1. Comparing Poetry Learning objectives:
To understand how to compare texts
To be able to make links across poems

2. The Exam
You will need to compare two poems from Love and Relationships in Section B of the poetry exam.
One poem from our cluster will be printed.
Once you know the printed poem, choose the most appropriate poem for comparison.
You will not have the anthology.

3. Look at your Comparing Poems sheet in pairs.
What will be the difficulties in the exam?
How will you choose your second poem?

4. Which poems might be suitable to compare?
Remember poems with similar themes that have contrasting features are a good choice.

5. Walking Away/Follower
In your books, create two columns head ‘Walking Away’ and ‘Follower’. With a partner, discuss the following aspects of each poem:
Who is speaking
About whom
In what situation and at what point in time
What happens – how situation develops
The attitudes and feelings of the speaker
Why the poet chose to write the poem

6. Now make notes on similarities and differences between these aspects in the two columns. In particular, think about the perspective from which each poem is being told. Just as a hill can look a different shape when seen from different angles, experiences can look different at different points in your life and in different circumstances.

7. Comparing Language
Walking Away – descriptive details that appeal to sense and sight – ‘leaves just turning / the touch-lines new-ruled
Follower – what sense impressions?

8. Follower – uses images – simile – ‘his shoulders globed like a full sail strung’ – and metaphor – ‘mapping the furrow exactly’
Walking Away – what are we supposed to imagine when he writes ‘eddying away/like a winged seed’?
Walking Away suggests separation – how?
Follower suggests closeness – how?

9. Walking Away – the son is vulnerable – evidence?
Follower – the father is an expert – evidence?
Remember to always develop your ideas and use relevant subject terminology.

10. Structure These poems have similar structures.
They both describe experiences and move towards a climax.
Each poem reflects about the experience.
Both poems have a regular rhyme scheme.

11. Independent Learning
Compare how poets present attitudes towards relationships between parents and children in ‘Walking Away’ and one other poem from the Love and Relationships cluster.