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Teaching notes
Pre-reading
It would be helpful to give your students a context for understanding A Poison Tree, by
researching the Songs of Experience and Songs of Innocence (1794) before studying
the poem.
You could also elicit some class responses to the theme of anger through these
questions:
How long should your anger last? Is there a period of time that is acceptable to be
angry for?
Has your anger ever caused them to say/do something that you later regret?
Tasks
There are a series of questions on the worksheet below. You could give the tasks to
individual students, or groups of students. Extension activities have been included, and
are differentiated from the easiest to the most challenging.
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Re-read the poem and make notes on the type of language that is used.
The tense of the language changes during the poem: in the first stanza the word I is used,
but then in verse two it has moved to a different perspective (it is now used). Why do you
think this it and what does it refer to?
Techniques
How do these techniques help to convey the mood and emotions of the poem?
What imagery is used in the poem and why? What could it relate to?
Draw or describe images or objects that could be used to sum up and express the tone and
mood of the poem.
Explain why you have chosen them, referring to specific evidence in the poem to support
your ideas.
Structure
What structural features has Blake used throughout the poem? Consider lines, stanzas,
enjambment, use of punctuation, regular/irregular structure, layout, rhythm and beat, use
of rhyming couplets and anything else that is unusual.
How do these features help to convey the tone, mood, viewpoint of the poem?
What do you think Blake is saying can happen to us when our anger takes over?
There is a Christian ideal of self-denial. What does this suggest about how we should
respond to our anger? What do you think Blakes views on this ideal were?
Extension activities
Create a comic strip of the poem using the poems imagery to help express the events of the
poem and also highlight the themes. You can use lines from the poem or add your own
interpretation.
Research the ideals regarding anger at the time of the poet being written particularly related
to the British view of anger held following the start of the French Revolution.
Write a detailed response and analysis of the poem focusing in particular on what you think
Blake is saying about anger, his use of imagery and how the context of the poem has affected
Blakes poem.
www.teachit.co.uk 2015
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