This week two postgraduate ambassadors from the School of English travelled to the Isle of Sheppey to meet year 10 students from Oasis Academy. They spent the afternoon exploring techniques for analysing poems which students have not studied before – a key skill they will need for their GSCE exams next year.
The students began by trying to reconstruct the poem Safe Sounds by Carol Ann Duffy from fragments – exploring structure, sound, and meaning. They went on to analyse Mother by Evelyn O’Connor and Piano by D H Lawrence. They compared the poets’ approaches to memory, childhood and parent-child relationships. It was fantastic to see the students debating different interpretations of the poems and exploring their own emotional responses to unseen poetry.
For more information about this activity, please contact outreach@kent.ac.uk