Hello, my name is Ms. Grant.

We're in the unit: Myths, legends and stories that inspire.

Today we're gonna read a fantastic poem called "Brueghel's Winter" by Walter de la Mare.

It was inspired by a painting of the same name.

Today we're gonna read the poem, we're gonna look at the painting, and we're gonna use that as a jumping off point for our own descriptive writing.

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

I cannot wait to hear all of your fantastic ideas.

Let's get started.

So by the end of today's lesson, you're going to have written a descriptive paragraph, inspired by Bruegel's "The Hunters in the Snow" and Walter de la Mare's poem, "Brueghel's Winter".

So we're gonna have a look at the painting, then we're gonna have a look at the poem, and we're going to think, how can we be inspired by these for our own writing? A quick note, you might have noticed that we've got two different spellings of Bruegel on the board.

Bruegel himself, as an artist, signed his name without the H.

That's why I've referred to the painting, Breughel's "The Hunters in the Snow".

However, his surname did have an H in it, and his family members kept that H in.

So Walter de la Mare has referred to him as Brueghel with an H, and that is why we have those two different spellings there.

Both are accepted.

We've got some key words which are going to help us achieve our objective today, and they're going to be referenced throughout.

If you'd like to pause the video and take a quick note of any of these words, then please do.

But they are gonna come up throughout the lesson so you're gonna have a very firm grip on them by the end of today's lesson, I'm gonna draw attention to just one, it's the final word on the board, ominous.

That is how you pronounce that word ominous, and it suggests.

It's something that is suggesting that something bad is going to happen.

As I say, if you'd like to spend some more time with our keywords, do pause the video now.

Otherwise, they will come up throughout.

Our lesson outline for today.

We're gonna start off by looking at Walter de la Mare's poem, and we're gonna consider the powerful descriptions that he has in there.

And then in our second learning cycle, you're gonna apply everything we've talked about in our first learning cycle about what it means to create a powerful description and you're gonna write your own powerful descriptions.

So let's start off with powerful descriptions in de la Mare's poem.

So here is the opening of a poem inspired by Peter Bruegel's painting "The Hunters in the Snow." This painting was painted in 1565.

We've got blank mountain peaks and skies blank.

Wall in the blank, blank scene below.

So this is the opening of Walter de la Mare's poem.

I've given you some of it, but I've not given you the adjectives.

So I'd like you to discuss what adjectives would you put in the blank? So closely examine the painting and think what adjectives would work really well to describe the mountain peaks, the skies, and the scene below.

Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

Such a lovely discussion.

I'm really excited about your descriptive writing, with the quality of the words that you want to put in these blanks already at this early stage in the lesson.

So let's start off with these mountain peaks.

Some people really focusing on their might, on their iciness, on the fact that they look quite jagged in the background.

And then the sky.

Some people saying, "I want to add verisimilitude, so I want to really capture the colour of the sky that Pieter Bruegel has," and others saying, "No, I want to capture the atmosphere, so I'm going to actually pick a slightly different colour, maybe a slightly out there colour, but it will capture the atmosphere that Pieter Bruegel is trying to convey." Now, "Wall in the blank, blank scene below." Some people focus on adjectives which describe the skaters, the energy in the scene below, but others saying, "No, I want to focus on the hunters, that those are the central figures in the painting.

So those are the things I want to focus on.

That's what Walter de la Mare must have been starting with in his poem." Let's see what Walter de la Mare did write.

So he wrote, "Jagg'd mountain peaks and skies ice-green.

Wall in the wild, cold scene below." So lovely, beautiful, evocative description there.

Jagg'd, ice-green, so capturing that kind of moment in the sky, the wild, cold scene below.

So we start to get an insight into how Walter de la Mare was interpreting this painting that he saw.

Now, Jacob can't decide if the opening of this poem conveys how beautiful winter is or how scary it can be.

And I'd like you to discuss, does the opening present winter as beautiful or scary? And I'd like you to justify your ideas by referring to the adjectives.

Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

Such a lively discussion there.

So you had your descriptive hats on a little bit earlier when you were thinking what adjectives should go into these blanks, and now you've got your analytical hats on thinking, "Well, what is the effect of these adjectives? Does it convey winter as beautiful or does it convey winter as scary?" A bit of a split in the room.

So some saying jagg'd is obviously meant to be quite a scary word, as is wild.

And the coldness of the scene as well kind of conveys some kind of ominous tone or a slight discomfort in the scene, and others saying, "No, this is all about the beauty of winter.

Yes, it can be a harsh season, but it's also incredibly beautiful." Ice-green is such a lovely word to capture the scene, and wild, the idea that there's this kind of energy to this winter scene.

So no right answers here, of course, and you could use the same adjectives to justify each interpretation.

So you've just read the opening lines of "Brueghel's Winter" by Walter de la Mare.

He was born in 1873, he died in 1956.

As it was inspired by Pieter Bruegel's painting, "The Hunters in the Snow", remember, this was painted hundreds of years earlier in 1565, it is called an ekphrastic poem.

Ekphrastic poems are not just inspired by an artwork, the poem also describes the artwork in detail.

You may have noticed the different spellings of the names.

I touched on that when we began our lesson.

Bruegel signed his paintings "Bruegel," but his family continued to use Brueghel with an H.

Both spellings are generally accepted.

So we've got an ekphrastic poem in Walter de la Mare's "Brueghel's Winter" because it is inspired by the painting and it describes it in great detail.

We've seen the first two opening lines of it so far.

Here are some other adjectives from de la Mare's "Brueghel's Winter." Bare, freezing, ink-black, muffled, mute, which means silent, sharp, sinister, arrow-like, lean, which means thin, and frozen.

I'd like you to discuss what might be the dominant tone or mood in the poem.

So dominant tone, both key words from the opening of our lesson.

So dominant meaning most powerful, and the tone, the sort of atmosphere that is created, the attitude that's created in the poem.

So what might be the dominant tone or mood in the poem? And I'd like you to justify your ideas with reference to one or more adjectives.

Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, not just a fantastic discussion about the adjectives in de la Mare's "Brueghel's Winter," but also a really good understanding of this phrase, dominant tone, so the most powerful tone.

Some people saying, "Well, I think the most dominant tone will be quite ominous," using another key word from the beginning of our lesson.

So suggesting something bad is going to happen.

We've got this idea of this quite cold, silent scene with the words, bare, with the word, freezing, with the word, mute, muffled.

So there's a real sense of silence in this poem.

That's what de la Mare captured from the painting itself.

He thought this is a very silent scene.

We can see that from his choice of adjectives.

But we also have some slightly more sinister adjectives.

So some slightly scarier adjectives, which also build that ominous tone.

With this word, sharp, sinister, arrow-like.

So arrow, an arrow is a weapon that you would use in a bow and arrow.

So just having a slight reference there to a weapon maybe brings in a little, like a level of violence, maybe added to with that word sharp.

So perhaps there is quite a scary, quite an ominous tone in this poem.

We've only got the adjectives so far.

Of course we will read the whole poem in today's lesson.

You will find out if your predictions are correct.

Now, Jacob considers the adjectives and the painting that inspired them.

You can see we've got the painting on the board.

We've got the adjectives as well.

And Jacob says, "I think de la Mare will have used the adjective, sinister, to describe the birds circling ominously in the sky.

This would develop the sense that they are harmful and something bad is going to happen." So Jacob, like de la Mare, is looking closely at the painting and thinking, "Well what choices would work really, really well for the particular objects or the particular animals or the particular people in the poem?" And he said, "Well, I think de la Mare probably used the word, sinister, for the birds." And now I'd like you to discuss, can you connect de la Mare's adjectives to people or features in the painting? We've got Jacob sentence starters there to help us.

So you're gonna select one adjective and think, "What will de la Mare have used as adjective to describe?" And then there's that second sentence.

"This would develop the sense that.

." so why would he have used that adjective for that particular object, animal or person? Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back, such a range of different ideas of the adjectives that might be connected to particular objects, animals, or people.

And it was really nice to hear people using their analytical skills to say, "Well, the reason he might have used this adjective to describe this particular thing is because it would develop the sense that.

." and that can be a very useful phrase in your analysis.

The idea that a word or a phrase might develop the sense that.

So that you can start thinking about writers' choices really carefully.

So a check for understanding before we look at the whole of Walter de la Mare ekphrastic poem and start to do a little bit more of that analysis that you have begun so beautifully in this first learning cycle.

So why is de la Mare's "Brueghel's Winter" an ekphrastic poem? Is it A, some of the adjectives seem ominous, B, it was inspired by a painting and describes it, C, it has a dominant tone, or D, the first lines of the poem can be interpreted in different ways? Pause the video and select your response now.

Well done if you selected B, it was inspired by a painting and describes it, that what it means to be an ekphrastic poem.

So whilst yes, some of the adjectives do seem ominous, they might suggest something bad is gonna happen, that does not make it an ekphrastic poem, nor does the fact that it has a dominant tone.

An ekphrastic poem is a very technical term and it means it was inspired by a particular piece of artwork and describes it.

So we are now gonna get to read the whole of Walter de la Mare's "Brueghel's Winter." I am gonna ask you to read that twice.

You might read it once aloud, once in your head, twice aloud, twice in your head, you might read it in pairs.

You can decide how you would best like to enjoy this poem.

And then the second thing I'd like you to do is complete the table for each of the adjectives below.

So we've met these adjectives before.

They're the ones that we have been discussing in this learning cycle.

Bare, freezing, ink-black, muffled, mute, sharp, sinister, arrow-like, lean and frozen.

So for each of these adjectives, you're gonna complete the table.

You can see that I've got one row there to help you.

So the adjective, jagg'd, we know that this describes the mountain peaks.

What's the effect of this description? This develops a sense that the mountains have rough points, perhaps able to hurt you.

So we've got that phrase again, that helpful analytical phrase, "This develops a sense that.

." You're going to do this table for each of the adjectives on the board.

But if you spot some more adjectives in "Brueghel's Winter," the poem by Walter de la Mare, and you want to explore those adjectives as well, of course you can.

Give these activities the time that they deserve.

Really enjoy reading the poem and then enjoy analysing, picking apart some of those brilliant language choices that de la Mare has made.

Pause the video and I'll see you back here after you completed these two tasks.

Pause the video now.

Welcome back, always such a pleasure to hear students reading poetry, some really lovely readings aloud and others concentrating, reading it in their heads.

So just to really, really enjoy this poem and seeing some similarities between the poem and the painting.

Always really helpful to see the painting that it was inspired by.

And then you've got some beautiful tables in front of you, beautiful tables, which are really analysing some of those careful word choices.

We've had a focus on adjectives that de la Mare has made.

Let's do some feedback.

So here Jacob identifies what each adjective describes.

So we'll go through these and you can tick and fix your work.

So we've got bare, and this describes the copse, which is a word for bushes.

Freezing, this describes the winter scene.

Ink-black, it describes the skaters, the figures.

Muffled, it describes the huntsmen.

And mute, it describes the huntsmen as well.

Sharp, it describes the huntsmen, so we've got lots of different adjectives to describe these particular figures.

Sinister, it describes the spears that the huntsmen are holding.

Arrow-like, it describes the crow.

Lean, it also describes the crow.

And frozen, it describes the sea that's in stanza two.

So just make sure that you've got the right adjectives connected to the right person, the right figure or the right thing in that painting.

And now let's have a look at some of this analysis.

So here's a row from Jacob's table.

He has looked at the adjective, mute, and he knows that it describes the huntsmen.

And he's written, "This develops a sense that the huntsmen are an unhappy, dejected group." So he's used one of the keywords, they're dejected, meaning slightly depressed, slightly downcast.

So Jacob has used the sentence starter to explore the effect of the adjective, "This develops a sense that.

." So as I said, that can be a really, really useful sentence starter when you are doing your analysis.

I'd like you to self-assess your answers and identify the specific effect each adjective has achieved.

So just make sure you've got that sentence starter there.

And have you got a specific effect that each adjective has achieved, just like Jacob? Quickly run through your table now and just make sure you're happy with your level of analysis.

Pause the video and complete the self-assessment now, Welcome back, some beautiful tables in front of me.

And now we've got our inspiration from Bruegel's painting and from Walter de la Mare's poem, we are ready to do some writing ourselves.

So in our second learning cycle, we are going to apply everything we know about powerful descriptive writing to our own descriptive writing.

So you're going to write a paragraph describing Bruegel's painting "The Hunters in the Snow" and you're gonna use de la Mare's poem as inspiration as well as Bruegel's painting.

Now I'd like you to develop the ideas for your paragraph by discussing these four questions.

The first is, what will be the dominant mood or tone in your paragraph? Now we've discussed the dominant mood or tone, the most powerful attitude or feeling in de la Mare's poem, you don't have to do the same, you can if you like, you can think, "Yep, I think de la Mare really captured the mood, the dominant mood that I want to focus on." But you can have a different dominant mood or tone if you wish.

What aspects of the painting will you focus on? You cannot focus on absolutely everything.

So what do you want to focus on? What words and phrases will develop your writing? And do make a note of these.

Some of them might be borrowed from de la Mare, that's absolutely fine.

But I know you've also got some wonderful vocabulary in your writing kits.

And four, what words or phrases will you borrow from de la Mare? So don't be afraid of doing this.

Obviously we don't want to lift whole stanzas from de la Mare, but if you're inspired by a particular word or phrase, then absolutely then you can use that and try it out in your own writing and make it something new.

So pause the video and discuss these four questions now.

Welcome back.

Such a lively discussion.

I'm so excited to read some of these poems. We've got lots of different moods or tones wanting to be evoked.

Some people saying "Yes, I want that ominous tone, that silent tone that de la Mare has created," and others saying, "No, I really want to focus on the energy of the winter scene, I'm gonna start off with the skaters." We've also got the energy from the birds swooping above.

"I want to focus on the beauty of the colours, so I'm going to focus on a much happier dominant mood or tone than Bruegel seems to have," sorry, "than de la Mare seems to have." Lots of different aspects of the painting people are gonna focus on.

You've looked at this painting so carefully, so thank you for pointing things out that I have not seen before.

So smaller figures that seem to be doing something particularly interesting.

So one man is holding a tree as he walks across a bridge.

You might want to focus on particular small moments like at the inn where the fire is.

So really looking carefully at this painting, thinking, "What is it that I want to be inspired by?" And then lots of different words and phrases chosen from de la Mare's poem to support that writing.

So we're gonna have some really beautiful paragraphs by the end of this learning cycle.

Now here's the start of Jacob's paragraph.

He's written, "The frozen hunters trudged, eyes on the freezing snow.

The cold breeze buffeted their frozen cheeks." I'd like you to discuss what feedback do you think Alex might have given Jacob? So, so far we've got, "I like the verb "buffeted".

It develops the sense that.

However you should try to.

." So looking at Jacob's work, what feedback do you think Alex might have given him? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back, lovely to give such clear feedback.

And if you can apply those kind of evaluative skills to someone else's writing, I know you'll be able to apply them to yourselves as well, and make sure your draught and redrafting is really, really strong.

So what did Alex say? He said, "I like the verb "buffeted".

It develops the sense that the wind is attacking at the hunters." So really nice analysis there of Jacob's work.

"However, you should try and vary the adjectives that you use." So you might have noticed, just like Alex, that Jacob's used "frozen", "freezing", and then "frozen" again.

And actually he should try and vary those vocabulary choices so that he's got a more interesting set of sentences to start his piece of work.

So a reminder that this was Jacob's paragraph, he's got that feedback from Alex.

We know that he needs to change or vary the adjectives that he's used.

What adjectives would you select to make Jacob's work more powerful? So we've got the sentences there.

What adjectives could you put in to make Jacob's work even more powerful? Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

Such lovely support there for Jacob and his writing, and some really nice ideas either from your own head, your own imagination, or some from de la Mare's poem.

So I really liked, "The mute hunters trudged, eyes on the glistening snow." Really, really nice evocation of the snow there.

"The cold breeze buffeted their frozen cheeks." So you can use that word frozen of course, but you don't want to use it three times.

So now we've got a range of adjectives that Jacob could use and might use in his second draught of these opening lines.

Now a check for understanding before you do your own bit of descriptive writing.

Which of these sentences uses adjectives appropriately? Is it A, the hunters' spears were ekphrastic, ominous, sinister.

B, the skaters moved gracefully, unaware of the ominous birds circling above.

Or C, the snow was radiantly white, as if dejected.

Pause the video and select your response now.

Well done if you selected B.

So we've got those graceful skaters, unaware of the ominous, that's the adjective, birds circling above.

The hunters' spears were ekphrastic, that cannot be correct.

Ekphrastic means that it is a poem that describes a piece of artwork and is inspired by it.

And then the snow was radiantly white, as if dejected.

Well, radiant means joyful, so it cannot be dejected, that cannot work because dejected means downcast, it means unhappy.

So it's not that it's grammatically incorrect, but just that the word "radiant" and "dejected" don't quite work together.

So the answer is B, B uses adjectives appropriately.

So you're gonna write one descriptive paragraph entitled "Winter." You're gonna use Walter de la Mare's "Brueghel's Winter" to support you as well as Bruegel's painting.

I'd like you to have a close focus on the adjectives that you use and you can use Jacob's sentence starter if you wish.

"The frozen hunters trudged, eyes on the glittering snow." So that was the second draught that he decided on in the end.

Give this task the time that it deserves.

We've had such amazing discussions about de la Mare's powerful adjectives and you yourself have discussed what those powerful adjectives, the sense that they create, so you want to apply that to your own work.

So pause the video, write one descriptive paragraph entitled "Winter", relying on Walter de la Mare's poem and Bruegel's painting to support you.

Pause the video and complete the task now.

Welcome back, it was such a pleasure to see the energy and the focus for that descriptive writing task.

Some beautiful paragraphs in front of me.

We're gonna do some feedback before we celebrate your work.

So I'd like you to recall the discussion we had about the dominant tone created by de la Mare's adjectives.

So we looked at bare, freezing, ink-black, muffled, mute, sharp, sinister, arrow-like, lean and frozen.

And we discussed what the dominant tone or mood might be in the poem.

So I'd like you to underline all the adjectives that you have used in your own paragraph and discuss what is the dominant tone or mood in your work and justify your ideas with reference to one or more adjectives.

And I've got a sentence starter there to support you.

"The dominant tone in my paragraph is.

because.

." So first step is to underline all the adjectives you've used in your own paragraph, and then to discuss the dominant tone or mood in your own work.

Pause the video and complete these two reflection tasks now.

Welcome back, lovely to see lots of adjectives leaping out at me as they're underlined in your own work.

And those plans for the dominant tone or mood have really come through.

So some people focusing on the energy of the scene, some people focusing on that cold, frozen, silent scene, others thinking, "I want to create an ominous tone.

I'm gonna really use Walter de la Mare to inspire me there." So we're gonna do our second reflection task now.

I'd like you to recall the table you made about de la Mare's use of adjectives.

So we had that first row, "jagg'd." It describes the mountain peaks and this develops a sense that the mountain peaks have rough points, perhaps able to hurt you.

Now you created a table like this for many of the adjectives in de la Mare's poem.

I'd like you to discuss what is the effect of at least two of the adjectives you have used in your own paragraph.

So looking at your own piece of work, you have underlined all the adjectives already.

So select two, what does the adjective describe? And then what is the effect of the description? So you're starting to analyse some of your own work and some of your own choices.

Pause the video and complete this reflection task now.

Welcome back.

I hope you feel really, really proud.

Really like writers, just like Walter de la Mare.

Just as we might analyse a piece of work by him or a poem by him, we can now apply that to our own writing.

Your work is worthy of analysis, and if you were able to think of what the adjective develops a sense that, then you know you've selected a really, really powerful adjective, well done.

In summary, Walter de la Mare's "Brueghel's Winter" is an ekphrastic poem.

An ekphrastic poem is a poem which describes a piece of art and is inspired by it.

You can look at a poem as a whole and consider how the descriptions work together to create a particular tone or mood.

You can look at the descriptions individually and consider the effect they have.

You can consider the tone you wish to create in your own writing and then select words and phrases to create this tone.

It has been such a pleasure to read through this poem and of course to see your beautiful, descriptive writing.

And I look forward to seeing you next time.