Lesson video

Hello everyone.

My name's Ms. Keller, and it's so great you could join me for today's lesson.

In this session, we are going to be analysing how Maura Dooley uses language, form, and structure in her poem "Letters from Yorkshire".

Okay, so by the end of today's lesson we will be able to explore how Maura Dooley presents the emotional effects of a long-distance relationship.

So let's have a look at today's key words.

We have tercets, alliteration, romanticise, inadequate, and fleeting.

So what do these words mean? Well, a tercet is a stanza of three lines in a poem, often forming a complete thought or unit.

Alliteration is the repetition of initial sounds in close succession for poetic or rhetorical effect.

Romanticise means portraying something in an idealised or overly sentimental manner, often distorting reality.

Inadequate means insufficient or lacking in quality, quantity, or capability to meet requirements or expectations.

In short, it's not good enough.

And fleeting means brief or transient, passing quickly, often used to describe moments or experiences.

It feels like it's there and then it's gone in the blink of an eye.

Okay, so how is today's lesson going to look? In order to analyse this poem we're going to first start by thinking about how Dooley presents distance, and then we're going to think about how Dooley presents yearning.

Okay, so I'd like to start off by rereading the poem.

So grab your copy of your anthology and have another read of "Letters from Yorkshire".

And once you've done that, while you are doing that, I would like you to identify quotations from the poem which emphasise the distance between the speaker and the man from Yorkshire.

So pause the video while you read and identify your quotations, and when you're ready to continue, click play.

Okay, fantastic.

I could hear lots of people identifying great key quotations from the poem.

So let's explore some of these key quotations in more detail.

I'd like to start off by thinking about the physical distance between the speaker and the man from Yorkshire.

So well done if you picked up on any of these quotations below.

Let's have a look then at some of the effects that Dooley creates in these quotations.

So first of all, then we've got the title, "Letters from Yorkshire", and then there on line three we've got that verb "write" to indicate how the man from Yorkshire comes in to write to his friend when he sees the birds coming into his yard.

And these two quotations then, they really emphasise the fact that these two people live far apart and are communicating by letter.

And what we can infer from that is the contact between them is slow, because obviously it takes a long time to send letters back and forth, but it's important because writing a letter isn't an easy or quick thing to do, it requires a lot of effort, so that perhaps the relationship is important to each of them if they're willing to go that extra mile to write these letters.

And then there on line 12 we've got this adjective "other", which really emphasises the contrast between the two lives.

His life is opposite to hers, and this idea continues on line 14 with the reference to "same" and "different", we've got those contrasting words there.

And then line 15, when the distance between them is described as "miles", so we can get the impression that they don't live very close to each other at all.

So they are miles apart, their lives are miles apart, perhaps physically but also in terms of their everyday experiences.

However, on line 14, they do have some similarities.

There are things that are the same, but there are also things that are different.

So now let's look at the emotional distance.

And well done, again, if you picked up on any of these ideas.

So on line three then we've got this idea that after seeing the birds come into his yard, he returns inside, specifically to write his friend a letter, which suggests that he thinks of her often and things in his day-to-day life remind him of her.

So here then on lines six to eight we're getting this impression that they are contrasting characters.

He is rural and outdoorsy, directly engaging with nature, and we see that in the description here of the seasons, he's able to notice as the seasons change; whereas her job, her day job involves headlines and she sits at a computer, so they couldn't have more opposite day-to-day lives.

Then on line 10 we've got the word "wouldn't", which suggests to us that she knows him well because she can anticipate his opinions or his reactions to something, she knows what he would and wouldn't do.

So this is really interesting because it shows that they're very familiar with each other.

And finally then on line 15, we have got the first-person plural pronoun "our", which groups them both together and really emphasises the similarities between them.

Okay, so now it's time to check our understanding of how Dooley presents distance.

So true or false? Dooley indicates that the physical distance is not the only distance between the two people in the poem.

Pause the video while you have a think and then click play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back, and well done to those of you who said it was true.

So now it's time to justify your answer.

So have a read through of these two possible explanations and decide which one you think is the most effective justification.

Pause the video while you have a think and click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back.

And well done to those of you who said A.

The last line of the poem implies that there is emotional distance between them, also, their connection spans many miles.

And they're looking at that second answer would've been a valid response if it wasn't for that last word, "painting".

Bit of a trick there because, as we know, our speaker is a journalist and writer not an artist, so it's really important to make sure we read those answers all the way to the end, otherwise we might get caught out.

Okay, so now I would like to look at pronouns and structure, and track how Dooley uses these pronouns throughout the text to present this distance.

So over to you to start with, then.

Have another look at the poem, and what I'd like you to do is to highlight or underline every personal pronoun that you can see.

And remember that personal pronouns are these words we could use to replace somebody's name, so I'm thinking about words like I, you, they, he, she, we.

So pause the video while you take as much time as you need to see if you can pick out all of those pronouns, and when you think you've got 'em all, click play and we'll analyse these pronouns in a bit more detail.

Okay, welcome back.

I could see lots of different annotations on people's copies of the text, so fantastic with lots of people picking up those pronouns.

So let's track then how Dooley uses them in this poem.

There are a lot of pronouns in "Letters from Yorkshire".

We have third-person pronouns such as "he" and "they", second-person "you", and first-person "me" or "I".

So let's explore the order in which these pronouns appear, because we can make a really interesting interpretation.

So in Stanza 1 then, the poem begins with the speaker's nostalgic memories of him, her friend, and we can infer that from the use of pronouns because we can see "he", "me", and "his".

So we've got this reference to the friend in the third person.

However, by Stanza 2 this has shifted to the second person, which suggests that rather than talking about her friend, the speaker is now directly addressing him, speaking to him.

And then in stanzas 3 and 4, the pronouns actually shift back and forth between the first, "I" or "me", and the second-person pronouns "you" or "your", which could actually symbolise the back-and-forth nature of letter writing.

As in, I write a letter, you respond, I write another letter, you respond.

So we've got that idea that it's mirroring this process of letter writing, which is very interesting.

And then the last stanza we've got a plural pronoun, and the only one we actually see in this poem, "our".

So Dooley actually ends by reflecting on the connection between them both by grouping them both together, they've been these two separate distanced people all the way through the poem, and then in this last line they're brought together, they're unified.

And when we're thinking about this idea, the art of letter writing, this back and forth nature of letter writing, we could also consider Dooley's use of structure because this poem is written in tercets, short three-line stanzas, which could also mirror the process of letter writing because we're getting this idea that letters are short, fleeting snippets from different perspectives, they're short descriptions from one person and then a short description from the other person as a reply.

So I'd like to pause here again and check our understanding of Dooley's use of pronouns and structure.

So Dooley's use of alternating personal pronouns could symbolise.

Have a look at these four options and decide which one you think best completes the sentence.

Click pause while you have a think, and then click play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back, and well done to those of you who said A.

It could symbolise the nature of communicating by letter, so this back and forth nature of letter writing.

Okay, so it is time for the first practise task of today's lesson.

So feedback on a pupil's essay said, "Good inference is made about the content of the poem".

And here is a section from that essay, "Dooley presents the speaker's relationship with her friend as distanced and slow burning.

It is evident that both people care for one another and enjoy their correspondence, but the physical and emotional distance between them suggests their relationship necessarily remains detached and casual." So what I'd like you to do is to help the student improve their work by including a deeper analysis.

So they've made a good start with these good inferences, and they clearly know the poem quite well, but unfortunately this essay doesn't quite go into enough detail with that language, form, and structure analysis.

So in your response, I would like you to include supporting evidence from the poem embed it effectively into the analysis, tentative language, so suggest, implies, may, likely, and a consideration of the writer's intentions and the wider context.

So pause the video while you help this student to redraft the answer, and when you think you're finished, click play, and we'll go through some responses.

Okay, welcome back.

So here's just one way that you could have redrafted this answer, "Dooley suggests the speaker's relationship with her friend is distanced and slow-burning.

It is evident that both people care for one another and enjoy their correspondence, something Dooley indicates in her description of them both sending letters to each other from their souls.

Describing them both as "souls" suggests there is some sort of spiritual connection between them.

However, the physical and emotional distance between them suggests their relationship necessarily remains detached and casual.

It isn't a romance, and they both remain alone experiencing similar lives in different locations.

Throughout the poem, Dooley draws many contrasts between them both, particularly in her use of alternating first and second-person pronouns to mirror the back-and-forth nature of their letter-based communication.

In doing this, she presents them as separate entities that are not connected until the use of "our" in the final line.

Even this similarity includes a sense of detachment and separation as it emphasises the icy distance between them.

Here, Dooley presents their relationship as ambiguous.

They are close and familiar with one another, yet their relationship is forced to play out slowly and incrementally due to their method of communication.

The theme of communication is something Dooley considers often in her poetry." So I'd like you to take a moment to compare this response to your own, and consider have you included everything from this list? So have you included your supporting evidence, embed it effectively, that all-important tentative language, and have you considered the writer's intentions and the wider context? So pause the video while you review your own answer and redraft if you need to, and then click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, we've reached the halfway point of today's lesson, so well done for the great job you are all doing so far.

So now it's time to think about how Dooley presents yearning.

So what I'd like to do is reread lines six to 10 of the poem, and once you've done that I'd like you to discuss the following idea.

So some people have argued that the speaker of the poem doesn't yearn for her friend at all, but rather she yearns for something else altogether.

And I'd like you to think, what could it be that perhaps she's really yearning for? So pause the video or take some time to read and discuss, or make some notes if you're working on your own, and then click play when you're ready to continue and we'll feed back some responses.

So many people have argued that lines six to nine of this poem emphasise the speaker's yearning to be in touch with nature in the way her friend is.

So let's explore this idea in a bit more detail.

So we've got these personal pronouns then, "you" and "me", and they really indicate the contrast between these two people.

So they live very different lives, and this is something that Dooley really wants to get across to us.

So then we've also got these examples of alliteration, and we've got two separate examples, we've got "seeing" which is used on line six to refer to the man from Yorkshire, and then "heartful" on line seven, referring to our speaker.

And this alliteration, arguably, draws attention to these different experiences.

So his immediate experience of him seeing how the landscape changes across the year versus her mediated experience, her heartful of the writing or the stories that she has to write about as a journalist.

We've got this idea that he's seeing it, he's watching it happen, whereas it's something that just exists in the heart of our speaker.

So perhaps it's not something that she's directly experiencing but, in fact, her experience completely revolved around other people's direct experiences and the stories that they tell.

And then we've got this idea of the images of their life.

So Dooley gives us many natural images, which could emphasise this external beauty that the man from Yorkshire is lucky enough to witness.

He experiences the change in seasons, whereas, in this contrast with her life, which perhaps revolves around this idea of internal emptiness, she's feeding her ideas into a computer which is quite a bleak and perhaps lonely and empty image compared to the richness of the natural imagery Dooley uses to describe the man's life in Yorkshire.

And also, this rhetorical question on line nine is particularly important because it links to the themes of moral value, comfort, longing, nature, and distance.

So working with the earth is seen as a real experience, in that rhetorical question we've got this idea that the speaker questions whether the man from Yorkshire's life is real because he's engaging with nature, compared to the modern urban world of screens that our speaker inhabits.

And we've also got this comparative word "more", which shows she's directly comparing both of their lives.

They're not both valid or both morally good, one has to be more moral, perhaps, than the other.

We've also got the use of second-person pronouns, so "your" and "you", which implies that this question is directly aimed at him, which could indicate a frustrated tone and may suggest that she blames him, perhaps, for the reason that she feels inadequate; or even this frustration could link to a little bit of jealousy maybe that she wishes she had his life, "Why are you able to experience this and I'm not?" So I'd like to explore this idea further by looking at Dooley's use of methods.

So I would argue that Dooley uses two key methods to imply that the speaker yearns to engage with nature; natural imagery and metaphors.

So let's just take them one at a time and have a look at some evidence and the effects that she creates.

So let's have a look at some evidence.

We have got lots of references to the natural world in this poem, we've got verbs such as "digging" or "planting", and then we've got nouns "lapwings", "waterbutt", "seasons", "snow".

And the effect of all these words is that the speaker idealises her friend's life as a series of beautiful natural images, and his reality is presented as this stimulating sensory experience where he directly engages with nature, he's getting his hands dirty in the natural world.

So now let's have a look at the metaphors then, and we've got quite a few metaphors in the poem.

We've got the idea that the man's cold hands were singing as they thawed out, when he came to write a letter to our speaker.

We've also got this idea that he's seeing the landscape change across the year and, finally, that he's pouring natural elements into his letters.

An effect then of these metaphors could imply that the speaker romanticises the man's life as a series of happy, magical memories.

His body sings after the hard work, a very joyous verb to use there, and his letters bring the natural world to life for the speaker, almost as if he really is pouring that natural world into the letters he sends.

So reading the poem in this way means we're actually able to interpret line five a little differently.

So before, we'd argued that this line could hint towards the speaker's unrequited romantic feelings.

The phrasing gives the impression of a sound-bite, so perhaps she's repeating something that he'd said when they discuss their relationship in the past, almost as a way to remind herself that he does not view this relationship in the same way that she does.

However, if we think about this new interpretation that perhaps she's instead yearning for the natural world rather than for a romantic relationship with her friend, we could see the romance mentioned in line five as referring to the beauty of nature.

Perhaps the speaker is reminding herself that her romanticised view of nature only occurs because she's detached from it, and for him it is a normal part of everyday life.

So we've got this idea that perhaps she can only have this very fleeting glimpses of the natural world, whereas for him this is his everyday experience, so perhaps he doesn't view it in that romanticised way that she does.

So let's pause here and check our understanding.

Which two methods does Dooley use to suggest the speaker yearns to engage with the natural world? So pause the video while you have a look at the options, and then click play when you're ready for me to reveal the correct answer.

Okay.

Welcome back, and well done to those of you who said B and C.

Dooley uses natural imagery and metaphors to suggest this alternative interpretation.

So now we are on to the final task of today's lesson, and what I would like you to do is to write a paragraph answering the following question.

"How does Dooley present yearning in this poem?" I'd like you to start by using a single-paragraph outline to help you structure your response, and here's an example of a single-paragraph outline.

So, into this grid, you will need to fill your topic sentence in a full sentence at the top, so this is how you're gonna introduce your main argument for this paragraph.

Then up to four pieces of supporting detail from the poem, which you can copy out in note form, and you can add some notes annotating or identifying the methods that you can spot.

And then finally, a summary sentence, again written in a full sentence, summing up your ideas from that paragraph and perhaps linking to the writer's intentions or to the wider context of the poem.

And I have a bit of a challenge for you, can you use all of the words from this vocabulary bank in your response? So pause the video here while you give this a really good go.

Take as much time as you need, and then when you are ready to go through some answers, click play, and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

So here's an example of what you could have written, "Dooley presents the relationship between the speaker and the man as ambiguous, as it is unclear whether they are just friends or there are underlying romantic feelings.

It could be argued that the speaker's description of how the relationship isn't a romance sounds like a sound-bite, implying that it is something the speaker repeats, reminding herself that a friend views their relationship as purely platonic.

Another way of reading this line suggests that the speaker's yearning may instead be for nature, which her life in a modern urban environment does not allow her to engage with.

In this way, the romance described could link to her friend's sighting of the lapwing, a sign of the change in seasons, and here she reminds herself not to romanticise this moment and that these kinds of experiences are common for those who live and work in the rural landscape." So what went well and an even better if for this response then? If we have a look there in green, what was so fantastic about this response is that it included those multiple interpretations.

So we've got the "it could be argued" on one hand but also another way of reading this line, and this is a really fantastic way to deliver an effective analysis.

However, our even better if, we could have identified some more methods.

We have lots of evidence from the text, but perhaps the person who wrote this didn't quite take it far enough with analysing Dooley's use of language, form, and structure.

So what I would like you to do is to take a moment to check your own work, and give yourself a what went well and an even better if for next time.

So pause the video while you do that, and then when you're ready to continue, click play.

Okay, so we have made it to the finish line of today's lesson, and a massive well done for all your hard work today.

So let's just summarise what we've covered in this lesson.

Dooley uses metaphors to convey how the speaker yearns to have a closer relationship with the natural world.

Dooley uses natural imagery to romanticise the man's life in a rural setting.

Dooley uses rhetorical questions to convey the moral value the speaker attaches to the natural world.

Dooley's use of tercets could mimic the brief and fleeting nature of the communication between the pair.

And finally, Dooley's use of personal pronouns could mirror the back-and-forth nature of their communication.

So thank you so much for joining me today, and I hope you feel a bit more confident when it comes to analysing this poem.

Have a fantastic day, and I hope to see you again soon.