Five-Week Plan

Year 11 ATAR Literature • Romantic Poetry • Five-week sequence

The sequence assumes the poems are read in class and at home. Each week pairs a small number of poems with one analytical skill, so that students are not asked to write a full argument before they have practised the moves.

Texts. The fifteen poems are in the public source pack. The four Wordsworth poems anchor the unit; the other eleven widen the conversation. Links below use the source pack rather than copying the poems into this packet.

Week 1 — Context and first readings

Lesson	Focus	Formative checkpoint
1	What Romanticism is not: a single mood or a single theme. Introduce the tensions in Romantic Context.	Students write one question they want a poem to answer.
2	Read Lines Written in Early Spring and I wandered lonely as a cloud. Track the turn and the repetition.	One annotated stanza with two observations and one question.
3	Read Composed upon Westminster Bridge and The World Is Too Much with Us. Notice how a sonnet organises a turn.	Students name the turn and what changes.
4	Introduce the close-reading method and practise it on one short passage.	A five-step annotation in the margin.

Week 2 — Form and close reading

Lesson	Focus	Formative checkpoint
1	Form and metre: sonnet, ode, ballad, terza rima and common metre.	Match five extracts to their forms and explain one effect.
2	Read Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for fragment, frame and repetition.	One paragraph on how form shapes the reader's sense of completion or interruption.
3	Read Ozymandias and Ode to the West Wind for power, time and prophecy.	Two claims about power, each with one piece of evidence.
4	Close reading workshop: improve one paragraph against the method.	One revised sentence that explains an effect rather than naming a device.

Week 3 — Language and argument

Lesson	Focus	Formative checkpoint
1	Language of Feeling: image, personification, apostrophe, symbol and paradox.	An effect-first sentence for three devices.
2	Read Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale for beauty, time and mortality.	A paragraph that explains a contradiction rather than resolving it too quickly.
3	Read La Belle Dame sans Merci, She Walks in Beauty and the Blake poems for enchantment, balance and contraries.	One comparative observation across two poems.
4	Build a claim: turn an observation into an argument about the whole poem.	A thesis sentence and one rival reading.

Week 4 — Comparison and writing

Lesson	Focus	Formative checkpoint
1	Comparing Poems: choose a pair and a basis for comparison.	A comparison grid with two shared and two different choices.
2	Draft a comparative paragraph using the writing guide.	One paragraph with claim, evidence, analysis and link.
3	Peer feedback on the paragraph: evidence, effect, link.	One specific revision the writer will make.
4	Plan a longer argument across two or three poems. Use Critical Perspectives to test the argument against a wider reading.	A thesis, three claims, the evidence for each, and one perspective that complicates the claim.

Week 5 — Creative, oral and seminar

Lesson	Focus	Formative checkpoint
1	Creative and Oral Response: choose a transformation or a spoken annotation.	A plan that names the poem, the change and the intended effect.
2	Studio: draft the creative piece or the spoken walkthrough.	A complete draft, read aloud once.
3	Seminar and Discussion: prepare a position and one piece of evidence.	A seminar note with a claim, evidence and a question.
4	Reflect: what changed in your reading of one poem, and why?	A short process note that names one specific change.

The plan is adaptable. If a class needs more time on close reading, move the comparative paragraph into Week 5 and shorten the seminar preparation rather than dropping the reading.