Practise the anthology task the way you will sit it: open book, comparing method with method against the clock. Attempt each task fully before you reveal our plan.
Then check that your paragraph moved between the poems instead of treating them one after the other. Every poem printed here is our own; when a task names the poems you are studying, use your real anthology.
1Read these two original poems our teachers wrote, both about a household facing its past. 'Attic': 'We left the boxes taped and never climbed / the ladder twice; the dust learned all our names. / Below we lived; above, the years were filed / in cardboard that outlasted what we saved.' 'Skip': 'The men came Tuesday, tipped the wardrobe in, / and Mother watched it fold like something shot. / By dusk the drive was clear. She said, "Begin," / and meant the garden, meant the whole clean lot.' Write one comparative paragraph on how the two poets present the family's attitude to the past, moving between the poems and comparing method with method.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Both poems locate the past in objects, but 'Attic' hoards while 'Skip' clears. Set the stored 'cardboard that outlasted what we saved' against the wardrobe that folds 'like something shot'.
Then compare form: the sealed, box-like quatrain of 'Attic' beside the decisive, end-stopped 'She said, "Begin"' in 'Skip'. Keep every point tied to attitude, not summary.
Model opening: Both poems keep the past in things rather than words, yet where 'Attic' seals it away untouched, 'Skip' insists on emptying it out into the light.
Checklist:
- Moves between both poems inside the paragraph, not one then the other
- Compares a method in one with a method in the other
- Every point aimed at the attitude to the past, not retelling
- Quotes short, embedded phrases only
2From the anthology you are studying, choose two poems that both explore a shared theme, for example power, memory, or the natural world. With the book open, write only the opening comparative paragraph. State a line of argument about how the two poets treat that theme differently through their methods, and name one method from each poem.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Name the theme, then commit to a contrast of method in the first sentence. This sentence earns the linking marks.
Pick one telling method per poem, an image, a sound, a formal feature, and promise to weigh them. Do not drift into summarising either poem; the opening should read as an argument the rest of the essay will prove.
Model opening: Both poems treat memory as something the speaker cannot control, but one lets it arrive through sound and the other through a single returning image, and it is this difference in method that shapes how each poet makes memory feel.
Checklist:
- Opens with a comparative argument, not a shared-theme observation
- Names one specific method from each poem
- Sets up a difference to be argued, not just a similarity
- Uses the open book to check details rather than recall them
3Read this original poem our teachers wrote, 'Tideline': 'The sea returns the things we throw, / a shoe, a bottle, half a chair, / and leaves them higher than before, / arranged as if it wanted them there.' Write a paragraph on how the poet uses form and sound, as well as image, to make the sea seem deliberate. Quote in short embedded phrases.
Tried these practice tasks? A teacher can mark your child's attempt and explain the next step in a paid one-hour trial.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: The steady four-beat lines and the full rhyme (throw / before, chair / there) make the arrangement feel intended, not random. This matches the claim that the sea 'wanted them there'.
Read the listed junk as the sea's chosen display. Tie the neat form directly to the idea of deliberateness, so form becomes evidence, not decoration.
Model opening: The poem's tidy rhyme and even beat work against its subject of washed-up rubbish, so the very neatness of the form makes the sea's arrangement feel chosen rather than accidental.
Checklist:
- Explains what the form achieves, not just names it
- Links sound or rhythm to the poem's central idea
- Reads at least one image for its effect
- Quotations kept to short phrases
4Below is a weak comparative answer our teachers wrote about two poems on leaving home. Rewrite it as a single integrated paragraph that moves between the poems and compares method with method. Weak version: 'The first poem uses the image of a locked gate to show the speaker cannot go back.
It has a slow rhythm. The second poem is about a train leaving. It uses a fast rhythm and short lines to show excitement.' Improve it without adding new poems.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: The fault is one poem then the other, with no link. Braid the two. Set the locked gate beside the departing train in the same sentence, then set slow rhythm against short lines as a direct contrast of method.
Add a comparative connective such as 'whereas' or 'by contrast'. Give the paragraph a line of argument it proves, such as leaving as loss versus leaving as release.
Model opening: Where the first poem holds the speaker still at a 'locked gate', the second releases its speaker onto a moving train, and the poets' contrasting rhythms, one slow and blocked, the other quick and broken into short lines, make one leaving feel like loss and the other like escape.
Checklist:
- Both poems appear in the same sentences, genuinely braided
- A method in one is weighed against a method in the other
- Uses a comparative connective to link, not list
- Has a clear line of argument, not two descriptions
5Plan, but do not write, a full comparative answer to this question using two poems from the anthology you are studying: 'Compare how the poets present strong emotion.' Produce a one-sentence thesis and a map of three comparison points, each naming a method from each poem.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Your thesis should state how the two poets differ in the way they present the emotion, not that both are emotional. Each of the three points is a point of comparison, not a poem.
Each should hold a method from both poems, for example imagery in one against form in the other. Order them so the argument builds toward the most telling contrast.
Model opening: Thesis: both poets present grief as something that surfaces unexpectedly, but one contains it in a strict form while the other lets it break the poem's shape apart, and that formal difference is the heart of the comparison.
Checklist:
- Thesis states a difference in method, not a shared theme
- Each point compares both poems, not one at a time
- Every point names a specific method
- Points are ordered to build an argument
See the method and an annotated model on the anthology poetry page for OxfordAQA 9275, or the technique in our anthology poetry skills guide.