The Wake - Owen Sheers Teaching Pack

‘The Wake’ – Sheers – A Level Poetry Bundle: Teaching PowerPoint, Revision Sheet and Teaching Pack

Everything you need to teach and revise Owen Sheers’ ‘The Wake’ from Skirrid Hill, written by Andy Hurley, former Principal Examiner, HMI Inspector and Headteacher. The resources are built around the Assessment Objectives rather than a single specification, so they work for any A Level English Literature course. Please check the requirements of the specification you are teaching. The bundle explores a poem grounded in a real visit to Sheers’ dying grandfather, a doctor who chose to refuse further treatment. Students unpack the three meanings folded into the title: the gathering after a death, the trace a ship leaves behind it, and the state of being awake. They track how Sheers extends a single nautical metaphor until familiar images gain real precision, and consider how the poem moves from the curse of too much knowledge to stoic acceptance. Activities are pitched from C grade to undergraduate standard. What’s included 1. Teaching PowerPoint Phase-coded slides built around the four-phase learning continuum: Connect, Activate, Demonstrate and Consolidate. There is no lesson framing, so you can sequence the material over one, two or three lessons to suit your timetable. The deck moves from context and pre-reading activities, through modelled close reading of the poem, to independent analysis, critical discussion and essay planning. Bridge slides mark natural pauses between phases. The deck is fully self-contained: every instruction, question, answer and piece of teacher guidance sits in the presenter notes, with suggested timings for each activity. 2. Student Revision Sheet Seven sections: Overview, Form and Structure, Close Analysis, Key Themes, Context (AO3), Critical Perspectives (AO5), and Study Questions and Extension Activities. It finishes with a Quote Quilt, a one-page grid of key quotations with brief analysis, coded for voices, themes and contexts. Ideal for independent study, homework or exam revision. 3. Teaching Pack A detailed planning document for teachers, offering a choice of activities in each of the four phases, with full implementation notes and timings. It covers: Starters: title prediction, knowledge as a curse, a skills primer on building an extended metaphor, and borders and thresholds. Context: the biographical background to the poem. Close reading: mapping the nautical metaphor, form and breath in the tercets, the doctor’s diagnosis, the turn where the visitor’s argument fails, and the departure and the wake. Comparison: a paired reading with Christina Rossetti’s ‘Remember’. Consolidation: quotation flash recall, a motif summary, a debate, essay planning and a creative writing homework. The pack also includes an eleven-item Wordwall question bank, set out as linked Match Up, Group Sort, Missing Word, Anagram and True or False activities that can also be printed as paper worksheets. Five student handouts cover annotation, essay planning, creative writing, comparative analysis and research. You’ll also find alternative activities, essay challenges, and a critical contexts section on Skirrid Hill and the poetry of separation, with critical perspectives and further reading. The pack closes with a breakdown of how the activities align with AO1 to AO5. Who it’s for This bundle is for teachers planning a first teaching of the poem and for departments building a shared scheme. It also suits students revising on their own. A free seminar on this poem is available on the A Level AHEAD YouTube channel and works well as pre-teaching or revision alongside this bundle.