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This fully-resourced lesson is designed for the Edexcel IGCSE English Literature specification (4ET1) and focuses on William Blake’s iconic and visually rich poem The Tyger. The resource blends visual and textual analysis, supporting students in exploring Romanticism, symbolism, and the dualities of creation and destruction. Ideal for first teaching or revision, the lesson helps students engage with Blake as both poet and artist.

Lesson features and content:

• Starter Discussion: Students imagine a creature that can make people stop and stare. They guess at what its creator could be like.
• Context and Romanticism: A brief introduction to Blake’s place within the Romantic movement and his concern with innocence, experience, and divine creation.
• YouTube video: A short, embedded YouTube video on Blake’s biography.
• Visual Immersion in Blake’s Art: A striking series of slides presents Blake’s original engravings and paintings, offering students a sense of his artistic style and symbolic imagination.
• Guided First Reading with Discussion Questions: Focus on the poem’s interrogative structure, religious imagery, and the symbolic tension between creator and creation.
• Thematic Activity: A structured activity in which students select a theme and explore it in relation to set questions.
• Form and Structure Analysis: A structured, two-part activity where students identify features of form and structure and their effects. The second part asks students to pair advanced poetic terms to the features they previously identified. This can be conducted as an optional challenge task for more able students.
• Plenary: Students select a reflection question from a choice of three and write 3-5 sentences in response, summarising their learning.