Picture the Poet

Picture the Poet is a partnership programme we developed with the National Portrait Gallery and poetry organisation, Apples and Snakes.

This teaching resource pack offers a wide range of standalone poetry activities for the classroom and a selection of outstanding photographic portraits of poets from the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.

These portraits are all of living British poets, whose work offers pupils a creative way into poetry, helping them to connect with language and engage with literacy on their own terms.

The activities in this pack have been written by poet and schools practitioner, Francesca Beard. The activities can work with poems that you love or the poems that you think will best engage your pupils.

The resource includes:

• Starter poetry activities including the call and response rhythm game and magic name game
• Three detailed lesson plans, covering list poems, analysing structure and ‘reading a portrait’
• A selection of poems from featuring poets including Michael Rosen and Ian McMillan
• Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery of poets including Carol Ann Duffy, Roger McGough and Benjamin Zephaniah