Lesson video

Hello there, my name is Mr. Brown, and I'm going to be your teacher for today's English lesson, and we are diving into poetry.

Today, we're going to be reading and responding to a poem, talking about how the poem made us feel, whether we liked it or not, and that poem is called "Wide Open," and it's by a poet called Rachel Rooney.

So today's lesson, reading and responding to "Wide Open" by Rachel Rooney.

Let's get started.

The outcome for today's lesson is I can give a personal response to the poem and give some evidence to justify my ideas.

The keywords we will use in this lesson are theme, imaginative, and imagery.

Let's say this together, my turn and then your turn.

Theme, imaginative, imagery.

Perfect, let's look at the definitions.

So a theme is a big idea, topic, or message that recurs within a text.

Imaginative means having the ability to create vivid mental images or concepts that may not exist in reality.

And imagery is the use of language to create a mental picture or sensory experience for the reader or listener.

We will start today's lesson by looking at an introduction to the poem and poet, and then move on to exploring the poem's themes.

So Rachel Rooney, Rachel Rooney was born in London.

She was part of a large family of six children, and she became a teacher and spent many years teaching children with special needs.

When she was a child, Rachel loved poetry and wrote lots of poems, but she never showed them to anyone, and she stopped when she was in her teens.

Many years later, she rediscovered her love of poetry and started writing again.

Let's check your understanding on Rachel Rooney so far.

Tick the statements that are true, so select the statements that are true, there are more thin one.

Okay, let me read them to you.

A, is Rachel Rooney loved showing people her poems when she was a child.

B, is Rachel Rooney was born in London.

C, Rachel Rooney was an only child, and D, Rachel Rooney worked as a teacher.

Pause the video and decide which statements are true now.

Welcome back, okay, let's see if you managed to find the correct answers.

So well done if you said B and D.

Rachel Rooney was born in London and she did work as a teacher.

Well done if you said B and D, if you said A, Rachel Rooney loved showing people her poems when she was a child, she did not, she actually was quite shy and did not like showing them.

And C, Rachel Rooney was an early child, no, she was not, she was part of a large family.

Rachel Rooney is known for writing imaginative poetry for children.

Now imaginative means having the ability to create vivid mental images or concepts that may not exist in reality.

Among her poems, you'll find riddles, puzzles, strange stories, funny ideas, and even characters from fairytales.

In this lesson, we'll be reading and responding to her poem "Wide Open." Before we read the poem, what does the title "Wide Open" make you think of? What words or images come to mind? Pause the video and have a think yourself and a discussion with your partner now.

Welcome back, well, maybe you thought like Jun that, "It makes me think of a huge door that is wide open for people to walk through and see inside." That is a nice idea.

Wide open, like a wide-open door.

Or we have this idea, "I imagine a giant, grassy field, which is wide open for me to play on because there is nobody else on it." Of course, you can have a wide open space.

Now are these positive or negative images? So straight away from the title, we are starting to get the feeling whether this poem is going to be a positive or negative poem.

Is it going to make us feel happy and positive, or make us feel uncomfortable emotions, such as perhaps sadness, or we might feel scared? That would be negative.

Positive or negative images? Hmm, I think at the moment we seem to be thinking positively, don't we? Wide open seems to be a positive thing.

If a road is wide open, that's good, It means it's not busy and full of cars.

If a field is wide open, it's there for us to play on.

If a door is wide open, great, we can see through, and we can walk through it if we want to.

Now it's time to read the poem.

Read it out loud and sound out any words you are unsure of to help you.

Once you've read the poem, we will discuss our initial responses to the poem.

Now, initial is an adjective, and it means at the beginning, or first.

So our first responses, the first things we think of, that's what we'll be discussing.

You might talk about whether or not you like the poem and why, and if it made you think about anything in particular.

So, pause the video and read "Wide Open" by Rachel Rooney now.

Welcome back, what did you think? I am so intrigued to find out your opinions on this poem, but first, I'm gonna give you my initial response to the poem, and I'm gonna use these questions to help scaffold my ideas.

What did you like about the poem? That's the first thing I'm going to ask myself.

And do you have any questions about it? Okay, so my initial response, I liked how imaginative the poem was and the idea that a special eye could see anything! I also liked how the poem created fun and interesting images in my head, such as a planet rotating in space.

So that's my initial response.

It's now your turn to give your initial response to the poem.

What did you like about the poem? And do you have any questions about it? Pause the video and have a discussion with your partner where you can both share your initial responses to "Wide Open" by Rachel Rooney now.

welcome back, I hope you enjoyed sharing your responses to the poem.

This is the amazing thing about poetry.

Everybody's responses will be different, and that discussion that you had just now about this poem will be completely different from a discussion that another pair might have had.

Let's explore what happens in the poem.

So we have Verse 1 and Verse 2.

Now, a special eye that can see anything is introduced in Verse 1, the poet describes how this can even see a chick forming inside an egg.

So not after a chick is hatched, it's forming inside the egg, that's how special this eye is.

In Verse 2, the poet describes the sight as catching wondrous things that it would usually be impossible to do.

So it can see things that would usually be completely impossible to see.

In Verse 3, the poet describes the discovery of a "planet" rotating out in the depths of space! In Verse 4, the vivid image of an extinct creature sinking under frozen water is created by the poet.

Now, Verse 5, this is where the poet describes something so tidy that no human's eyes would be able to see it, the microscopic "hairs" on an insect's body.

And in Verse 6, the poet tells the reader that if they have written a "diary" entry before, this special eye will have seen it, which is a very interesting image to create because a diary is a personal and private thing.

So for this special eye to be able to see it, well, that tells us a lot about how powerful this eye is.

In Verse 7, the poet says that this wondrous eye can even see the things the reader thought about when they were sleeping.

So the eye can see inside our heads and see what we are thinking about.

And in Verse 8, the final line of the poem simply states that this incredible eye can see everything.

Let's check your understanding.

Put the following events that occur in the poem in order.

A, even things the reader thought of when sleeping can be seen.

B, an unborn bird is seen inside its egg.

And C, an extinct creature is submerged under freezing water.

Pause the video and put these three events in the order that they occur in, in the poem.

Can you do this now? Welcome back, okay, let's see if you managed to order these correctly.

So first we had an unborn bird is seen inside its egg.

Number 2, an extinct creature is submerged under freezing water.

And number 3, even things the reader thought of when sleeping can be seen.

Well done if you ordered those correctly.

Time for a discussion.

How did this poem make you feel? Let's take a look at an example.

So Izzy says, "This poem made me feel a bit worried about how this special eye can see everything, even my own thoughts!" Interesting, yeah, I didn't think of this.

And it is a feeling that makes you feel a bit bit nervous, this idea that you are being watched by something that can see everything.

And then Andeep thinks, "The poem made me feel excited to imagine what it would feel like to be able to see things that normally humans wouldn't be able to." Yeah, the possibilities are endless.

It seems like this eye can see anything.

So definitely, really good insights there.

But now it's over to you, how did this poem make you feel? And remember, our personal responses to the poem will be different, because we are all unique! We are all unique, so therefore, every person will have a different response to this poem.

Okay, pause the video and have a discussion, how did this poem make you feel? Off you go.

Welcome back, I am sure you had very insightful and interesting discussions, but it's time for a task now.

What would you include if you were writing a poem about the ability to see anything in the world? I would like you to refer to the poem for inspiration and to discuss your ideas with your partner.

It's over to you, you are creating own poem, what would you include if it was a poem about the ability to see anything in the world? Choose things that normally a human wouldn't be able to see.

There is no limit, so be creative, use your imaginations.

They can be things from the past, present, or even the future.

And they can be things that do not actually exist in real life, there are no limits when writing poetry.

So I'm going to give you a talk scaffold.

We can use this, you would say, "I would include.

," and then you'll say what you would include in your poem, and use one of my favourite words, "because.

." Use that word to justify your opinion.

I would include because, and then explain why.

Okay, it's over to you now.

Pause the video and have a discussion with your partner now.

And welcome back, I am sure you had very interesting discussions with lots of creative ideas, let's have a look at Alex's response.

So he said, "He would include seeing dinosaurs roaming the Earth in his poem, because this is something that is impossible to do." Really nice idea.

We cannot see dinosaurs walking around, can we? We can't, they do not exist anymore, we'd have to go back millions and millions of years, and that is something that in this poem, the special eye can do because there are no limits, really nice.

So was Alex's response similar or different to your ideas? Hmm, I wonder.

Let's move on now to exploring the poem's themes.

We know that Rachel Rooney's poems are often imaginative and this is one of the key themes of the poem "Wide Open." A theme is a big idea, topic, or message that recurs within a text.

"Wide Open" explores the themes of imagination and wonder.

For the theme of imagination and wonder, the poet uses her words to create several imaginative scenes for the reader to picture in their heads.

Now this is called imagery.

Imagery is the use of language to create a mental picture or sensory experience for the reader or listener.

The poet creates images of birds before they hatch from their eggs, and mysterious worlds swirling out in space.

There are other big ideas explored in the poem too, things like discovery and exploration, secrets and dreams. And here is an example of Sam, she says, "For the theme of discovery and exploration, the poet creates the image of an insect being examined extremely closely." And she's absolutely right.

There really does create this sense of discovery and exploring something in detail, I can imagine a magnifying glass and a scientist looking closely.

And Andeep says, "Contributing to the theme of secrets and dreams, the poet says that even entries into personal journals are not secret from the special eye." Absolutely, so we can see we've got three themes being explored here.

Which themes are conveyed in the poem? Is it A, imagination and wonder? B, friendship and family, or C, secrets and dreams? And there may be more than one correct answer.

Okay, pause the video and decide what are the correct answers now.

Welcome back, let's see if you found the right answers, well done if you said A and C, imagination and wonder, and secrets and dreams. There is not a theme of friendship and family in this particular poem.

Let's have a closer look at some of the language used in the poem.

So there are a few words that you might not have encountered before.

The first one is squint, and that means partly closing one or both eyes to look at something bright.

So if I'm squinting right now, I'm just shutting my eyes a little bit because there's something quite bright in front of me.

Magic means having special powers, and secrets, something that is not known or told to others.

Wide it is another word, and that means when something is very big or open.

When we read the poem aloud, we can place emphasis on the keywords to convey the themes of imagination and wonder.

Now, emphasis is the act of giving special importance to certain words, phrases, or ideas through variation in volume or tone of voice.

I would like you to read the following lines of the poem out loud, line 1, line 3, line 11, and line 15.

Remember to emphasise the words below, to convey the theme of imagination and wonder.

So these words that you've become familiar with, magic, squints, secrets, and wide, they appear on line 1, 3, 11, and 15.

Your job is to read those lines and really emphasise these words to convey the theme of imagination and wonder.

Pause the video and have a go at this task now.

Welcome back, I hope you enjoyed practising reading those lines and emphasising those particular words because that was your last practise before you engage in this task, and it'll be rereading the whole poem out loud to a partner.

I would like you to use your voice to read the poem clearly and with expression to create a sense of imagination and wonder.

So everything you've just been practising on those particular lines, let's now bring all of that into your rereading of the entire poem.

Emphasise any words that will help you to do this, such as those that you've already practised.

Pause the video and work with a partner to reread the whole poem out loud now, giving as much expression and emphasis to those important words as is necessary.

Pause the video and have a go.

Yeah, welcome back.

Okay, let's see how you got on.

Let's reflect, did you read the poem in a loud, clear voice? Did you use expression and put emphasis on certain words? What did you do to create a sense of imagination and wonder? Take a moment to reflect and think about how you read the poem.

Here is an example from Sam.

She says, "I emphasised the word 'magic' to create a sense of wonder." Brilliant, that particular word, if you are emphasising magic, will definitely create a sense of wonder.

So well done, Sam, that's a great decision.

Let's summarise the learning we've done today.

Rachel Rooney is a poet and is known for writing imaginative poetry for children.

"Wide Open" by Rachel Rooney is a poem about a special eye that can see anything.

The poem is imaginative and creates vivid imagery in the reader's mind.

The poem explores themes of imagination, wonder, and discovery.

We can read with expression to convey a sense of imagination and wonder.

Superb work, today, I hope you've enjoyed learning a new poem.

You can remember this, and hopefully, build it into your poetry repertoire, which means all the poems that you know in your mind.

I will see you again, possibly with a new poem very soon.