Ellesmere College

GCSE English Hello everyone, I hope you’re all ok and have had a good half term break. This week we are starting our next unit of work, which is on poetry. We will be looking, in detail, at six poems and learning how to write a comparative essay. We’ll be starting by looking at some basics of poetry and finding out a little more about the poets. If you get stuck on anything, or want to show me what you’ve done (which I’d love to see) you can always email me – asmith@ellesmere.leicester.sch.uk As I’m writing this, the weather is starting to pick up, so fingers crossed the sun sticks around for a while. I’ve been enjoying going for walks and exploring my local area. We’ve continued to play lots of different board games although Yahtzee is still my son’s favourite. I hope you’ve all managed to do some reading whilst at home. I’m still reading my history book but have a pile of other books waiting to be read. Take care of yourselves. Oh, and……, you guessed it, wash your hands!

Ange Smith

Lesson 1

Starter: For this half term, I’ve decided to change the starters slightly by focusing on developing your vocabulary skills. Each lesson you will have a picture. You will need to spend 5 minutes writing down as many descriptive words as you can related to the picture. You will then need to spend 10 minutes using these words to create either sentences or full paragraphs to describe the picture. Here’s today’s picture:

Here’s our WALT (We Are Learning To) and steps to success:

Back by popular demand….it’s ‘word of the week’! I say popular demand, but actually I spoke to one of you and you asked about it, so it’s back! You’ll have to just imagine me signing the little theme tune. I’ve chosen words that aren’t linked in any way other than I think they are pretty cool and will really help you to develop your vocabulary skills. Have a look at the word of the week, write it down and then use it in a sentence. Challenge yourself and use it in two sentences! Maybe even try different tenses.

This lesson is all about you developing your understanding of what poetry actually is. Let’s start by mind-mapping what you already know about poetry. You should spend about 10 minutes on this. You might want to talk it through with your parent or carer first:

I want you to keep that mind-map safe and add to it when you find out anything new about poetry. It might be the name of a poet you’ve never heard of, or a poetic device. You can use your mind map to help you with the next task. This should take you about 5 minutes:

Let’s compare it with a few definitions I’ve found:

As you can see, there isn’t one set definition of what poetry is. This is what makes it so interesting to read and analyse (and even more interesting to write…but more of that later in the half term). We’re going to revise some key poetic devices next. Poetic devices are tools that a poet can use to create rhythm, enhance a poem’s meaning or intensify a mood or feeling. You should have heard of all the ones we’re revising today – we covered most of them this year. Have a read through the information about each poetic device. This should take you about 10 minutes:

Now you’ve read through the information and seen some examples, I want you to come up with your own. You should spend about 10 minutes on this:

Poetic device My example

Simile

Metaphor

Alliteration

Onomatopoeia

Repetition

Hyperbole

Your final activity for this lesson is to look at the lyrics from the Katy Perry song and see which poetic devices she uses. Underline any examples you find and label them. This should take you about 10 minutes:

Time for you to think about our Steps to Success and your WWWs and EBIs now:

Lesson 2

Starter: Just a reminder about the starter activities: You will need to spend 5 minutes writing down as many descriptive words as you can related to the picture. You will then need to spend 10 minutes using these words to create either sentences or full paragraphs to describe the picture. Here’s today’s picture:

Here’s our WALT (We Are Learning To) and steps to success:

We’re going to start with a bit of revision from last lesson. Fill in the table below, writing a definition and an example of each poetic device. This should take you 10-15 minutes:

Poetic device Definition My example

Simile

Metaphor

Alliteration

Onomatopoeia

Repetition

Hyperbole

So far, we’ve covered 6 poetic devices, most of which you were probably familiar with. To really analyse (look in detail) at the poetry next week, we’re going to need to learn some further poetic devices.

Read through the following slides, which outline these devices. Take your time, making sure you look at the examples given, as some of them are a bit tricky. It should take you 10-15 minutes to read through the slides, but I would recommend talking them through with an adult too if you can:

There was a lot of information to take in and I know that it was quite challenging as well. You might want to re-read the slides before moving on to your next activity. You need to choose 3 of the poetic devices you’ve just read about. I want you to try creating your own example of each of these first. This should take you 10-15 minutes:

Poetic device My example

Your final activity for this lesson is a bit of a twist on the one you did yesterday. Instead of me finding you a poem or song, I want you to find your own poems or songs that have examples of the poetic devices we’ve learnt about today.

You should fill in this table, writing out any examples from your chosen poems or songs. This will probably take you quite a while as you’ll need to read some poems or listen to some songs before finding the examples. You’ll also need to look at how the poet or songwriter has structured the words:

Poetic device Poem/song Example

Rhyme

Assonance

Consonance

Oxymoron

Couplet

Prose

Stanza

Well done – you’ve done lots of challenging work today. It’s time to check our steps to success, WWWs and EBIs and then you’ve finished for this lesson.

Lesson 3

It’s your last lesson of the week and this one is based around finding out more about the two poets we’ll be studying. Ok, straight into your starter. You should know what to do by now (if you’ve forgotten, just check last lesson!):

Your WALT and steps to success for this lesson are:

Task: Read through the information about both poets and then answer the questions. You should use full sentences for your answers (e.g. Simon Armitage was born in…). This should take you 15 minutes:

Questions

1. Where was Simon Armitage born?

2. Which country was Carol Ann Duffy born in?

3. What job did Simon Armitage have after he graduated?

4. What was Simon Armitage’s first poetry collection called?

5. How old was Carol Ann Duffy when she first had her poems published?

6. What job have both poets had in common?

7. What role have both poets had in common?

8. What are you likely to see in the poems from each poet?

9. Whose favourite band is called The Smiths?

10. Who wrote a poem for Prince William’s wedding?

Ok, we’ve got to know our poets a little better, but what about what was happening in the world as they were growing up and when they were writing their poetry? Poets and writers are often influenced by key events, so it’s important we know what some of these are. Task: Read through the information about each of the decades and then answer the questions. You should use full sentences for your answers. This should take you 15 minutes:

Questions

1. In which decade was the first motorway opened in Britain?

2. When was the World Wide Web invented?

3. How did schools change over the decades?

4. What key events do you think the two poets might write about? Why

do you think that?

It’s time to check our steps to success, WWWs and EBIs and then you’ve finished for this week.