Teaching Pack
Teaching Pack - teaching ideas and resources for Duffy’s ‘Prayer’. Lesson planning ideas and resource materials for active learning, critical thinking and creative approaches to explore the poem in detail.
Lessons are structured around, but not limited to, the following learning continuum: Connect - Activate - Demonstrate - Consolidate.

This is the content page from the Teaching Pack:

Contents
Introduction to A Level AHEAD 3
Prayer — Overview 3
Planning Learning and Teaching Activities: Prayer 5
Connect Phase (Choose 1–2 activities) 5
Activate Phase (Choose 1–2 activities) 6
Demonstrate Phase (Choose 2–3 activities) 6
Consolidate Phase (Choose 1–2 activities) 7
Activities — Detailed Implementation 7
Connect Phase Activities 7
Activity 1: Moments of Grace in the Everyday 7
Activity 2: Can the Faithless Pray? 8
Activity 3: Listening to the Shipping Forecast 8
Activity 4: Placing the Poem in Mean Time 9
Activity 5: Sonnet Recall 9
Activate Phase Activities 10
Activity 1: Modelled Annotation of the First Quatrain 10
Activity 2: Prayer and Truth as Agents 10
Activity 3: Mapping the Sonnet and Locating the Volta 11
Activity 4: Boxing the Motifs 12
Activity 5: Two Critical Voices 12
Demonstrate Phase Activities 13
Activity 1: Google Forms Assessment — Prayer 13
Activity 2: Quatrain Carousel — Close Reading in Groups 13
Activity 3: The Sound Timeline 14
Activity 4: The Vulnerable Figures and the Volta 14
Activity 5: The Double Metaphor of the Shipping Forecast 15
Consolidate Phase Activities 16
Activity 1: Essay Planning Framework 16
Activity 2: Debate and Defend 16
Activity 3: Linking Theme to Close Analysis 17
Activity 4: Quotation Recall and Significance 17
Activity 5: Performance and Voice 18
Student Handouts 19
Handout 1: Annotation Framework for Prayer 19
Handout 2: Essay Planning Sheet for Prayer 21
Handout 3: Creative Writing Framework — Your Own Secular Prayer 23
Handout 4: Comparative Analysis Planner — Faith, Doubt and Recognition 25
Handout 5: Research Investigation Sheet — Context and Criticism 26
Teacher Planning: Interactive Quizzes and Activities 27
Create the Assessment — Instructions for Setting Up on Google Forms 27
The Twelve Questions — Teacher Version with Suggested Answers 28
Student Version — Prayer Assessment 33
Paper Task Version 34
Alternative Activities 36
Annotation and Investigation 36
The Parallel Patterning Investigation 36
Reader Response Comparison 36
Paired Reading with “Church Going” 36
Persona and Address 36
Cross-Curricular Connections 36
Extended Research: Sound and Solace 37
Essay Challenges 37
Critical Contexts and Further Reading 37
Literary Context: Contemporary British Poetry and Secular Spirituality 37
Critical Perspectives 37
Essential Duffy Studies 38
Wider Critical and Theoretical Context 39
Contextual Studies 39
Assessment Objectives Alignment 39