The Man He Killed - teaching resource

The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy | Edexcel GCSE English Literature

Teach Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Man He Killed’ with this 52-slide editable PowerPoint, featuring two lessons and four worksheets for the Edexcel GCSE English Literature Conflict poetry anthology. Students explore why Hardy’s speaker struggles to justify killing a man he might have shared a drink with in civilian life, then compare Hardy’s presentation of soldiers’ experiences with Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’.

Lesson One – Understanding and analysing the poem

Students learn about Thomas Hardy and the Second Boer War before reading the poem. A vocabulary activity, stanza summaries and comprehension questions with suggested answers help them follow the speaker’s account and distinguish what he knows from what he imagines. Students then gather quotations to contrast the imagined meeting at the inn with the battlefield encounter. The lesson ends with a single-poem writing task supported by a model analytical paragraph.

Lesson Two – Exploring interpretations and comparing poems

Students examine how Hardy uses a conversational voice, hesitant pauses, regular rhyme and a return to civilian life in the final stanza to convey the speaker’s doubts. They consider whether his words suggest self-defence, guilt or a growing recognition of what he had in common with the other soldier. A guided comparison with ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ explores duty, choice and the human cost of war. Students then use the A LOT planning framework and a model comparative response to prepare for a 20-mark GCSE-style essay question.

The four worksheets cover vocabulary, stanza summaries, close language analysis, paragraph planning and poetry comparison.

To preview The Man He Killed in detail, select “View All Slides” and click on the images.

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