‘You’re’ – Plath – A Level Poetry Bundle: Teaching PowerPoint, Revision Sheet and Teaching Pack
Everything you need to teach and revise Sylvia Plath’s ‘You’re’, 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 centres on the poem’s doubleness: almost every image can be read as both a compliment and a worry. Students explore how the nine-line stanzas mirror the term of a pregnancy, and how the title completes each minor sentence so that nothing is finished until the child arrives. They also weigh how far the poem’s ambivalence counters the expectations placed on mothers in the 1950s. 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. Each activity comes with prompt questions, areas to steer discussion towards, timings and extensions. It covers:
Starters: describing someone you have never seen, the meaning of “nine and nine”, and motherhood in the 1950s.
Close reading: the title as catalyst, the warmth of “my little loaf”, and the images of movement, distance and fog.
Debate and essays: a debate on whether there is an instinctive maternal bond, plus a comparative essay planning framework.
Annotation sequence: a twelve-task sequence that can be run on Kami or entirely on paper. It rises from C grade identification to undergraduate evaluation and comes with suggested answers and mark band guidance for every task.
The pack also includes five student handouts, alternative activities, five essay challenges, and a critical contexts section with a guide to reading Plath and further reading. It 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.
