National Poetry Day

The temperature has started dropping, people are discussing Halloween costumes and the layers are creeping out of wardrobes once again. That means it’s October! And in October, National Poetry Day is celebrated every year. (Follow @PoetryDayUK for updates and take a look at #nationalpoetryday.)

On 6th October, especially here in the UK, social media will be filled with extracts of poems and tales of favourites. To celebrate, we have created FOUR free poetry activities for iPads - especially for Year 10s and 11s studying for GCSEs.

Each and every activity relates to AQA English Literature Unit 2: Poetry Across Time, but focuses on a different element of Moon on the Tides. There are:

• Character and Voice (Task Code 1980)
• Place (Task Code 7931)
• Conflict (Task Code 4726)
• Relationships (Task Code 9626)

They are similar in how they are set up and are ideally carried out after students have studied all the poems in the relevant section of the anthology.

In each activity, there are illustrated titles of poems from on of the sections above. Students must look at these, discuss what each poem is about (if they know), then sort them into groups which they give names to. By doing so, this facilitates students toward comparing and cross-referencing the poems: an essential skill.

It will also encourage discussion amongst students about the content of the poems and their themes, as well as highlight possible gaps which need to be addressed.

All you need to do to download these activities FREE is:

1. Download the Thinking Kit App - click here or search Thinking Kit App on the App Store.
2. You or students can then go to the app, tap Educator or Learner > New Session > Download Task then enter the Task Code of the activity you want to try:
   
   • Character and Voice (1980)
   • Place (7931)
   • Conflict (4726)
   • Relationships (9626)

If you do use the activities, please share on social media and mention us @refthinking. We'll pick someone out at random to win a FREE individual subscription to the tool that lets you/students create such activities as these, the Thinking Kit Creator.

If you have any questions at all, please tweet us or send me an email at natalie@reflectivethinking.com.