Paula Meehan: The Complete Poetry Pack | Leaving Cert English Higher Level

Teach Paula Meehan from the first lesson to the final essay. Everything is ready to go and fully editable.

Meehan's poems give voice to Dublin streets, family memory and the lives of women. They are some of the most rewarding poems on the course to teach. This pack takes students through five of them in depth. Each poem comes with a student workbook, teacher slides and master notes, all following the same lesson sequence. A revision and essay-writing workbook then pulls the poems together. Paper 1 Question B and composing tasks, with PCLM feedback sheets, turn the poetry into writing practice for the whole exam.

**The five poems**

- Buying Winkles

- The Pattern

- The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks

- Hearth Lesson

- Prayer for the Children of Longing

**For each poem**

- **Student workbook (25–26 pages, Word + PDF):** vocabulary, technique retrieval, pre-reading discussion, comprehension, true or false, personal response, annotation, a paragraph builder, group discussion, purpose verbs and sentence builders, key moments, a model answer, and exam planning using the 2023 Higher Level Meehan question.

- **Paper 1 Question B task (inside the workbook):** a writing task based on the poem. The five tasks are a personal reflection, a personal letter, a letter to the editor, diary entries and a speech. Each one includes TAPS, a planning frame, a scaffold, an annotated model, examiner's tips and a two-page PCLM feedback sheet.

- **Teacher slides (29 slides, PowerPoint):** they mirror the workbook page by page, with an answer slide after each task.

- **Master notes (2 pages, Word + PDF):** summary, speaker, structure and tone, nine key quotes with technique and effect, context, themes and sample personal responses.

**Revision & Essay-Writing Workbook (38 pages, Word + PDF)**

- A master quote table of all 45 key quotations

- Retrieval practice: thinking quilt, fill-in-the-blanks, quote sort, talk and retrieve, and Four Corners of a Poem

- Making connections across the five poems

- Writing the poetry essay with PCLM: how it's marked, picking your essay, unpacking the question, the paragraph recipe, an essay planner, a word bank, essay structure and timing

- Full plans and model essays for three essay titles

- Paper 1 composing (a short story) with planning, scaffolding, an annotated model and a feedback sheet

**6 PCLM feedback sheets (Word + PDF)**

These are task-specific success criteria written in student language. Each sheet has a grade grid, next steps and a target box, and works for teacher, self or peer marking.

**Teacher guide (Word + PDF)**

- A 10-page plan with two routes through the pack

 - **Route A, the poetry route:** about 19 lessons

 - **Route B, the integrated route:** about 27 lessons, linking the poems to Paper 1

- Lesson-by-lesson and week-by-week guidance, assessment and differentiation notes

- A one-page classroom poster

**Why teachers like it**

- **Consistent lessons:** the same clear sequence for every poem, so students know what to expect and build skills lesson by lesson.

- **Built for how students learn:** retrieval practice, sentence-level writing support and worked models throughout.

- **Covers three exam questions:** Paper 2 poetry, Paper 1 Question B and Paper 1 composing.

- **Editable and printable:** every workbook and set of notes comes as an editable Word file and a print-ready PDF.

**What you get:** 43 files (Word, PDF and PowerPoint), organised in one folder per poem.

Created by Clare Madden, The English Teacher: an experienced secondary English teacher and author of the Touchstones Junior Cycle series.

Please note: this resource is for use by the purchasing teacher and their own classes. Please don't share or upload it elsewhere.