Blackberry-Picking: From Sweetness to Spoilage with Seamus Heaney

Introduce Heaney and his Mossbawn childhood, outline the poem, then examine short quotations for sight, taste, touch and smell and trace the shift from joy to disgust. Students match writer's-craft terms, discuss which phrase feels most joyful and follow a four-step method for explaining a language effect, with a model answer and quiz.

The sequence works as a complete poetry lesson or as preparation for a personal response. Edit the PowerPoint to add your class anthology, further quotations or your own model answer before presenting it to your class.