debate: a structured debate on pessimism and sympathy.

• Writing tasks: comparative planning with ‘Aubade’, three essay questions, and creative writing from an onlooker’s point of view.

• Research: investigation into The Movement, the satirical tradition of Pope and Swift, and the modern memento mori.

It also includes five student handouts, a 15-question Kahoot quiz and three Wordwall activities, all of which can be run as paper tasks. You’ll also find alternative activities, including comparative groupings with ‘The Suicide’, ‘Nothing to be Said’, ‘The Building’ and Duffy’s ‘Never Go Back’. A suggested one-hour route through the material is included. The pack closes with a critical contexts section covering Larkin and The Movement, the main critical readings of the poem, and a further reading list.