A ready-to-teach, two-week poetry unit focused on figurative language and creative writing, exploring how distraction and disconnection shape attention and behaviour.

Across five lessons, students explore a sequence of original poems that each reveal a different pattern of attention:

• In Plain Sight — how attention becomes absorbed in thought
• Alan — how attention is diverted, leading to unfinished tasks
• Red Lights — how thoughts build into physical and emotional reactions
• Screensaver Mode — how attention drifts without being noticed
• The Investigation — how attention can be directed or scattered

In the classroom, this reflects a common challenge: students begin tasks with clear intentions, but their attention shifts — through distraction, repetition, or internal thought — and the task breaks down.

Through close reading and structured discussion, students track how meaning develops through image, pattern, and sequence. Writing tasks then move students from explanation to implication, using figurative language and symbolism to show how behaviour forms.

At its core, the unit asks:
What happens when attention shifts away from what we are trying to do?

Best for: UK Year 8

What’s included:
• 5 complete, ready-to-teach lessons
• 5 original poems
• 10 creative writing tasks (2 options per lesson + success criteria)
• teacher models and full lesson plans

Designed as a focused, low-prep sequence that supports close reading, interpretation, and controlled writing through a clear, repeatable structure.

New to these lessons? Start here
Try a free sample linked to the series:
/teaching-resource/resource-13391775