Hello, my name is Ms. Grant.

I'm so glad you've decided to learn with me today.

We're in the unit "Myths, legends and stories that inspire." Today we are going to look at Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" and we're going think about the symbolism in this poem.

So it's quite a technical term, and one that is going to be really rich and interesting and challenging to explore within "The Lady of Shalott" itself.

But you will then have a secure understanding of what symbolism is, and you'll be able to apply it to some of your other literature texts as well.

I cannot wait to hear all of your fantastic ideas.

I'm gonna be your support and guide as we work through today's lesson together.

Let's get started.

So by the end of today's lesson, you're going to have explored Tennyson's use of symbolism in "The Lady of Shalott." This is a fantastic poem and there's so much to explore within this poem, as well as just enjoying the story.

But today we're going to look at Tennyson's use of symbolism, and we're gonna focus on the Lady of Shalott, the heroine of this poem in particular.

There are some keywords which again, help unlock our learning today and gonna help us achieve our objective.

They are on the board now, and if you want to pause and spend a bit more time with these keywords, then you can.

You can make a note of any of them.

But as I say, they're gonna come up throughout today's lesson.

I'm going to just draw attention to one of them, which is symbolism because that's the main focus of today's lesson, and that is how you pronounce that word, symbolism.

And it's when writers use something to represent intangible ideas.

So intangible is an idea that you can't touch, it doesn't have a physical presence.

So for example, a rose as a symbol for love.

Now, a rose is tangible, you can touch it, but love itself, you cannot touch it.

It is in intangible.

So sometimes writers use something tangible like a rose as a symbol, and there are lots and lots of different symbols.

And today we're gonna focus on the Lady of Shalott herself.

What is she a symbol for? As I say, if you'd like to pause the video now to spend a bit more time with these keywords, then do.

Otherwise, they'll come up throughout today's lesson.

Our lesson outline for today, we're gonna start off by looking at the Lady of Shalott as an isolated artist.

And then in our second learning cycle, we're gonna think, what does the poem symbolise? So close focus on symbolism throughout both learning cycles.

Let's start off with "The Lady of Shalott as an isolated artist.

So we're gonna start with a debate.

Andeep says, "To create great art, you need silence and solitude." You need to be alone.

"You have to sacrifice," you have to give up, "your social life to create truly great art." And Aisha says, "If that's true, then it is too big a sacrifice," too big a thing to give up.

"You have to engage with the real world, or it's a life half lived." I'd like you to discuss who do you agree with more and why? Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back.

A very lively debate here.

Seems to be a bit of a split in the room.

Some people agreeing with Andeep and saying, "Yep, if you do want to create absolutely brilliant art, then you do need real focus.

And real focus often comes when you are alone and when you are not engaging with the real world, and then you can create something really, really fantastic." And others saying, "But to create great art, you need to engage with the real world because great art should be about what the real world is like." So not only is it too big a sacrifice, but it also might impact your ability to create great art if you don't engage with the real world.

So really interesting debate here about these two ideas that Aisha and Andeep have put forward.

Now, Tennyson, who wrote "The Lady of Shalott," he was really interested in this debate.

So the idea of having to sacrifice something to create great art, or how much you should engage with the real world.

The Lady of Shalott is a great artist, weaving a charmed web.

So throughout "The Lady of Shalott," we really get a sense that what the Lady of Shalott is creating is very beautiful.

However, she also says she's "half sick of shadows" in stanza eight and looks out of the window to see Sir Lancelot.

So despite creating this great art, she also does want to engage with the real world.

She says she's "half sick of shadows" and she actually gets up to look at Sir Lancelot out of the window.

When she leaves her tower, her web, her art is destroyed and she dies as a person, but also as an artist.

So Tennyson is saying yes, she got up to engage with the real world, but actually what she had to sacrifice was her ability to create great art.

I'd like you to discuss who do you think Tennyson would agree with more and why would he agree more with Andeep and say, yep, you have to be willing to give up something.

If you want to create great art, you need solitude.

Or would he agree with Aisha and say that's too big a sacrifice? You have to engage with the real world.

I'd like you to refer to The Lady of Shalott" in your discussion.

Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back.

Again, a split in the room.

Obviously, we don't have Tennyson here.

We cannot ask him, but some people saying, "Well, the poem is all about the idea that you need silence and solitude.

The main focus is at the beautiful charmed web that the Lady of Shalott creates.

And the fact that she dies at the end of the poem, this is such a tragic ending to the fact that she looked out of the window.

What Tennyson is really suggesting is that to create great art, you must actually sacrifice all of the things in the outside world." And others saying, "Well, actually, the death at the end of this poem shows that it is too big a sacrifice, that it is too big a sacrifice to give up your social life, just to create great art.

And the tragedy of "The Lady of Shalott" should really show us that actually, it would be better had she engaged with the real world her whole life." So a real split in the room, both focusing on the Lady of Shalott and saying, "This supports my interpretation of the poem." Now, the character of the Lady of Shalott symbolises the isolated artist, so isolated, being far away from things, and this idea of symbolism that we looked at at the start of the lesson.

So something tangible, something you can touch being used to represent intangible ideas.

So symbolism is when writers use something tangible to represent an intangible idea.

Let's look at that in relation to "The Lady of Shalott." The Lady of Shalott is tangible.

She's a person but the isolated artist, this is an intangible idea.

It's an idea that cannot be touched.

So what Tennyson has done is he has said, "I want to explore this idea and I'm gonna do it by creating a character, the Lady of Shalott, and that's gonna help me explore the idea.

So the ballad is not just a great story, it helps us think about this idea, the isolated artist, more clearly because it links the idea to a character.

So it can be hard to think about an idea sometimes that is not tangible, that you can't actually touch.

And so it's easier to think about the idea of the isolated artist through the Lady of Shalott.

So a check for understanding before we move and look at the poem in a bit more detail.

Now we've got our understanding of symbolism and the fact that the Lady of Shalott symbolises the isolated artist.

So the Lady of Shalott symbolises the isolated artist because.

The Lady of Shalott symbolises the isolated artist but.

The Lady of Shalott symbolises the isolated artist so.

I'd like you to match the sentence stems to their endings.

Pause the video and complete this check now.

Welcome back, well done for showing your fantastic knowledge of what this word symbolises mean and the way in which the Lady of Shalott symbolises the isolated artist.

So we've got the Lady of Shalott symbolises the isolated artist because she weaves a beautiful web but can't engage with the outside world.

So she's isolated far away from the outside world.

But she is a great artist because she's creating this beautiful web.

The Lady of Shalott symbolises the isolated artist, but she gets up from her loom when she hears Sir Lancelot.

So she comes away from her isolation.

She wants to engage with the outside world.

The Lady of Shalott symbolises the isolated artist so Tennyson's poem doesn't just tell the story, but also explores a big idea.

So the story is fantastic, but it also explores this idea of what it means to be a great artist and how isolated you should be from the outside world.

So our first practise task for today.

I'd like you to reread "The Lady of Shalott." It can be found in the additional materials.

Really enjoy this rereading of the poems. It's such an engaging ballad to read, not only because of its rhyme and rhythm, but because of its fantastic tragic story.

And then I would like you to find four quotations for each side of the argument.

So the first side of the argument is the Lady of Shalott is happy and productive as an isolated artist.

And the second idea is the Lady of Shalott wants to engage with the real world.

So we can see this tussle, this debate within Tennyson's poem about how much the isolated artist should engage the real world, what they should be willing to sacrifice.

I'd like you to find four quotations for each side of the argument.

So pause the video, reread "The Lady of Shalott." You can do that aloud, you can do that in your head.

And then find four quotations for each side of the argument.

Pause the video and complete these two tasks now.

Such a pleasure to hear people rereading "The Lady of Shalott" and beautiful to see these tables in front of me where you've got really well-selected quotations for each side of the argument.

Let's do some feedback before we move on to our second learning cycle where we put these quotations to good use.

So here is one section from Andeep's table.

The Lady of Shalott is happy and productive as an isolated artist, and he selected this quotation from stanza eight.

"But in her web, she still delights to weave the mirror's magic sights." And Andeep says, "I chose this quotation because Tennyson uses the word 'delights,' showing how happy she is with her web.

The word magic adds to this because even though she's just seeing ordinary day-to-day things outside, her weaving makes it into something special." So a really nice exploration of that quotation.

I'd like you to discuss.

Can you select one of your quotations from your table and discuss why you selected it? Pause the video and complete this discussion task now.

Welcome back, really nice justifications of why you selected your particular quotations and all of this analysis 'cause that is what you've been doing as you've been discussing your quotations.

It's gonna be incredibly helpful to us as we move into learning cycle two.

So learning cycle two, what does the poem symbolise? This is gonna be the question that we answer by the end of today's lesson.

So Andeep and Aisha are discussing again this poem, and Aisha says, "The poem symbolises how much the isolated artist misses out on if they don't engage with the real world." So beautiful use of that word symbolises.

And then this focus, the isolated artist, the artist who is far away from the real world.

Andeep says, "The poem symbolises how important it is to focus completely on your art if you want to create something that's really good." Now I'd like you to discuss who do you agree with more and why? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, such a lively discussion, and this is one of the reasons why I love "The Lady of Shalott" so much is it's so open to interpretation.

So Tennyson does give us this fantastic story.

He really develops the characters, he develops the setting of Shalott, but we still have these multiple interpretations, and we can consider how much he's saying the isolated artist should engage with the real world and what they have to sacrifice if they want to create great art.

Now, Aisha decides to write up her discussion as a paragraph so that she really gets to grips with answering this question, what does the poem symbolise? And she writes, "The poem symbolises how much the isolated artist misses out on if they don't engage with the real world.

More specifically, when Sir Lancelot is introduced in part three, two of the stanzas end with "remote Shalott," which emphasises how far away from everything the Lady of Shalott feels.

Even though she can see Camelot down the river, through the mirror, she feels completely isolated.

Ultimately, Tennyson wants us to see the Lady of Shalott as doing the right thing when she leaves her tower, even if she sacrifices her beautiful woven web and her own life." So a lovely clear paragraph there from Aisha.

She's got her clear idea at the beginning.

"The poem symbolises how much the isolated artist misses out on if they don't engage with the real world." It's a very clear idea.

As I say, it's not the right idea.

You could interpret the poem very differently, but she has expressed her particular argument very clearly.

Then we've got this lovely middle section of the paragraph where she selected some fantastic evidence.

"So when Sir Lancelot is introduced in part three, two of the stanzas end with 'remote Shalott.

'" So well-selected quotations there, and she's explored those saying, "This is how these particular moments in the poem support my argument.

And finally, that final sentence, she starts to think about Tennyson, what is Tennyson saying through his poem? And Aisha believes that ultimately, Tennyson wants us to see the Lady of Shalott as doing the right thing when she leaves her tower.

So really beautiful paragraph there from Aisha.

And a great model that we're gonna rely on when we come to do our own writing.

So check for understanding before we move into doing our own writing.

Looking for a great model paragraph, just like Aisha's just written.

Which pupil selects the strongest evidence for their paragraph? So Aisha's written, "The poem symbolises how much the isolated artist misses out on if they don't engage with the real world.

More specifically, in part three, it says, Sir Lancelot sings 'Tirra lirra, tirra lirra.

'" And then we have Andeep.

"The poem symbolises how important it is to focus completely on your art if you want to create something that's really good.

More specifically, in part two, we are told she has no other care than weaving and that she delights in her weaving." Pause the video and complete this check now.

Well done if you selected Andeep.

Andeep has selected this time the best quotations, the strongest evidence for his particular idea.

If we look at Aisha, she's got a really nice idea about the poem symbolises how much the isolated artist misses out on, but her quotation, I'm not sure how she's going to connect the singing of Sir Lancelot to this particular idea.

I think there are better quotations that she could have selected from part three of the poem.

Whereas Andeep, he wants to focus on the idea that the poem symbolises how important it is to focus completely on your art if you want to create something that's really good.

And his quotation, "She has no other care than weaving.

She delights in her weaving," that definitely shows that she's creating something really fantastic and sacrificing other parts of her life.

What draws these two pupils together is they both use this phrase more specifically in order to introduce their evidence, and that can be a really, really helpful phrase to use, kind of synonym, for example, which sometimes pupils use to introduce their quotations.

So "more specifically" is a sort of fancy way of saying, for example, and can be really useful in terms of structuring your paragraph.

So I would like you to recall Aisha and Andeep's arguments in relation to "The Lady of Shalott." So Aisha, "The poem symbolises how much the isolated artist misses out on.

They don't engage with the real world." And Andeep, "The poem symbolises how important it is to focus on your art if you want to create something that's really good." I would like you to select which people you agree with most.

That's gonna be the first step.

And then the second step is going to be to develop the argument into a paragraph using the sentence starters.

So we've got "more specifically," and that's gonna push you to select and explain evidence from the poem.

And then ultimately, and that's gonna push you to consider what Tennyson wants us to think.

You'll find a copy of the poem in the additional materials, and obviously, you looked at it in learning cycle one.

You might also want to rely on the quotations from your table in learning cycle one, which I can see some people getting, gathering so that they can write their argumentative paragraph now.

So the first step, remember is select which people you agree with most, and then you're gonna develop that argument into a paragraph using the sentence starters and prompts.

Pause the video and I will see you back here shortly with your argumentative paragraphs.

Complete these tasks now.

Welcome back, well done for giving that task the time that it deserves and giving your argument, really strengthening it with some very well-selected evidence from the poem.

Also, lovely to see people ending their paragraphs, considering what does Tennyson want us to think? So I would like you to consider Aisha's paragraph from earlier on in this learning cycle.

Remember that she wrote, "The poem symbolises how much the isolated artist misses out on if they don't engage with the real world." That was her really clear idea to start her paragraph.

Then she had this beautiful section in the middle where she analysed moments from the poem that would support her clear idea.

She was looking at when Sir Lancelot is introduced in part three, and she looked at the end of two of the stanzas.

So looking at Tennyson's use of repetition.

And then finally, she had this great sentence to end her paragraph where she talks about Tennyson's intentions.

What does he want us to think or feel or reflect on after we've read his poem? So this is a really, really secure paragraph in terms of its structure.

So I'd like you to self-assess, making sure your paragraph meets the checklist.

Of course, it does not have to have the same ideas at all, but it should follow this structure so that you've got a very powerful argument.

So a clear idea, evidence selected and explored, and then an exploration of Tennyson's intentions.

So I'd like you to pause the video and just self-assess your paragraph, making sure it meets the checklist.

Pause the video and complete the self-assessment now.

Welcome back.

Lovely to see people just making sure that their paragraph has a beautiful structure, so that whatever it is they argued, they know that it's got some secure evidence from the poem to support that argument.

And then comes to a nice conclusion about Tennyson's intentions.

In summary, symbolism is when writers use something tangible to represent an intangible idea.

The Lady of Shalott symbolises the isolated artist and the sacrifices that some make to create great art.

Throughout the poem, Tennyson emphasises that the Lady of Shalott is a great artist.

However, Tennyson also emphasises how much the Lady of Shalott sacrifices to create her beautiful art.

It is up to the reader to decide whether the Lady of Shalott made the right decision to leave her isolated tower.

It has been such a pleasure to work through today's lesson with you, and I look forward to seeing you next time.