Scheme of work
A term of paired poems
A suggested route through the pairing: a Heaney poem and a Sheers poem each week, tied to a rotating essay theme, with an essay planned in one week and written the next for homework or under timed conditions. Each full essay needs two pairings, four poems in total. Adapt the order to your class; the point is that students always meet the two poets together.
| Week | Focus | Heaney | Sheers | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction and context; Relationships | The Otter | Winter Swans | Essay 1, Relationships (one poem allowed to start) |
| 2 | Violence | Casualty | Mametz Wood | Essay 2, on one poet, marked out of 50 to ease in |
| 3 | Out of the ordinary | The Toome Road | Keyways | Essay 3, first full 60-mark comparison |
| 4 | Loss | The Strand at Lough Beg | The Hill Fort | Essay 4, Loss |
| 5 | The unseen | Oysters | Farther | Essay 5, timed / unseen practice |
| 6 | Journeys | Glanmore Sonnets | Border Country | Essay 6, Journeys |
| 7 | Personal and intimate | Glanmore Sonnets | The Farrier | Essay 7, Personal / intimate |
| Half term | Critical reading and consolidation | - | - | Read Corcoran, Foster, Coutts, Crown; build critic bank |
| 8 | Place | The Singer’s House | The Wake | Essay 8, Place |
| 9 | Senses and intellect | Triptych | Hedge School | Essay 9, Senses and intellect |
| 10 | Consolidation and revision | - | - | Essay technique and comparison lessons |
| 11 | Simple life made vivid | In Memoriam Francis Ledwidge | The Steelworks | Essay 10, Simple life made vivid |
| 12 | Landscape and identity | High Summer | Skirrid Fawr | Wider reading across the collections |
| 13 | Revision | - | - | Timed comparison, past-style questions |
How the essays build
Ease students in: the first essay may rest on a single poem, the second on one poet and be marked out of 50, and from the third onwards they write the full 60-mark comparison on four poems. Early half term is the moment to slow down for critical reading, so that by the spring the class can embed and evaluate critics rather than report them.
Suggested titles for each theme are on the exam skills and practice paper pages; the pairings map onto the comparing grid.