Lesson video

Hello.

I'm Miss Chu, and in today's lesson, we are going to be writing a free verse poem based on John Lyon's poem called "Carib Nightfall." It's the final poem in his poetry collection, "Dancing in the Rain." I'm super excited, are you? Let's get started then.

Today's lesson outcome is, I can write a free verse poem about the weather inspired by John Lyons' poems. The keywords for this lesson are, my turn, then your turn, tone, descriptive vocabulary, descriptive vocabulary, figurative language.

Put it together, figurative language.

Well done.

Tone refers to the emotion expressed by the poet towards the reader, enhancing the mood or atmosphere of the poem.

Descriptive vocabulary is words and phrases used to vividly convey sensory details, emotions, or experiences.

And figurative language is the use of simile and personification to paint vivid pictures in the reader's mind.

In today's lesson, you are going to prepare to write a free verse poem, and then, in the second half of the lesson, you are actually going to write the free verse poem.

So let's start preparing or warming ourselves up in order to write a really good free verse poem.

Free verse refers to a type of poetry that doesn't follow a specific rhyme scheme or structure.

It is composed in a more natural rhythm and relies on the poet's creativity rather than following the rules of traditional poems. There are several types of poetry beyond free verse.

For example, we have an acrostic poem.

An acrostic poem is where the first letter of each line spells out a word when we read it vertically like this.

A haiku is a traditional Japanese form consisting of three lines with a syllable pattern of 5-7-5, so (claps) four, five, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, then one, two, three, four, five, often on the theme of nature.

A limerick is a five-line humorous, a funny poem with a specific rhyme scheme.

So the rhyming scheme would be AAABBA.

The last two words need to have the same or similar sounds in the first two lines.

And then the next two lines need to have the same or similar sounding last words.

And then the final line in that verse needs to have the same sound as the first two lines.

A word that is often referred to in poetry is theme.

Can you say theme? Well done, theme.

The theme, which is a noun, is the subject topic or the main idea of a whole piece of art or literature.

Themes can be diverse, which means that they're varied and they can encompass a wide range of subjects from love, nature, and family, to emotions, could be angry, could be sad, happy, or personal experiences.

This is how the word theme is used in a sentence.

Weather was the main theme of the poetry collection.

The tone, which is the mood, style, or feeling, is the overall mood, style, or feeling that the poem evokes.

That means that it makes you feel.

The tone of a poem can be inferred by a reader.

What does inferred mean? Well, inference is to work something out from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements, rather than from really obvious words and phrases.

This is how it is used in a sentence.

I can infer that John Lyons had a positive memory about his childhood from reading his poetry or reading his poems. Let's read "Dancing in the Rain" by John Lyons now.

"Dancing in the Rain.

And there we are again, we go dancing in warm rain.

When sky set up with clouds nearly charcoal black, the yard cocks flap their wings and let out a crowing, loud loud, and the wind vex vex blowing strong, baring hen fowls feathered bums. And everybody start grabbing clothes off the clothes line.

We know rain coming.

Then we hear it getting nearer, rattling on galvanise tin roof, and as it drops down stinging hard, squealing, we pull off we clothes.

And there we are again, we love dancing in the rain." Now, I would like you to watch John Lyons read "Dancing in the Rain." Enjoy.

<v ->"Dancing in the Rain."</v> And that is really true.

We did dance in the rain as kids around five and six, and even we were younger than that, right? "And there we are again, we go dancing in warm rain.

When sky set up with clouds nearly charcoal black, the yard cocks flap their wings and let out a crowing, loud loud, and the wind vex vex blowing strong, baring hen fowls feathered bums. And everybody start grabbing clothes off the clothes line.

We know rain coming.

Then we hear it getting nearer, rattling on galvanise tin roof, and as it drops down stinging hard, squealing, we pull off we clothes.

And there we are again, we love dancing in the rain." <v ->After listening to John Lyons read his poem,</v> "Dancing in the Rain," I want you now to think about these two questions.

What are the main themes of his poem, "Dancing in the Rain," and what is the tone of the poem? Pause the video and tell the person next to you.

Well done.

I could hear people telling each other the main theme of the poem is the rain or the weather.

And they're right.

Well done, yes, it is about the rain and the weather.

And even though it's about how heavy the rain falls, it generally has a very positive tone.

The people are reacting well to the rain, and that's because I think that the rain feels warm where John Lyons was born and brought up, and it makes them want to dance in the warm rain.

Now I'm going to read "Carib Nightfall" by John Lyons.

"Carib Nightfall.

In the Caribbean at the end of day, sun drops suddenly like a fireball behind forested hills, and into the sea.

Steam clouds of red and orange, shaped like monsters float up into the sky, and for an instant hover there.

Kisskadees and sici-yea birds, in awe of the sky and the dark rushing in, leave night music to bull frogs' croaking bass, high octave tunes of mosquito violins, and crickets twitterings." Now you can watch John Lyons read "Carib Nightfall." Enjoy.

<v ->The next one is "Carib Nightfall."</v> Now, the story behind this one.

Two, as always, your poets.

you find stories and experiences and things.

When my mother died of nine, I had to go live with my grandmother in Tobago for a while.

And of course there's a place called Rocky Vale, and we had a lot of land there.

And of course, it's the very first night there.

I couldn't sleep properly because of the noise.

There's so much noise happening.

Honestly, because I came from the city, right? You know, and then I ended up in Tobago with my grandmother in this very rural area.

And this is what happened there.

"Carib Nightfall.

In the Caribbean at the end of day, sun drops suddenly like a fireball behind forested hills, and into the sea.

Steam clouds of red and orange, shaped like monsters float up into the sky, and for an instant hover there.

Kisskadee, kiss, kiss, kisskadee, kiss, kiss, kisskadee, and sici-yea birds, (imitates bird chirping) in awe of the sky and the dark rushing in, leave night music to bull frog (imitates frog croaking) croaking bass, high octave tunes of mosquito violins, (imitates mosquito buzzing) and crickets twittering." (John imitates cricket twittering) <v ->Okay, now I want you to think about the main themes</v> of this poem, and what is the tone of the poem? Pause the video and tell the person next to you the answers to these two questions.

Okay, well done.

Some really great discussions that I could hear.

The main themes are about the natural world.

So the sky, the sun, the steam, clouds, the animals, so nature, the natural world, and it's about the weather as well.

And generally, yes, it does have a positive tone.

Lyons appreciates the beauty of the natural world.

He really draws the reader into the specific beauty of the natural world, and he enjoys the animals producing their chorus of sounds.

After having read those two poems, I want you to think about what similar, the same or, and, and/or, different about the poems. So referring to "Dancing in the Rain" and "Carib Nightfall," I want you to think about all of these things.

I want you to think about the themes, the tone, and the descriptive vocabulary in both poems. You can use these discussion scaffolds to help you to tell the person next to you what you think is the same or different about both those poems. I think that, mm, of both poems are similar because, mm.

So you use that one if you want to say something that's the same.

I think that, mm, in both poems are or is different because, mm.

So you use that discussion scaffold if you want to say something that's different about both the poems. And finally, I think that, mm, in the poems are or is both similar and different because of your various reasons.

Pause the video and tell the person next to you.

Some really excellent discussions.

I could hear that.

I heard some people saying, I think the themes of both poems are similar, so the theme, the themes of the natural world and the weather are the same in both.

Yes, I agree.

And there was something else that I heard someone say that they thought the tone of the both poems are positive because John Lyons describes the rain and the sunset in both in a positive way.

And finally I heard someone saying, I think the descriptive vocabulary in both poems are similar because he describes colour, sounds, and feelings and they're linked to nature and the weather.

As part of our preparation to write a free verse poem, it would be really good to now think about which aspects of nature and weather we could describe in our free verse poem.

So similarly to John Lyons, we could describe the natural elements of the world.

So the sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds, and the sky, or or and we could refer to animals, the sea, land, and the forests like he did, or we could just refer to the weather.

For example, we might want to talk about the rain, the wind.

And then the last two elements, which are not common in the Caribbean climate or weather is snow and ice.

But we are familiar with that sort of weather here in the United Kingdom.

So we might want to include that in our free verse poem.

Here is some vocabulary that could be used in a free verse poem about weather.

So if we choose to write about the sun, we need to think about whether our vocabulary is going to create a positive or a negative image in the reader's mind.

I might want to say that the sun is oppressive and suffocating and it's creating that sort of really oppressive and suffocating heat.

We could give the sun a human characteristic, use personification and say that the sun scolds in the distance, scolds at you.

Or we could say that he rules the sky.

And we could also say that the sun scorched relentlessly to show how hot the sun could be and that it's creating a choking heat.

Or we could use a simile to say that the sun was glowing like something else, comparing it to something else, so like a hot ball of gas.

And again, similarly to scorch relentlessly, because they're burning persistently.

Again, those two phrases show how oppressive the sun is.

And we could also refer to the sun in a different way and say it's a fiery orb.

What about if we choose to write a poem about the stars or the sky or the night sky? We need to think about, again, whether we want to create a positive or negative image.

And I can see in this picture it's sort of creating a more calm kind of feeling.

It's evoking that tranquil, peaceful feeling.

So I think I'm gonna go with a more positive, that sort of bluish, greenish side of the colour scale.

And I'm gonna refer to the stars as diamonds, sparkling like jewels.

We wanna say that they're dotted across the sky just to show the vast amount or the number of stars in the sky, and then how brightly they are shining.

And then we could again, give it, the stars a human characteristic by saying that the winking at the moon, sort of cheeky.

And then to, again, to echo how brightly they were shining, we could say that they were shining so brightly that they pierced the darkness.

Or we could compare them to white specks of dust.

Again, using personification, we could say that the stars were blinking tiredly and then sparkling, again, that is in relation to them being diamonds.

What about now if we wanted to write a poem about the clouds in the sky? So again, thinking of our positive and negative vocabulary colour scale, we might want to create a negative feeling or a negative tone in our poem.

Or we might want to create a positive feeling.

So wispy, densely packed, drifting gracefully.

These are all words that make me kind of feel like those clouds are moving gently and they're very sort of soft.

Thick like a blanket, so again, it's that sort of echoes the densely packed image that I'm getting about the clouds.

Swirling like dancers, that's a lovely simile that I'm creating in my mind of how the clouds are moving with each other.

Fill the sky, charcoal, maybe I want to describe the colour and I maybe want to describe the condition of the sky by saying that the sky looks hazy due to all the clouds drifting in.

We are now onto task A.

In this task, I would like you to select ambitious, descriptive vocabulary to create expanded noun phrases for each of the natural elements.

So here you can see the sun, the stars, and the clouds.

And I've given you some scaffolds for each image to support you to write your expanded noun phrases.

So before the noun, I would like you to think of some really ambitious adjectives, something, something, fiery orb, and then extend it with that.

Maybe think about what the orb could be doing, think about what the diamonds could be doing, what the clouds could be doing.

Pause the video and have a go at this task.

Okay, so I have, for the sun, chosen burning, oppressive fiery orb that scolds in the distance.

I've literally chosen the vocabulary that I have generated from my map, my word map, and I've just inserted it into this phrase here because I want to create a negative image of the sun.

And then for the stars to contrast the sun, I've chosen dazzling, sparkling diamonds that wink at the moon because I want to create a positive image.

And then finally, for the clouds, I chose wispy, pillowy because that's what I could see in the picture.

It looks like really soft pillows, clouds that swirled like dancers.

Okay, now that we have a thought about some vocabulary that we're going to use in our weather inspired poem, we can now start to write our free verse poem.

Let's use this success criteria to help us.

I have described aspects of the natural world or weather.

I have carefully chosen descriptive vocabulary.

I've used figurative language such as similes and personification.

And I've considered my line and verse length.

Do I want it to be a really long poem? Do I want it to be short and sweet? Those are things I need to think about when I come to write my free verse poem.

Let's use the descriptive vocabulary and figurative language generated about the stars to write a free verse poem.

Now remember, thinking back to when we were preparing to write, we chose vocabulary that was creating a positive image in the reader's mind.

So diamonds dotted across the sky, shining brightly, winking at the moon, pierce the darkness, white specks of dust, blinking tiredly, and sparkling.

I would like you now to watch me write the first part of my free verse poem about the stars using that vocabulary map that you saw there, like a spider diagram, which had descriptive vocabulary and figurative language to help me to write my weather free verse poem.

I'm going to use the success criteria here to also help me to structure my poem.

Okay, I'm going to start my first free verse poem, which is about the stars.

I'm going to start off with the general sky.

I think that would be a good place to start.

And then I'm going to kind of focus on the stars.

So it could say that the sky was, the sky was dark, the night was dark, but I'm actually going to refer to the darkness as an inky blanket.

So that's my first line.

An inky blanket.

An inky blanket, what was it doing, spread across the night sky.

Could have that as my second line, but I'm actually gonna use personification.

I'm gonna say that it was tucking in, tucking in the sky for bedtime, full stop.

An inky blanket tucking in the sky for bedtime.

Now I'm going to refer to the stars.

I could say stars like diamonds dotted across the sky.

I could say sparkling, so I'm going to add sparkling because it's on my word map.

Sparkling stars, and I'm using a simile, like diamonds dotted across the sky.

So that was a phrase that I had also on my vocabulary word map that I want to include to show how many stars there were.

And now I want to talk about how bright they were.

So I'm gonna say that they pierce, oops, pierce the dark, darkness, or I could say black.

Pierce the black.

And what else were they doing? They were, I like the idea that they were winking at the moon.

So I'm going to include that on my next line.

Winking at the moon.

So I'm giving the stars a human-like quality.

Then I want to say, I want to give it an action.

So I've described how brightly they were shining, I've said how many stars there were in the night sky and what human action it was doing to the moon.

So it's a little bit cheeky.

So I'm giving it a bit of a personality there.

But now I want to create some kind of movement.

So I want to say, I could say that they were twinkling, but again, I want to use personification.

So I'm going to use the word blinking.

Blinking.

I'm going to use blinking again.

And I think if I use blinking one more time, it has a better effect.

Blinking, blinking, blinking, so got repetition there.

Then after blinking, the stars are going to sleep.

So they're then a tired yawn, full stop.

And I'm going to stop there.

Let me just check that I've got everything on here.

I've described aspects of the natural world.

Yes, I've described the darkness and the sky and the stars.

So I'm going to tick that one off.

Have I chosen very ambitious vocabulary? Yes, I've chosen the vocabulary that has been generated previously.

And figurative language, I've used a simile here.

I've used personification, winking, blinking, and yawning.

And have I considered my line and verse length? Well, yes, I've kept some lines short and I've got one long line here for effect, so I can tick that one off as well.

Now I would like us to use the descriptive vocabulary and figurative language generated about the sun to write a free verse poem.

And I remember when we thought and generated vocabulary about the sun, it was creating a sort of negative image.

So we said that the sun was oppressive, suffocating heat, scolds in the distance, rules the sky, scorched relentlessly, choking heat, glow like a hot ball of gas, burning persistently, and it was a fiery orb.

Now I would like you to watch me write the first part of my free verse poem about the sun using the negative descriptive vocabulary and figurative language that's on our vocabulary map spider diagram.

And again, you're going to watch me use my success criteria to help me to structure my free verse poem so that I have made it the best version that it can be.

Okay, so I've got the same success criteria, but I'm now going to write a free verse poem about the sun using the negative vocabulary that I have on my word map.

Now, the first thing I want to start off with is I want to refer to the sun as a fiery orb.

So I could just say fiery orb scorching in the sky.

But I want to say that we watch.

I want to use the element of we in here as a sense of togetherness, something that we would do together.

We watch the fiery orb of fire.

Take my full stop off, actually.

I don't want my full stop there.

We watch the fiery orb of fire scorch relentlessly, relentlessly, in the Caribbean sky.

Now I'm going to refer to how it makes us feel.

So referring back to our word map, oppressive, suffocating heat, full stop.

A very simple, short phrase.

And then I want to say what the sun is doing.

So I've described what it looks like in the sky, how it makes us feel, and now the movement of the sun because the sun is now setting.

So again, similarly to my previous poem, I want to use repetition.

So I'm going to use down, down, down to show the movement of the sun setting.

And then I could say that the sun drops down, down, down over the horizon.

But I'm going to say the sun drops beyond the edge of the, ooh, wonder if I can squeeze that 'cause I want that all to be on one line.

Drops beyond the edge of the world and put a full stop.

I want that just to be one statement.

So it's not actually, the edge of the world is not actually falling over the edge of the world.

It's referring to the horizon that we can see in the distance.

The sky, what can we say now? We could say the colours, maybe the colours of the sunset.

Sky painted, no, streaked.

That's a nice word to describe the way the colours are happening across the sky.

What we can see, sky streaked with, what colours can I use? I can say orange, red, and purple.

I want to keep that all in one line.

I'll have to go into the next one, that's fine, hues like, and I'm going to include a simile here, a painting, full stop.

Sky streaked with orange, red, and purple hues like a painting.

Then after that, I want to say how quickly it becomes dark.

Similarly to John Lyons' poem, "Carib Nightfall," about how quickly the dark rushes in.

So I'm going to say, all of a sudden, And then I'm going to use an ellipsis here to show time passing.

All of a sudden, darkness engulfs.

I think that's a really great word to show that the night is taking over, it's engulfing the day.

Okay, so let me just quickly check now.

Have I described aspects of the natural world or weather? I've described the fire scorching relentlessly, and how the heat makes us feel.

It's sun, the sun is setting and then it becomes dark.

Have I chosen descriptive vocabulary? Yes, I've referred to the sun as a fiery orb.

I've said it scorched relentlessly.

I've said that it drops down and it streaks these colours.

And have I used figurative language? Yes, so I've used like, where have I used like? Like a painting.

I said it drops down beyond the edge of the world.

So I'm using figurative language here.

Yes.

And I have considered line and verse length.

So yes, I've kept some lines long and I've kept some lines short for effect.

Now it's your turn to use the descriptive vocabulary and figurative language generated about the sun, stars, or clouds to write a free verse poem.

Use the success criteria to help you.

Good luck and pause the video.

Let me just quickly check my success criteria.

So I've described aspects of the natural world or weather, yes.

I've carefully chosen descriptive vocabulary.

Yes, I've chosen words and phrases that were from my vocabulary word map, and I've used figurative language, simile and personification like diamonds, winking at the moon.

And I've considered my line and verse length.

So I just wanted to do one verse and I've kept my lines all in varied lines, varied length of lines.

Happy with that.

Now I'm going to check my second poem, which is about the sun.

Have I described aspects of the natural world and weather? Yes, I have.

I've talked about the sun setting and the sunset.

Have I chosen descriptive vocabulary? Yes, I've described the sun as being a fiery orb, and I've said how it scorched down, how it made everyone feel, what the heat felt like.

Then I described the colours of the sunset to create an image in the reader's mind.

And have I used figurative language? Yes, I have.

I have used personification.

And I've also considered my line and verse length.

Now, what I would like you to do is I'd like you to pause the video and I'd like you to do the same thing and check through your poem.

Amazing.

We are at the end of this lesson.

Free verse refers to a type of poetry that doesn't follow a specific rhyme scheme or structure.

The themes and tone of a poem can be inferred from analysing the structure and language of the poem.

Generating descriptive vocabulary and figurative language using the five senses enables the poet to paint a vivid picture for the reader.

Writing a free verse poem relies on the poet's creativity rather than following rules of traditional poems. For me, one of the best things about writing is being given the creative freedom to write in any way that I want to.

And in this lesson where we wrote a free verse poem about weather, we were able to do that.

I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I look forward to teaching you in the future.