Hello, everyone.

My name's Ms. Keller, and welcome to today's lesson.

During this session, we are going to be analysing the poem "Neutral Tones" by Thomas Hardy.

So by the end of today's lesson, we will be able to explore how Hardy uses imagery to present a foreboding interaction during the breakdown of a relationship.

So let's have a look at today's key words, ominous, hostile, oxymoron, and colour imagery.

So what do these words mean? Well, if something's ominous, it means it's foreboding.

It suggests that something bad will happen.

If something's hostile, it's unfriendly or unwelcoming.

An oxymoron is a language technique which combines two opposing ideas.

And that final word colour imagery is when a writer uses vivid descriptions of colours to evoke emotions or ideas.

So how is today's lesson going to look? First of all, we are going to analyse how "Neutral Tones" creates a sense of foreboding.

And then secondly, we are going to look at how we might write about this poem in an analytical way.

So let's get started.

"Neutral Tones" is a poem that is characterised by its hopeless mood.

And this is something that we know is characteristic of Thomas Hardy's writing.

From the beginning of the poem, Hardy hints that the breakdown of the speaker's relationship is inevitable, and he also implies that following the breakdown of this relationship, the speaker loses all faith in love.

So I'd like to pause here for a quick discussion, and I'd like you to think about how the word neutral in the title could link to the speaker's feelings of hopelessness.

So maybe discuss this in pairs or in small groups, or if you're working on your own, that's okay.

Just make a few notes in your exercise book or on your paper.

So pause the video here for a few moments and when you're ready to continue, click play, and we will feedback some responses.

Okay, welcome back.

I heard some really fantastic responses taking place there.

Lots of people really starting to unpick that language of the title and thinking really carefully about why Hardy has used that particular adjective.

So let's dig into the meaning of this word a little deeper.

So, well done if you picked up on this idea that the word neutral could link to the speaker's feelings of numbness or resignation, because usually if we were to think about a romantic relationship where one person loves another, these would not be neutral feelings.

They would be strong feelings and powerful feelings that they would feel for the other person.

And particularly if we're thinking about the breakdown of that romantic relationship, we would still be experiencing powerful feelings, albeit negative powerful feelings.

So the fact that Hardy has used this word in the title very much suggests that our speaker has reached a place of resignation.

They've resigned themselves to the fact that this is over, that love is perhaps not for them, and now they feel numb.

But as we dig a little bit deeper into the language and into the speaker's descriptions of their feelings afterwards, I'd like you to think about this question.

Are they really as neutral about this breakup as the title might suggest? So just keep that in your minds as we go along and we're going to revisit that question a little bit later on in today's lesson.

So let's analyse "Neutral Tones" together.

"We stood by a pond that winter day, and the sun was white as though chidden of God, and a few leaves lay on the starving sod.

They had fallen from an ash and were grey." I'd like to stop here for a quick fire discussion.

So take a minute or so to discuss with your neighbours or the people around you or make some notes on your paper.

But I'd like you to think in particular about how Hardy creates a negative image and try to focus your discussion on those words that I have highlighted in purple.

So pause the video, take a minute or two for your discussion, and then when you're ready to feedback, click play.

Okay, welcome back.

Heard lots of wonderful discussions, people picking up on the different words that I've highlighted and thinking in particular about Hardy's use of colours, which is fantastic as that is what we are about to discuss now.

So one of the ways then that he creates this negative impression of the landscape is he uses colour imagery and pathetic fallacy.

So colour imagery is that word from our keywords today, and it means using vivid colour-based descriptions to evoke certain emotions or feelings.

And then we've also got that idea of pathetic fallacy, which is using natural references, references to nature, in order to symbolise the feelings of the characters in a text or the emotional mood of the text itself.

So let's see how Hardy uses these methods.

Well, if we take that word winter, we've got an example of pathetic fallacy here.

Winter could symbolise death, cold, and endings.

It's the time of year where the plants and the nature starts to die off because of the bitter cold.

And it also symbolises this idea of endings, because we find winter at the end of the year.

And the animals go into hibernation and it's a bleak and lonely time of the year to look at.

And if we have a look at this example on the second line, the sun was white.

Now if we think of a pleasant natural landscape, we might imagine a warm and golden sun.

And rather than use that description, Hardy here has described the sun as white, which suggests that it's too bright, it's harsh, and it's not warm and comforting.

It's quite the opposite of that.

And then down to line four, we have got this idea of an ash tree.

Now an ash is a type of tree that is known for its silvery grey leaves, which is linking to that word at the end of the line, grey, the use of colour imagery.

And obviously the use of the colour grey in this landscape again gives us that bleak wintry impression.

It's cold, it's grey, it's dull, it's not nice to look at, and it's not particularly comforting to be a part of.

And when we look at that word ash, we've also got another link that we could pull out here, and that is that the word ash could potentially also link to the remains of a fire which are also grey.

So if we're thinking about ash and remains, we are obviously about to hear our speaker's descriptions of the end of their relationship and what remains after that.

So moving on to stanzas two and three, "Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove over tedious riddles over years ago.

And some words play between us to and fro on which we lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing, alive enough to have the strength to die.

And a grin of bitterness swept thereby like an ominous bird a-wing." So in these stanzas, Hardy uses oxymorons, and oxymorons are methods used by writers often to show conflicting ideas or confusion.

Remember that oxymoron is one of those keywords from our lesson.

It is when we have two contrasting ideas that have been placed next to each other in order to emphasise one or both of them.

So having these two opposite ideas really brings out that sense of conflict.

It's one thing, but it is also another.

So if we look here in stanza two, you will see that we have the oxymoron tedious riddles.

And the reason why these words are opposites is because we've got the idea of tedious, which means boring or repetitive, which implies that something is quite easy to understand, but something that you have to go over and over and over and it's become quite boring over time.

But then we've got the word riddles, which has the opposite meaning of that.

A riddle is difficult to understand and in fact, it's the difficulty of riddles that is precisely what makes them fun.

So over to you.

There is another oxymoron somewhere in stanza three, and I would like you to try and find it.

So pause the video while you have a read through of stanza three and either discuss this with the people around you or make a note of the oxymoron on your paper.

And then when you're ready to feedback your answers, click the play and we'll continue.

Okay, well done to those of you who managed to spot the oxymoron, which was a grin of bitterness.

So let's just explore why this is an oxymoron.

Because we've got these two words, a grin, which is another word for smile, and then bitterness, which is an emotional feeling that we associate with meanness and negative feelings.

Okay, so one more thing to point out in stanza three, but I'd like you to have a go and see if you can find it first.

There's a word in stanza three which suggests that something bad will happen and it's actually one of our keywords from the lesson.

So see if you can think back to the beginning where we went through those keywords, and have a read through of stanza three and see if you can find out which word I'm referring to.

So pause the video for a moment while you have a read through, and then when you think you've found it, click play and I'll reveal the answer.

Welcome back, well done to those of you that said ominous.

And if we look at this last line, we have got that simile there, which adds a sense of foreboding.

So as this bitter grin swept over the partner's face, the speaker just compares it to an ominous bird flying past.

And this obviously suggests that the speaker has a bad feeling about this smile.

So onto the last stanza.

"Since then, keen lessons that love deceives and wrings with wrong have shaped to me.

Your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree, and a pond edged with greyish leaves." So over to you one more time then.

Hardy uses colour imagery and an oxymoron again in this stanza.

Can you find where he does this? So pause the video while you have a read through and then when you're ready to discuss it, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

Lots of fantastic discussions again there, and I'm really pleased to see that people are starting to identify these different methods in the text because this is a really useful skill to have.

So let's have a look then for this colour imagery and the oxymoron.

So first of all, our colour imagery down there on the last line.

Greyish leaves.

We've got that idea again of that grey and bleak landscape, very much like the descriptions we were getting in stanza one.

And then we've got our oxymoron up there on the top line.

Love deceives.

And we know it's an oxymoron, because it uses these two contrasting ideas.

Love is something that is supposed to be good, but as far as our speaker is concerned, it's deceitful.

It's the opposite of that.

So again, this idea that they've got a very conflicted view of love.

And actually this is also an example of personification, because in this idea that our speaker believes that love deceives, we get the impression that the speaker feels that love is to blame for what happened.

They don't blame their partner for the breakup of their relationship, they blame love itself.

So this takes us back to that question from our original discussion when we were looking at the words of the title.

If we look at this language here, do we believe that the speaker is really that neutral about the breakup? Initially we'd said that perhaps they feel resigned and numb about what happens to them, but through the use of this colour imagery presented a bleak and emotional landscape.

We can pick up on the idea that perhaps they feel quite sad.

The use of pathetic fallacy is bringing out the sadness that perhaps they felt on this day, but also statements like love deceives almost have that edge of anger and frustration.

Our speaker feels like they were betrayed by love.

So perhaps they're not as neutral as originally we might have thought.

So let's pause here and check our understanding.

Hardy's use of colour imagery in stanza one could symbolise what? Have a look at the three options and pause the video while you think, and then when you're ready to carry on, click play and I'll reveal the answer.

Okay, fantastic.

Well done to those of you that said B, Hardy's use of colour imagery in stanza one, Hardy's use of colour imagery, creating this bleak, grey landscape could link to the idea of death and endings.

Okay, let's have another go.

Which of these quotes is an example of an oxymoron? So press pause, take some time to look at the quotes below, and then when you're ready to continue, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, well done to those of you that said C, grin of bitterness is an example of an oxymoron, because remember, for it to be an oxymoron, we need those two contrasting ideas.

Okay, one more opportunity to check our understanding.

So the speaker in "Neutral Tones" blames their partner for what happened.

So pause the video, have a think about whether you think this is true or false, and then click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, the correct answer was false.

So let's now have a look at two ways we might justify this answer.

Have a readthrough of both of these explanations and think to yourself which one best justifies the answer above.

Pause the video and then click play when you're ready to continue.

So, well done to those of you that said A, the speaker in "Neutral Tones" does not blame their partner for what happens, because the oxymoron love deceives suggests the speaker feels betrayed by love and not by their partner.

So now it's time to practise what we've learned so far about how Hardy he creates a sense of foreboding.

So what we've got here is four key quotes from the poem.

And what I would like you to do is to fill in the gaps by finding the missing words from the following quotations.

And once you filled the missing gaps, then what I'd like you to do is write a short analysis of the missing words.

So thinking about what those key missing words suggest, what inferences can we make? What deeper meanings can we pull out of these particular words? So pause the video and take as much time as you need to complete this, and then when you're ready to feedback your responses, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back.

Fantastic effort from what I could see there, lots of people working with their copies of the poem to find those missing words and then really, really starting to unpick that language, which is fantastic.

So let's have a look at what you might have written about each of those key missing words.

So the first one then, the quote was, "The sun was white as though chidden of God." And our missing word there was chidden, and you could have analysed it by saying, "The word chidden means scolded.

So it sounds as if their anger has filled the whole universe to the extent that even nature and God are in conflict." Okay, for the second one then, tedious riddles.

So, "Riddles are meant to be fun and lighthearted, but the adjective tedious suggests that in this relationship, all humour has dissipated and they are bored and tired of each other." Number three, "The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing." And those missing words deadest thing, superlative deadest.

And a superlative is a word that means the most.

So the most dead, the deadest.

Conveys the utter finality of the smile and her love for him.

Her smile seems barely human because it has become a thing.

No longer does her face light up.

She doesn't seem lively when she thinks about him.

Her smile now is the deadest thing.

And then the last one, "A pond edged with greyish leaves." "The washed out colour of the leaves," the grey, "acts as in external representation of their lacklustre love." So just as we were saying earlier, the bleakness of this natural landscape is really giving us the impression that this walk is not going to be a romantic one, but perhaps we get this sense of foreboding, that it's inevitable that this relationship is going to break down.

Okay, so we've reached the halfway point of the lesson, so well done for making it this far.

In the second half of the lesson, we are going to look at how we would write about "Neutral Tones".

So we're going to be thinking really carefully about how to plan and structure analytical paragraphs.

So Jacob and Izzy, our Oak students, have been tasked with writing an analytical paragraph, and this is Izzy's first time that she's ever done this.

So Jacob is helping her out.

So she says, "I need to write an analytical paragraph, but I don't know where to start.

My question is, how does Hardy present love?" And Jacob says, "I'll help you, Izzy.

A good way to think about analysis paragraphs is through three questions, what, how, and why? Let's start with the first question, what? Look at the question.

What is the key word that you need to focus your answer on?" And at this point, we are going to help Izzy out.

So have a look at that question at the top of the screen, "How does Hardy present love?" What is the key question that we are going to need to focus on? And a good way to identify the keyword of a question is to think to yourself, "If I had 10 different questions about this poem, what is the word in that question that would change across each one?" So pause the video for 30 seconds or so while you discuss this with the people around you or make a note on your paper and then press play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, well done.

If like Izzy, you identified that the keyword was love.

So Jacob says, "Our what question is, 'What does the speaker think about love?'" And Izzy's response is, "They feel betrayed by it and they blame it for how they feel." So Izzy is drawing on those same ideas that we were talking about in the first half of the lesson.

So now we have an answer to our what question, and the next step is to prove it with a quotation from the poem.

So over to you again, can you find a quote from the poem that supports Izzy's idea? So thinking carefully about that what statement at the top and finding some evidence in the poem that supports it.

Pause the video for a few moments and then click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, fantastic.

Lots of great discussions taking place there, with people really trying to justify why the quote that they had chosen was the best piece of supporting evidence.

So that is fantastic.

So Izzy says, "How about love deceives," from that final stanza, "because the word deceives is a synonym for betrays," and a synonym is two words that have a similar meaning.

So let's just pop that up there with our what statement.

So we have our what and our evidence.

Now it's time to move on to how.

And in order to do that, we need to analyse the language in this step.

So over to you again, I'd like you to have a look at the quote we've chosen up there in evidence and think, are there any language techniques that you can see and what do they suggest about the speaker's feelings? So we're picking out those writer's methods, those language techniques, and we are also inferring what they suggest about how the speaker feels.

So pause the video again for a few moments and then click play when you're ready to feedback your answer.

Okay, welcome back.

Again, lots of fantastic discussions about language techniques and methods and people really drawing out those detailed inferences.

So fantastic job.

Let's see what Izzy had to say.

So she says, "The use of personification suggests that love is responsible for the speaker's feelings of betrayal and not their partner or the end of their relationship." And also the oxymoron implies the speaker feels conflicted or confused.

So now we've added that how to our plan.

"It's time for the last step, why.

You need to link to context, but only if it's relevant.

You should include context in your answer, but it doesn't need to be in every paragraph." It can actually be less effective than if it's woven throughout a response.

So when you're thinking about context, think really carefully about whether or not it is relevant to the point you're making in that paragraph.

And if it isn't, perhaps think of where you could use that piece of knowledge later on in your response.

So let's pause here for one final discussion.

Can we link this particular analysis to anything we know about the wider context of the poem? So pause the video here while you discuss with your neighbours or the people around you or make some notes on your paper and then click play when you're ready to continue and feedback some answers.

Okay, welcome back.

Lots of fantastic discussions taking place there, and I was particularly impressed to see how much contextual information we knew that related to "Neutral Tones", so well done.

It's important to remember when we're discussing context that it can relate to more than one thing.

It can relate to the author or the poet and their life and experiences or their beliefs and what might have inspired them to write the poem in the way that they did.

But it can also relate to when and where the poem was written and set.

So let's see what Izzy had to say about the wider context.

"Hardy's poetry is characterised by a pessimistic tone.

It has been argued that this may be a response to his unhappy first marriage." So Izzy's gone down the route of picking up on the knowledge that she happens to know about our writer, Thomas Hardy, and thinking about what characterises a lot of his writing, but also thinking about how he might have been influenced by his life experiences.

And there we have our plan.

So now we have all the parts of the analytical paragraph.

All we need to do is put them together.

And Izzy says, "Wow, thanks Jacob.

Breaking it down into three questions made the task much easier to tackle." So let's just pause here and check our understanding.

Jacob showed us how to write an analytical paragraph using three helpful questions.

Which answer shows these questions in the correct order? Pause the video while you have a good read of the options and when you think you've chosen the correct one, click play and I'll reveal the answer.

Okay, welcome back, and well done to those of you that said C.

The correct order for us to begin thinking about an analytical paragraph is what, how, and why? And the reason for that is that what deals with that question that we need to answer.

So it's always vital that we break down the keywords of that question so we know exactly what it is we will be looking for in the poem, and it will help us to structure the rest of our ideas.

So now Izzy has successfully used what, how, and why to plan her answer.

Let's see how Izzy can use this plan to assemble her analytical paragraph.

Let's have a read through what she came up with.

"The speaker blames love for how they feel.

In the final stanza, they describe how love deceives.

Hardy's use of personification implies the speaker feels betrayed, because love has deceived them.

This suggests they feel love itself and not their partner is responsible for the end of their relationship." So we've already got some of that what there, the evidence and how, and I'd just like to pause at this point before we read the second half and look at this quotation.

If we see the first time that Izzy uses the quotation, she says, love deceives.

Whereas later on, she has said deceived and she has put square brackets there around the D at the end.

And the reason that she's done this is because it actually makes sense for her to tweak the original quote slightly so it fits into her sentence, because she is using the past tense, betrayed.

So love has deceived them.

So as long as we know what those original words were and changing that word doesn't affect the point that you are making, then feel free to use square brackets yourself.

So let's look at the second half of her answer.

"Furthermore, Hardy's use of an oxymoron here indicates that the speaker feels confused and conflicted.

Perhaps not fully understanding why the relationship broke down.

This pessimistic tone is characteristic of Hardy's poetry.

And it could be argued that this poem is a response to his unhappy first marriage." So let's pause and check our understanding.

In her answer, Izzy included square brackets in her quote, love deceived.

Why did she do this? So pause the video while you have a read through of these reasons.

And when you think you've decided which one is correct, click play and I'll reveal the answer.

Okay, fantastic.

Well done to those of you who said A.

Izzy included the square brackets to show that she'd made a minor change to make the quote fit in her sentence.

Okay, it's time to practise writing our own analytical paragraph.

So what I would like you to do is plan and write an answer to the following question.

How does Hardy convey the couple's feelings about the relationship? And if we look in the grid, you have got some questions to help you with your plan.

And then over on the right there, you've got some sentence starters to help you structure your answer once you've come up with these building blocks from your plan.

So pause the video and take as much time as you need to give this a really good go, thinking very carefully about your what, how, and why questions as you do so.

And then when you've finished your paragraph, click play and we'll feedback some responses.

Okay, welcome back.

So let's see what you could have written.

Hardy suggests that the speaker's partner feels resentful towards the speaker.

In stanza three, a grin of bitterness crosses their face.

Hardy's use of the abstract noun bitterness implies that the partner feels hostile towards the speaker.

However, the oxymoron of grin and bitterness indicates that their feelings are complex and conflicted.

This hints that the end of the relationship may still be painful for the partner too, even though it's insinuated that they made the decision.

Hardy's poetry was characterised by a pessimistic tone, and it has been argued that the cynical attitude towards love that he conveys in this poem could be a response to his unhappy first marriage.

So I'd like you to compare your answer to this response, thinking very carefully about whether you've included everything from that planning checklist.

And once you've done that, I would like you to set yourself a what went well and an even better if for next time.

So pause the video while you review your answer and set yourself some targets, and then click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, so we have made it to the end of today's lesson.

So let's just take a moment to summarise what we have covered today.

Hardy uses colour imagery to create a bleak and barren emotional landscape.

He uses an oxymoron to convey the hostile and hopeless nature of the relationship.

He uses personification to suggest how he feels misled by love.

He uses ominous imagery to show how the relationship was ill-fated.

And analytical paragraph should consider a writer's meaning, use of language, and purpose.

So before we go, I would just like to take a moment to say a massive well done for all your hard work today.

And I hope that you feel a lot more confident when it comes to analysing the language in this poem.

I hope you have a fantastic day, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.