This resource provides a full lesson on Ciaran O’Driscoll’s poem Please Hold from Poems of the Decade, designed for A-Level English Literature students studying the Edexcel 9ET0 specification. The lesson encourages critical analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of the poem’s themes, language, and structure.
The lesson involves:
- Starter activity: Students reflect on whether technology is improving or worsening human life with visual prompts.
- Class reading of Please Hold.
- Thematic interpretation activity: Students choose from several critical perspectives on the poem. They identify quotations supporting their chosen interpretation.
- Analytical questions: Key questions are provided to explore repetition, irony, tone, structure, and the critique of modern life.
- Extended writing question: An non-comparative, exam-style question is provided with success criteria to help students aim for Level 5 Responses.
- Plenary: A Think-Pair-Share activity where students relate the poem to their personal experiences. Do they agree with O’Driscoll’s critique of technology?
- The resource is now updated with a comparative essay question for Please Hold and Wole Soyinka’s Telephone Conversation. The poem itself is not included for copyright reasons, but is easily sourced online.
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