Barbara James is an English teacher based at Salisbury High School in South Australia. She was involved in the design and trialling of Triggers: turning experiences into poetry also by Geoff Goodfellow, during the early 1990s.

For her study guide to Poems for a Dead Father she has chosen seven poems and provided insights to allow students both a better understanding of issues raised within the poems, along with activities to assist them generate their own work and find their own voice.

Click here for her study guide to Geoff's Punch On Punch Off, which looks at eight poems from the book. Barbara not only analyses the selected poems but she also provides a wide range of relevant activities and resources for students of VET, English, Society and Environment and other interested groups and individuals. The guide aims to enhance the appreciation of Geoff's poetry by understanding more about the issues that drive it.

Read one former maths teacher's immediate response to Barbara's guide to Punch on Punch Off:

Barbara, with resources like this available even I could have made a decent English teacher! What strikes me is how compact and concentrated it is, almost every line has something that a teacher can swing something on, and at the same time it so readable in language used and layout/presentation — even the dullest of Maths teachers would manage! In fact I would imagine they could simply give the site reference to the students and tell them to teach themselves!