aqa poetry FINALFINAL 01.12.03 16/12/03 4:18 pm Page 3 Contents Contents Page Section 1 Teachers’ Guide 5 About this Publication 5 Notes on Using the Publication 6 Notes on the Activities 7 Planning Poetry into the Course 10 Section 2 Poems from Different Cultures – 15 An Introductory Unit Thinking about culture and identity 15 Finding out more – A group research project 18 Section 3 Poems from Different Cultures 25 Before Reading Activities 25 First lines and titles – An activity on both clusters 25 First lines and titles – An activity on Cluster 1 or 2 29 Activities on Cluster 1 Poems 33 ‘Island Man’ – Writing your way into a poem 33 ‘What Were They Like?’ – A sequencing activity 34 ‘Limbo’ – Close reading activities 36 ‘Blessing’ – Sight and sound 39 ‘Two Scavengers in a Truck’ – Reading the structure 40 Activities on Cluster 2 Poems 42 ‘This Room’ and ‘Love after Love’ – Two jumbled poems 42 ‘Hurricane Hits England’ – Language as a way in 44 ‘Half-Caste’ – Poetry as argument 46 ‘Search For My Tongue’ – A supported reading 48 An Activity for Both Clusters 50 Poem shapes 50 Making Connections 52 A connections spidergram – Cluster 1: Limbo 52 A connections spidergram – Cluster 2: Search For My Tongue 53 A connections chart 54 Writing about Poems from Different Cultures in an Exam 55 © English & Media Centre, 2004 Studying AQA A Poetry – Comparative Approaches iii aqa poetry FINALFINAL 01.12.03 16/12/03 4:18 pm Page 4 Contents Section 4 Literature Poetry 58 Activities and Comparative Approaches 58 ‘Patrolling Barnegat’ – Collapsing a poem 58 ‘On My First Sonne’ – A key poem and choice of others 61 ‘The Laboratory’ – A key poem and choice of others 63 ‘Digging’ and ‘Catrin’ – Halfway there: comparing 2 poems 66 Voices and monologues – Duffy and Armitage 69 Jigsawing 4 poems – Both pairings 71 Comparing poems thematically – Both pairings 72 ‘Digging’ and other poems – Thinking about structure 75 A revision game 78 A connections chart 79 The pairs of poets – Summing up a poet’s work 80 Writing about the Literature poems in an Exam 81 Using a poetry planning grid – Heaney and Clarke 81 Using a poetry planning grid – Duffy and Armitage 83 Blank planning grid – Comparing 4 poems 85 A planning method for a comparative essay 86 Section 5 General Approaches 87 (Applicable to both ‘Different Cultures’ and ‘Literature’) Visual representations of the poems – Poster poems 87 Reading aloud and performance 88 Writing in the style of a poet 88 Comparing poems – The poets’ techniques 89 Placing poems on a continuum 90 Using I.T. – Collapsing poems 91 Poetry tableaux 92 Reading the language of a poem – What to look for 93 Writing about the Anthology poems – An assessment grid 96 iv Studying AQA A Poetry – Comparative Approaches © English & Media Centre, 2004 aqa poetry FINALFINAL 01.12.03 16/12/03 4:18 pm Page 5 Teachers’ Guide Teachers’ Guide About this Publication There are many student publications on the market for the AQA A poetry element of the Anthology. Broadly speaking, they have a similar format and approach, taking students through individual poems, with questions on the poems or background material about them. There are also revision books, which again take students through the Anthology poem by poem, sometimes with a brief section on how to make links with other poems. This publication sets out to do something quite different. The focus is on providing lively, challenging and memorable classroom activities, that encourage students to make the poems their own. The activities are intentionally varied, so that students do not feel ground down by the regular appearance of worksheets with an identical format. The emphasis, from the outset, is on comparison across the Anthology, bearing in mind that students will never have to do a detailed analysis of a single poem but will need to range across the Anthology, developing the skills of selection and comparative comment. The publication does not claim to be a comprehensive ‘guide’ to individual poems, nor to offer specific activities on every single poem, but instead to provide a selection of activities that might be adapted for use with other poems. For instance, the jumbled poems approach on page 42 might be extended for use with another pair of poems. The main focus is on comparative activities and ways of working in the classroom that can be used regardless of the choice of cluster in Section A, or the choice of poets in Section B. Teachers may want to do a close focus on some individual poems, particularly those that have been identified as ‘key’ for Foundation and Higher tiers, as a prelude to the activities in this pack or alongside them. However, it is worth remembering, in terms of course planning, that treating every poem singly, over one lesson, would take up a disproportionate time in the course as a whole. GCSE poetry has proved to be a problem for teachers and pupils – there are so many poems and the rationale behind the selection and the ways of comparing them in an exam have not necessarily resulted in an enjoyable, stimulating or enlightening experience for many students. We want to help pupils to become critical readers of poetry, through experimentation, discussion and fun, rather than following a mechanistic, entirely exam- driven approach. © English & Media Centre, 2004 Studying AQA A Poetry – Comparative Approaches 5 aqa poetry FINALFINAL 01.12.03 16/12/03 4:18 pm Page 6 Teachers’ Guide Notes on Using this Publication The material is organised into five sections: Section 1 Teachers’ Guide Section 2 Poems from Different Cultures – An Introductory Unit This was originally conceived as a Year 9, post-SATs introduction to the Poems from Different Cultures. However it could be used as an early unit for Year 10. The idea behind it is that it introduces ideas about culture and identity that will be useful when students start working on the Anthology poems. Encouraging wider reading of poetry from a range of cultures is one way of making sure that students put the poems into a broader context, rather than allowing them to be ‘ghettoised’. In their browsing through anthologies, students can be encouraged to see that the category of ‘different cultures’ is broader than is suggested by the divisions in the Anthology – Seamus Heaney, Gillian Clarke, Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage, for instance, all express their cultural identity through their poetry, even though they have not been included in this section of the Anthology. Section 3 Poems from Different Cultures This section offers pre-reading activities, during reading activities and study material on selected individual poems. The activities on individual poems each offer different approaches, (for example jumbled poems, sequencing a poem, a visual approach, a language approach and so on.) Each approach has been chosen to suit a given poem, but could be adapted for use with other poems in the Anthology. Section 4 Literature Poetry This section offers a variety of comparative approaches to the Literature pairings of poets. Some of the activities have individual poems at their core, particularly where the poem is identified as key, for both Higher and Lower Tier, for one or both pairings. For instance, the activity on page 61 focuses on ‘On My First Sonne’, which is a key poem for everyone. Other activities may need to be adapted, depending on which pair of poets you have chosen and whether you are teaching both tiers. Section 5 General Approaches The last section includes activities and approaches that could be used for either or both the English or the Literature poetry. Just because this section is the last one, it does not necessarily follow that these activities will come at the end of the course of study. Some of them may be useful at an earlier stage. Further Resources Free English and Media Centre resources for departmental INSET on teaching the poetry in the AQA A Anthology is available at www.englishandmedia.co.uk/teaching_materials/AQAPoetry.html 6 Studying AQA A Poetry – Comparative Approaches © English & Media Centre, 2004 aqa poetry FINALFINAL 01.12.03 16/12/03 4:18 pm Page 15 Poems from Different Cultures – An Introductory Unit Poems from Different Cultures – An Introductory Unit Thinking about culture and identity Exploring ‘Shoes and Socks’ All texts have what is called a ‘cultural context’. What this means is that the text has been written in a particular culture and is read by people who either share that culture or themselves have different cultures. It is important to understand what ‘culture’ is and how it affects the way a text is written and read. When you study English for GCSE you will be expected to understand what culture is and to be able to discuss how it has affected the texts you read. You could use the spidergram below, and the questions that go with it, to explore any of the poems in the ‘Different Cultures’ section of the GCSE Anthology. But first, try using it to explore a poem that isn’t in the Anthology, ‘Shoes and Socks’ by Moniza Alvi. Family Race Divided identity – who am I? Insider/ Religion outsider Clothing, hair, jewellery Attitudes to Music CULTURE men/women Story, myth, Language and folklore voice Home Country Physical environment Geography Traditions History © English & Media Centre, 2004 Studying AQA A Poetry – Comparative Approaches 15 aqa poetry FINALFINAL 01.12.03 16/12/03 4:18 pm Page 16 Poems from Different Cultures – An Introductory Unit Which of the headings on the spidergram do you need to think about, or know about, when exploring this poem? For instance, is religion important in the poem? Is it a poem where it would help to know about a myth or folk story and so on? What does the poem tell you about any of these aspects of culture? Is the poet explicitly concerned about issues of culture and cultural identity? How do you respond to this poem, given your own cultural identity? (For instance, do you recognise the issues it is dealing with because you’ve also experienced them? Do you identify with the poet’s attempts to make sense of her culture, even if it’s not the same as yours? Are some things the same across different cultures?) Shoes and Socks In the vast forecourt of the Badshahi Mosque my cousin pulls off his trainers.