Porphyria’s Lover

Porphyria’s Lover is a differentiated two-lesson GCSE mini-unit that explores Robert Browning’s poem in great detail. Designed to teach the poem to GCSE students studying the AQA Anthology, it covers context, structure, form, themes and language and contains an annotated copy of the poem. The 30-slide editable PowerPoint presentation (with 8 accompanying worksheets) contains a range of differentiated activities (all with suggested answers) for students of all abilities.

Lesson One Content:

• Learners are introduced to the poem to help them to gain an understanding of its key ideas.

• After a differentiated ‘Do Now’ task, learners explore the context of the poem - Victorian attitudes to love, sexuality and women (AO3) - and the nature of the dramatic monologue form (AO2).

• Pupils complete a task to gain an understanding of the sequence of events in the poem and Browning’s presentation of the relationship between Porphyria and her lover (AO1).

• Pupils then explore Porphyria’s Lover in depth via discussion of an annotated copy of the poem.

• The lesson concludes with a brief review that asks learners to respond to a statement about Browning’s presentation of the speaker.

Lesson Two Content:

• Students undertake a more detailed study of ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ exploring the writer’s use of pathetic fallacy, poetic techniques, imagery, rhyme and caesura.

• After a differentiated ‘Do Now’ task, pupils answer a series of questions which ask them to consider how both language and structural methods shape meaning in the poem.

• In the learning review, students consider the poem’s key themes, making one point in relation to Browning’s exploration of each theme in the poem.