Hello there.

Welcome to today's lesson.

Fantastic to see you.

Thank you so much for joining me.

My name is Mr. Barnsley and I'm really glad that we can be continuing to study the AQA World and Lives Poetry Anthology together.

Today we're gonna be exploring a new poem.

This is A Century Later by Imtiaz Dharker.

And it's gonna be really important that you have your own copy of the AQA World and Lives Poetry Anthology at the ready.

So if you haven't got it, pause the video, go and get it 'cause you're gonna need a copy, you're gonna need a version of the poem in front of you.

Alright, I think it's time for us to get started.

Let's dive in.

So the outcome of today's lesson: you are gonna be able to explain how Dharker presents youth and education in her poem.

There are five key words in today's lesson.

They are resistance, optimistic, disparity, murmur, and swarm.

Let's have a look at what each of these words mean.

So when we see them in today's lesson, we recognise them and we can also use them with confidence in our own analysis.

So resistance means the refusal to accept or comply with something.

Optimistic means to be hopeful and confident about the future.

Disparity means a difference in level or particularly treatment, especially one that is seen as unfair.

Murmur is a softly spoken, almost inaudible utterance.

And a swarm is a large group of people all moving together.

Keep an eye out for these words in today's lesson.

So we are gonna be understanding the poem "A Century Later" reading and understanding it.

And we're gonna start by reading the poem.

Then we're gonna think about what we understand about the poem as a response to Owen, and that's Wilfred Owen, a poet from the early 20th century.

And then we're gonna understand some context.

So I'll share some context with you and see that changes your understanding of the poem.

But I think we should start by reading the poem.

Before we do that, however, we are gonna try and make a prediction.

So which of the words that you can see on the screen is the odd one out and what do you think it might suggest about the subject of the poem? So these are all words from the poem.

They are school, bullet, books and ordinary.

Pause the video and if you've got a partner you can discuss with them.

Otherwise, you can think through this independently, which of these words is the odd one out, okay? And then what might that word suggest about the subject of the poem? What do you think this poem could be about? Alright, over to you.

Pause the video, give us a go and press play when you are ready to hear some responses.

Some really nice ideas.

There's some really excellent predictions and well done for people who were using these words to make their predictions, making a link between the word and the predictions they were making.

Well then if you said something similar to this: school books and ordinary suggest a real everyday experience for a young person.

However, that word bullet really stands out.

It really implies, it obviously implies violence.

So perhaps this poem is about maybe some unexpected violence in an everyday situation or place that might be a relatively sensible, a prediction that you may have made.

Alright, it's over to you now.

To read the poem, you are gonna need your copy of the AQA World and Lives Anthology, the one that I showed you at the beginning of the lesson.

If you don't have your anthology, now's the time to pause your video and make sure it's in front of you.

Okay, everyone should have their anthologies now.

You need yours be open on the poem and I'm gonna hand over to you to do some independent reading.

So pause the video, read through the poem independently, and then press play when you are ready to continue.

Alright, excellent independent reading there.

Now let's have a think about what the poem we've just read.

Now that you've read the poem, what do you think Dharker meant through words such as school, books, ordinary and bullet? Why were they included? Pause video.

Have a think, have a discuss if you've got a partner and press play it when you are ready to continue.

Alright, some really interesting discussions.

They're really sensitive discussions.

Obviously this poem feels that it's about a really sensitive topic here.

So well done.

I could hear people saying that they think this poem was about someone was shot, who was shot on the way to school.

And referencing things like ordinary in books implies that, you know, walking to school should be a normal expectation.

You should be safe being able to go to school, you should be able to go to school and learn and yet someone appears to have been shot for trying to do just that.

Okay, well done if that was your interpretation, if that was your reading of the poem that shows that you did some excellent independent reading.

Alright, I'd now like you to look at lines four and five.

And I want you to think, why do you think Dharker emphasises the girl's appearance and particularly the roundness of her face? Why might that have been done? What's the intention behind that? Pause the video.

Have a think and press play when you are ready to hear some responses.

Some really interesting discussions there.

Well done.

I really liked ideas that said something similar to this: that potentially Dharker does this in order to emphasise the youth and the humanity of the subject in this poem to the reader.

It really hints at her innocence and it provokes kind of a really strong emotional reaction from the reader.

You know, making the character, the subject feel more vulnerable perhaps at times.

Although, we'll talk about, we'll think about whether vulnerability is a word that actually we might associate with the subject of this poem in a bit.

Okay, throughout the poem then Dharker specifically only mentions schoolgirls rather than schoolchildren, rather than a more gender-neutral term.

She mention schoolgirls, why do you think this might be? Why don't you pause the video? Have a think.

Why do you think Dharker is mentioning schoolgirls rather than school children? Alright, over to you.

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

Oh, some really interesting ideas there.

Well done to those of you who said things like: only mentioning female students implies that this is specifically the female students who've been denied their education.

This actually feeds into wider issues that you might be aware of, of gender disparity, differences in the way that different genders are treated, and particularly, in this case, in their access to education around the world.

We know that education is less available to girls around the world than it is to boys.

Or you might be aware of that, but certainly not.

It is not like the UK where there is an equal access to both genders to education.

That's not always the case across the world.

And well done if you had made that link to that contextual knowledge that you might have already had.

Alright, I want you to answer the following questions now to consider the girl's reaction to their threat of education.

So on line 7, what does the description of the girl carrying "on" suggest? And on line 17, What is the implication of growing from a "murmur," a quiet sound, to a swarm, a big group of people moving in one direction.

Okay, let's have a think then.

Answer these questions and think about what is this telling? What are we learning about the girls' reaction to the threat to their education? Alright, pause video.

Have a think and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

I really liked it when people were saying that it suggests that the bullet has been unable to harm this girl.

It's not intimidated her, it's not made her abandon her right to education.

And actually this movement from a murmur, a quiet amount to a swarm, a big crowd suggests there's a real resistance against the violence.

It kind of, girls are standing up, you know, the momentum of the girls is growing.

They are, you know, the resistance is growing, it's getting stronger.

Girls are saying we are not going to back down.

We are not gonna back away.

We are not gonna give up on what we should be entitled to, which is our right to an education.

Really well done if you picked up on that.

And kind of going back to that word of vulnerability that we looked at when we talked about the roundness of the subject's face, we can see here that yes, there was a vulnerability and innocence there, but there is a real strength in both the subject and the girls, the schoolgirls in this poem.

So well done if you said something similar to that.

So let's check how we're getting on then.

By referencing schoolgirls, Dharker references wider issues of what? Is it gender disparity in education? Is it period poverty in schools? Or is it social disparity in education? What do you think? Pause video.

Have a think and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

Now you might have said all three of these are very valid issues that people might want to talk about when they think about schools and education.

But Dharker is particularly focusing on the gender disparity.

The way that girls do not always have the same right to access to education as boys do across the world.

So over to you for our first task.

How are the girls reacting to the threat of their education? Do you think Dharker is presenting an optimistic future? I want you to write a short answer.

You don't need to be writing lots here, but I want you to try and summarise what we have discussed and thought about so far.

So things I want you to remember.

I want you to use quotations to evidence your ideas.

I want you to make sure you're explaining what your ideas are and I want you to consider Dharker's intentions.

What do you think? What message is Dharker trying to share with her readers? Okay, pause the video, give this a go and press play when you are ready to continue.

Alright, great work on that.

It was really brilliant see you writing so confidently after I've just one reading of the poem.

Okay, we're gonna do a bit of reflection now.

We're gonna do this by comparing our work to a little snippet from Izzy's answer.

Let's think about how we could improve Izzy's answer.

So Izzy says, "Referring to the girls as a metaphorical swarm suggests Dharker's poem is more optimistic because it implies there are large numbers of girls protesting and trying to fight for themselves." Alright, I a think about how might you improve Izzy's answer.

Why don't you pause the video, have a look and think and then press play when you're ready to continue.

What about other Oat pupils? Jacob gave some feedback and he said, "Look, Izzy's answers good, but it doesn't include, it doesn't make reference to the growth from the murmur.

So actually the quotation ends up losing some of its effectiveness." So Izzy uses this feedback and this is her improvement.

Let's see how much better this is.

"Dharker suggests the strength of the girl's resistance has grown from a murmur to a swarm, which shows they are gaining momentum and therefore implies an optimistic attitude towards the potential success of the girls' fight for their education." Great.

I really, really like this response.

The last one was good, it was fine.

But now by showing that growth from murmur to swarm, it much more clearly justifies why there is optimism and hope for the future and for these girls in their fight for education.

Alright, now we're gonna move on to our second learning cycle and we are gonna start to delve into some context here and try and understand the poem as a response to Owen.

Now let's consider the title of the poem: "A Century Later." was written in 2014.

So what do you know was happening a century earlier? What was happening in 1914? Do you know? Pause the video, have a think and press play when you're ready to continue.

Yeah, great if you said, if you remember that World War I began in 1914.

So what do you think your initial thoughts are about the potential connections between the First World War and the topic that's been discussed in a century later? Pause the video if you've got partner, discuss this with them, otherwise you can think through this independently.

What are the potential connections between World War I and the topics that have been covered in a century later? Over to you.

Pause video.

Have a think a press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back, intriguing connections that you were making.

What I thought, what I heard from quite a few of you and I really liked was this connection that these are situations where people are fighting for what they believe in and potentially fighting for their own freedom as well.

Well done if you said something similar to that.

So as well as referencing the date of 1914, which was a century later, also references one of the most famous war poems. So as well as referencing the date 1914, "A Century Later" also references one of the most famous war poems at the time, which was Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth." So how might the title of Owen's poem relate to "A Century Later"? So Wilfred Owen, famous poet, died during World War I.

A lot of his poems were about war and the realities of war and how war was a such a harrowing thing, one of his most famous poems is "Anthem for Doomed Youth".

So just looking at that title, even if you've never read the poem just looking at the title alone, how does that relate to what we've been talking about in a century later? Over to you.

Pause video, have a think, press play when you're ready to continue.

Well, great discussions there.

Some really interesting ideas.

I'm gonna shine a spotlight on some of the things I heard, but of course there were many other valid interpretations that are equally good.

But I really liked this one.

I heard some of you saying this, potentially it relates to the idea that is specifically the youth who have to fight for their rights and beliefs.

Furthermore, it also relates to the realities of the potential harm that could come to those who engage in such resistance as in a century later.

Okay, you know, but fighting for your rights and belief is not easy and is not without its dangers and potential repercussions.

So well done if you made that link that, you know, Owen's war poetry, the "Anthem for Doomed Youth", that very ominous, bleak adjective doomed could be related to the potential harm that could come as a result of engaging in resistance, the resistance that we see in "A Century Later".

Owen opens his poem with the line, "What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?" And actually, if you look at your copy of the poem, you look at Dharker's opening line, you will see a mirroring of this.

You'll see similarities between those opening lines.

Why do you think both Owen and Dharker open their poems with images of violence paired with youth? Why do you think that? What's the effect of that? What's the implication of that? Pause video.

Have a think and press play when you're ready to continue.

Really well done there.

Some really sensitive discussions and some great ideas.

So perhaps both poems are trying to say that as a society we don't learn from our mistakes.

And the consequence of this are that, that it's usually the youth that are left to face the brutality of war and violence.

Really well done if you'd said you could spot these things happening in cycles and who was impacted by that? And quite often it's the youth.

Okay, so both Owen and Dharker are juxtapose the ordinary with violence in order to perhaps do what? Is it a, suggest that youth should experience a normal life, b, suggest that violence is a part of everyday life, or is it c, suggest that education is the way to solve violence? What do you think? Pause the video.

Have a think and press play when you're ready to continue.

Well done if you said a.

You know, I think both Owen and Dharker saying, look, young people just deserve to experience a normal life.

We so frequently across the world, across history see that that is not always the case.

Alright, over to you now for a practise task.

Arguably Dharker's poem presents an optimistic view of the girls' resistance whilst Owen's refers to the youth as being doomed.

Let's have a discussion here.

So if you've got a partner, you're gonna just do this verbally, but don't worry if you're working by yourself, you can still do this activity.

You could just make a few notes or just think through this independently.

Why do you think Dharker then would reference Owen's poems given the disparities, the differences in the tone.

Dharker seems very optimistic, whereas Owen seems quite bleak and pessimistic.

Alright, we're gonna have a discussion.

Things I want you to consider as we do: Dharker's title "A Century Later", what might it reflect or what might it be reflecting on? And what could potentially cause the girls to be doomed? So can we see any, you know, yes this is an optimistic poem, but is there any chance that the girls could be doomed like the youth in Owen's poems? Okay, over to you, discussing if you have a partner thinking or making notes.

If you're working by yourself, pause the video, give this a go and press play when you are ready to hear some responses.

Welcome back.

Really great work there.

Well done.

What I'd like us to do now is have a moment of reflection and I'm gonna share with you two of the Oak pupils' responses to this task.

And I want you to just decide who do you agree with more and why? So Laura said, "I think Dharker references Owen's poem to show that we will always have to fight for what we believe in, and our right and fight for our rights.

Nothing has changed in 100 years." whereas Izzy says, "I think Dharker specifically references Owen's poem to imply the girls' future will be doomed if they do not get the education they're fighting for." Two really interesting interpretations.

I want you to pause the video and have a think who do you agree with? Who do you agree with more and why? Alright, pause the video, have a reflection.

Compare this to the ideas that you were discussing and press play when you're ready to move on.

Okay, so in that learning cycle we were referencing some, we were looking at some context there, making links between Owen's poem "Anthem for the doomed Youth." Now we're gonna look at a little bit more context.

So Dharker often writes about identity and human strength over adversity.

Now you may have spotted this, I'm sure some of you might have already made this link as you were reading the poem at the beginning of the lesson, but Dharker is specifically referencing triumph, the triumph of strength in the poem through the reference to Malala Yousafzai.

She was a Pakistani schoolgirl who survived being shot in the head because she was speaking out about girls' rights to education.

Malala was so revered for her bravery and her strength that she won the Noble Peace Prize laureate in 2014.

And this was for her activism towards education.

Malala is a very famous figure and I'm sure you might have heard something more about her, but if you do want to find out more, then I really recommend you doing some more research about her.

She's very inspirational figure.

So, which of the following statements is true? Malala was speaking out about Pakistan's independence.

Malala was speaking out about girls' right to education.

Malala was speaking out about climate change.

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

Yeah, well done if you said b.

So Malala was shot in the head because she was speaking out about girls' right to education.

So when we say there is a disparity, a gender disparity when it comes to education, you can see how severe this is in some parts of the country, girls are risking their lives to have an opportunity at equal education and that's what we are, what Dharker has written about in "A Century Later." Okay.

Then in "A Century Later," Dharker expresses the idea that a book cannot be destroyed.

That's an image that we see in the poem.

I want you to write an answer to this question.

How does Dharker present youth and education in "A Century Later?" To do this, I want you to consider the following things, how school and books are presented in the poem? What you know about the context of Malala? So we know that this is referencing a very real life event.

But I also want you to think about why Dharker doesn't specifically name Malala in the poem.

Why might that be? Okay, yes, this is about Malala, but why? Why then not name her? Alright, some real things to think about as I hand over to you to do the last bit of writing in today's lesson.

Alright, pause the video, give this a go, a press play when you are ready to hear some responses.

Great work there everybody, really well done.

And a special well done to anyone who was checking their spelling, punctuation, grammar before they put the pen down.

That is what I love to see.

Alright, now let's compare our work to that of Izzy, one of our Oat pupils.

She has written a response to this and I want you to think about, do you agree? Do you disagree? Is this similar to your ideas or not? So Izzy wrote "By expressing the notion that books cannot be destroyed, Dharker implies that education and the right to education is more powerful than violence.

Referencing Malala epitomises this idea since she put herself in grave danger in order to fight for her right to education and continues to do so.

Potentially Dharker does not reference Malala by name in order to show this right for education is important for every girl.

And this is highlighted by their willingness to stand on the front line at the end of the poem." Okay, over to you now, time for you to do a little bit of reflecting here.

Do you think, do you agree with Izzy's ideas? Do you disagree? How similar or different are these to yours? You may wish to use Izzy's ideas to improve your own answer and you may even wish to use some of Izzy's ideas to help you annotate your copy of the poem.

Alright, it is time for you to pause the video and do some reflecting and then press play when you're ready to move on.

Right.

That's it.

We have reached the end of today's lesson.

Really, really well done today.

Some great work and it's been a real pleasure learning alongside you today.

On the screen, you can see a summary of the learning that we have covered.

I'm gonna go through it very quickly because I want you to feel confident about all of these things before you move on to our next lesson.

So "A Century Later" explores the fight that many women have faced across the world in the fight for education and equality.

Dharker references Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth," which expressed the horrors of war.

And Dharker references activist Malala Yousafzai who was shocked in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan.

Alright, well done for all your hard work today.

I hope to see you in one of our lessons in the future.

Have a great rest of your day.

Thank you very much.

Goodbye.