Lesson video

Hello.

Welcome to this lesson, An Introduction to Poetry, with me, Miss Krzebietka.

Before we get started, I just want to make sure that we've got a few things sorted, so that we can do the best learning possible today.

So what I'd like you to do first is to make sure that you've got a pen and something to write with, so that we can record all of the amazing things that you're going to do today.

Also, just make sure that you've got rid of any distractions around you.

So if you've got your mobile phone nearby, now would be a really good time to put it on silent, to turn it off, or even better, to put it in another room altogether, so that it won't distract you and stop you from being really focused and doing some amazing work.

Other than that, I'm really excited to get started.

Poetry is one of my very, very favourite things.

So I can't wait to do this lesson with you.

Okay, let's go.

[Miss Krzebietka] Hello again.

Before we start the learning for this lesson, I'm just going to run through exactly what we're going to be covering.

So first of all, we're going to start by defining poetry.

Then we're going to explore something called figurative language.

Next, we're going to explore poetry in a little bit more detail, and you're going to find out about the history of poetry.

Finally, you're going to complete some comprehension questions, to see exactly what you've learned in this lesson.

So first of all, what is a poem? I'm sure at primary school and at home, you've read poetry.

You've probably even experimented with writing poetry yourself.

But let's just remind ourselves exactly what a poem is.

So, a poem is a piece of writing, which expresses, and this just means shows, thoughts and feelings.

It's written in separate lines that sometimes rhyme, although they don't always rhyme.

That's something that's really important to remember, because sometimes we might look at a piece of writing, or we might write something ourselves and think, "That can't be a poem, because it doesn't rhyme." But actually, not all poems do rhyme, and some of the best poems don't rhyme at all.

So just keep that in mind.

Another exciting thing to know about poems is that they all contain something called figurative language.

Now, figurative language sounds like quite a complicated term.

But actually, it's just the language that's used to create powerful pictures in our mind.

It's not the type of language that we might use in our everyday speech, although sometimes we might use it without even realising, and we probably do this more often than we know.

But mostly, figurative language is used by writers in their descriptions when they really want to help us to imagine exactly what it is that they're trying to describe.

It's used to help us to picture in our mind exactly what they want us to see.

Okay, what we're going to do now is you're going to take a minute.

I would like you to read through the options in front of you, and I would like you to choose which of these is the correct definition for figurative language.

Read through the options carefully, and then choose the one that you think is the correct definition.

Once you've done that, we'll go through the answers.

So pause now for me, and off you go.

Congratulations if you said that the correct definition of figurative language is option four.

Language is used to create powerful pictures in our mind.

It's not option one, remember, because it's not the type of language that we use all the time in our everyday speech.

It's more the type of language that we really think about carefully when we're writing something and describing something that we want to help our reader to imagine.

So well done, if you got option four.

Don't worry if you went for one of the other options, because this is probably a very new term for you.

So don't worry if you went for one of those.

Hopefully, now you've seen it again, you know it what it means, and next time you'll get it right.

Okay, so let's look at some examples of figurative language.

The first type of figurative language that we're going to look at is something called a metaphor.

Now, I'm sure a lot of you have heard of metaphors before, but let's just go over them, to remind ourselves exactly what they are.

So, a metaphor is a figure of speech, where something is described as being something else, or as something that it can't be.

So, in our everyday language, we might say something like, "The young man was really unhappy." But if we were to use a metaphor, we might say instead, "The young man was drowning in sadness." Now obviously, we know that he isn't drowning in sadness.

But what this metaphor is trying to do is to help us understand how overwhelmed this young man is by the unhappiness that he is obviously feeling.

That metaphor is a much more powerful way of expressing the feelings of this young man, and that's why a writer might choose to use this metaphor, instead of the everyday language of us.

Another type of figurative language that writers might use are similes.

Now, similes are figures of speech, where one thing thing is compared to another using "like" or "as".

Again, you probably have heard of similes before, and you've probably used them in your own writing in primary school.

But let's just remind ourselves of what a simile might look like.

So, in our everyday language, we might say something like, "The sun felt pleasant." But if we were to use a simile, than we might say, "The sun felt like a warm blanket on my skin." What that simile does is just help us to really get a clear picture of just how pleasant and comforting that sun feels to the person who is experiencing it.

What the writer is trying to do is to help us, as readers, to get a clear understanding of what they're describing.

And by comparing the sun and the way it feels, to a warm blanket, it really helps to create that clear picture for us.

"Doesn't that sun look like a warm blanket on my skin?" Okay, what I'd like you to do now is to take a moment to read through the four options and to decide which of those options is the simile and which is the metaphor.

Out of the four, two of them are just our everyday language, they aren't figurative techniques at all.

But one of them is a simile, and one of them is a metaphor.

I'd like to you to pause now, read through them, and decide which one you think is the simile, and which you think is the metaphor.

Okay, off you go.

Well done, if you said that option one is the simile and option four is the metaphor.

Option one is a simile because we have that comparison, using "as".

"I was as happy as a lamb, "as I jumped over the garden gate." What that brings to my mind is sort of walking down a country lane in the spring and looking over into a field, and seeing those lambs jumping around.

And I can really see in my mind exactly what the writer is trying to describe and how joyful the person feels, because that comparison really works for me.

With the metaphor, "My heart bursts with joy." obviously our hearts can't burst with joy, because that would actually be really painful and not very joyful at all.

But what the writer's trying to do here is to show us just how happy this person is, just how full of happiness they feel.

It's almost, again, quite overwhelming, and that's word "burst" helps us to understand.

What you could do now is to write down the words "simile" and "metaphor", and to write down the examples that are on the screen.

You can pause, and do that, and that would be really good idea as a way to make sure that you remember what these figurative techniques are.

Don't worry if you didn't get it right this time, because this might be the first time you ever heard of a simile or a metaphor.

Now that we've gone over it, hopefully next time, you'll be able to get it right, and it'll be really clear for you what the simile and what the metaphor are.

Another example of figurative language that you may have heard of before, or you may not have heard of, is onomatopoeia.

Now, onomatopoeia looks like a word that shouldn't be a word at all.

Look at all the letters in there.

It looks like they shouldn't all belong in one word.

But all onomatopoeia is, is words that sound like the noise that they describe.

So, in our everyday language, we might say something like, "The glass shattered through the window." But if we wanted to use onomatopoeia, we might say, "The glass burst through the window in one sharp blast." What that word "blast", which is our onomatopoeic word, helps us to imagine is the sound that, that glass is creating.

So onomatopoeia is less about the picture in our mind, but it's more about the sounds that we can hear.

Okay, and that's why writers use onomatopoeia, 'cause they want you to know the sounds they're trying to describe.

A final example of figurative language is something called personification.

Now, personification is a figure of speech, which gives human qualities to inanimate objects or animals.

"Inanimate" just means things that aren't alive.

Okay, so it's giving human feelings, or human emotions and characteristics, to things that aren't alive and that can't have emotions and feelings.

In our everyday language, we might say something like, "The sharp branches ruined my coat." But if we were to use personification, then we might say something like this, "The branches reached out and tugged cruelly at my ripped jacket." What that use of personification helps to do is helps us imagine as readers, exactly what those branches feel like.

Okay, it's almost helping to show that they are attacking this character, that they are being evil and cruel.

And that's what the use of personification is there for, to create that more powerful picture of exactly what the writer is describing.

And I think those branches sound quite cruel and quite sinister, which means evil and dark.

Okay, just like before, what I'd like you to do is to pause, to read through the options.

One of these options is an example of personification, and one of them is example of onomatopoeia.

What I'd like you to do is to read through them, to decide which is the example of personification, which is the example of onomatopoeia.

And then I'm going to go through the answers in a moment.

Remember, two of them are just everyday language you don't have figurative techniques in at all.

Well done, if you said that option two is an example of personification.

The reason it's an example of personification is because clouds can't dance, can they? And they also can't be happy, because they don't have feelings and emotions.

But what the writer is trying to do is to show us just how lovely and beautiful the sky is at the point that the narrator is looking at it, or the person that's describing it is seeing it.

It's clearly a very lovely scene to be witnessing.

Okay, and that idea of them dancing happily, of the clouds dancing happily across the sky, helps us to really create that picture of this lovely scene.

Option three is onomatopoeia, because we've got those words "crashed" and "clanged".

"The bells crashed and clanged from the church tower." Now, those words really help us to imagine the sounds in the sentence, don't they? We can almost hear just how loud those bells are ringing out over the village, or the town, or wherever it might be.

And it really helps us to imagine the noises that those bells are creating.

Congratulations if you said option two or option three.

But don't worry if you didn't go for those this time, because again, it might be the first time you've heard of these techniques, and hopefully next time, will be able to remember what they are and get it right.

As we did with the metaphor and the simile, if you would like to write down personification and onomatopoeia, and then write down the examples that we can see before us, that would be a really good idea, and it will help you to remember exactly what these techniques are, so that you can use them in the future in your own words.

The final thing we're going to go through in today's lesson is going to help you to learn a little bit more about the history of poetry.

So I'm going to talk you through the answers to the questions on the screen.

And then afterwards, you're going to have a go on a worksheet at testing out what you've learned.

So listen very carefully.

So first things first, how long have poems actually existed? Well, an amazing fact is that poems have actually existed as a form of communication and as a form of expressing our thoughts and our feelings pretty much as long as we, as humans, have existed.

Isn't that absolutely amazing? People have used them for all those years as a way to communicate.

Now, as you can imagine, moving onto the second question, what are the different forms, which means types of poetry, there are lots and lots of different forms, because poetry has existed for so long.

So I'm going to run through just a few of these different forms of poetry, and what it might be a good idea for you to do is after I've been through them, to go away and do some extra research to find out a bit more about these different forms of poems and what makes them so different from each other.

So, different forms of poems that exist are sonnets, lyrics, ballads, haikus, odes, and many, many more.

They are just a few of them.

And different forms of poems are created all over the world, and they're being created all the time.

So over the next hundred years, we'll probably have different forms of poems added to those that already exist.

Finally, what else should we know about poetry? Well, one thing that I think is really important to know about poetry is just how important it is to the people that write it.

Okay, they think really carefully about every word and every punctuation choice and everything that goes into the poem that they create.

People write poems about things that are important to them, or things that are happening in the world that are also really important.

There are lots of poems about wars, and there are lots of poems about love, about hate, about death, about being born.

There are poems about pretty much every topic that you could think of.

And it's really important to know that poetry is about recording our innermost thoughts and feelings and ideas.

And that's what makes poetry so wonderful and so exciting and so interesting, because it is such a personal experience often for the poet themselves.

And they take so much care in every word that they write, to make sure that we, as readers, fully understand the messages that they want to express.

Now that we've been through that information, what I'd like you to do is to pause and to complete the task on the worksheet.

What it will do is give you some more information, including that which I've just been through, and then it will ask you to answer some questions based on that information.

So read it very carefully.

If you're unsure about anything, reread it, and see if you can work out it was that you were unsure about the first time, and then have a go at the questions, to see exactly what you've remembered and what you've learned.

Then you can restart, and we'll go through the final part of the lesson.

Well done.

You've worked really hard in this lesson, and I'm sure the work that you've done is absolutely fantastic.

If you'd like to, you can ask your parent or your carer to share you work on Instagram< or Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and use the hashtag #LearnwithOak.

Also, it might be an idea to ask your parent or carer to share your work with your teacher, because I'm sure they'd be really excited to see the amazing things that you've been doing.

So that might be an idea if you would like to do that.

Final thing, you've got a quiz attached to this lesson, which will help to just really consolidate the learning and help you to see exactly what you've learned today and what you might need to work on in the future.

Well done.

You've done an amazing job in this lesson.

I can't wait for lesson two.

Bye!.