John Donne: The Complete Poetry Pack | Leaving Cert English Higher Level

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

Donne's poems are arguments: they twist, double back and surprise. This pack helps students follow that logic for themselves and write about it with confidence, rather than learning someone else's notes by heart. Each of the five poems comes with a student workbook, teacher slides and master notes, all following the same lesson sequence. A revision and essay-writing unit 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**

- Song: Go, and catch a falling star

- The Flea

- The Sunne Rising

- A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

- Batter my heart

**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 past Leaving Cert Higher Level questions on Donne.

- **Paper 1 Question B task (inside the workbook):** a writing task based on the poem. The five tasks are an advice-column response, an online response, a proposal, a personal letter and a personal reflection. 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 Unit**

- A 39-page workbook (Word + PDF) plus 46 matching teacher slides

- 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 past-paper titles

- Paper 1 composing (a feature article) 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 teacher guide: the thinking behind the unit, the resources at a glance, the single-poem lesson cycle and an overview of the whole unit

- A 9-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

- 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:** 46 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.