Lesson video

Hello, there, it is Mr. Brown here with your English lesson for today, and we are going to be reading and responding to a poem.

The poem is called "Home Time," and it's by a British poet called Rachel Rooney.

So let's explore "Home Time," by Rachel Rooney in today's lesson.

Let's get started.

The outcome for today's lesson is, "I can give a personal response to the poem and read it aloud." The keywords we use are personification and perspective.

Now let's say those together.

My turn and then your turn.

Personification.

Perspective.

Perfect, okay, let's have a look at the definitions for those words.

Personification is a way of describing a non-living thing as if it acts or feels like human, and perspective is the point of view or position from which the poet writes.

Okay, so we'll start today with an introduction to the poem poet, and then move on to exploring the poem.

Now, Rachel Rooney was born in London.

She was part of a large family of six children.

She became a teacher and spent many years teaching children with special needs.

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

That means her teenage years.

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

Let's check your understanding of Rachel Rooney by selecting the statements that are true.

So we have A, Rachel Rooney loved showing people her poems when she was a child.

B, Rachel Rooney was born in London.

C, Rachel Rooney was an only child.

That means that she didn't have any brothers or sisters.

And D, Rachel Rooney worked as a teacher.

Pause the lesson and select the statements that are true now.

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

So, well done if you said B and D.

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

She did not, unfortunately, she wrote lots of permits, but she didn't have perhaps the confidence to show them and share them to people.

B, she was born in London.

D, she did work as a teacher.

C, she was known only child, nope, she had a large family.

She was one of six children.

Now, Rachel Rooney is known for writing imaginative poetry for children.

Imaginative means having the ability to create vivid, mental images, so images in your mind or concepts that may not exist in reality, so are not real.

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

In this lesson, we'll be reading and responding to her poem "Home Time." Before we read the poem, what does the title "Home Time" make you think of and expect from the poem? What words and images come to mind? Have a think.

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

Welcome back.

So here's an example from Jun.

He says, "It makes me think the poem is going to be about the end of the day at school, when it is time to go home." Ah, exactly.

We call that time, home time, don't we? So perhaps this is a school-related poem, particularly, as we know Rachel Rooney writes poems for children.

Ah, and then we have an idea from Sofia.

Sofia says, "I think the humour might come from the children rushing to get ready to go home." Ah, interesting, so it could be a funny poem.

Our unit is called "Humorous Poetry." So perhaps this is a humorous poetry and all the children are rushing around getting ready to go home at "Home Time." She thinks it may be similar to "The Morning Rush," by John Foster.

That's an interesting idea, really nice comparison, Sofia.

So Sofia thinks that this poem could be similar to "The Morning Rush," by John Foster, where John Foster describes that rush that families go through in the morning when they're getting ready for school.

Now, are these positive or negative images? What do you think, is it going to be a poem that creates a positive feeling or perhaps a negative feeling? Okay, it's now time to read the poem, "Home Time." I want you to read it out loud and sound out any words you are unsure of to help you.

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

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

So this will be your first responses to the poem.

As the lesson goes on, we will unpick the poem and look at it in close detail.

But at the moment, we're just looking for your first responses.

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

So it's over to you.

Now it's time for you to pause the lesson and read Rachel Rooney's poem, "Home Time." Pause the video and do that now.

Welcome back.

What did you think of the poem? Did you like it? What are your initial responses? I cannot wait to find out.

So I'm going to give you my initial response to the poem, and I'm going to use these two questions to help scaffold my ideas.

The questions are, what did you like about the poem and do you have any questions about it? So, I liked how the poem written from the perspective of the classroom clock.

So it was written as if the classroom clock was talking.

And the question I would like to know is if the poet has written any other poems from the point of view of objects.

Now it's your turn to give your initial response to the poem.

Use these questions again to scaffold your ideas, to help you, and discuss with your partner.

So, pause the video and have a discussion now.

Welcome back.

I hope you enjoyed that discussion.

It is always interesting to hear what people think about poems. Let's explore what happens in the poem itself.

Now we're gonna look at lines one to six first of all.

Now the clock shares the time and says how the whole class of children are looking at it.

Then the clock realises that one child isn't looking at it because he hasn't learned to read analogue time, and instead, has a digital watch.

So analogue time is reading a clock face where you have ticking hands and the numbers around the edge of the circle.

The clock seems annoyed that this boy is using digital time, so the clock doesn't seem too happy about this fact.

In lines seven to 13, the clock describes a sound that signals the end of the day and the children leave.

It uses the word relief to describe how it feels.

So it's obviously quite relieved that all the children have left.

The clock says there is no more activity in the room such as children sticking, and that is just the clock and the teacher left.

The clock repeats the word ticking to show the time is passing.

Okay.

Quick task for you.

I would like you to put the following events that occur in the poem in order.

A, the clock repeats the word ticking three times.

B, the clock notices that Matthew isn't looking at it.

C, the bell sounds and the children leave.

Can you put these events that occur in the poem in order by pausing the video and completing this task now? Welcome back, let's see if you ordered correctly.

So the first part of this order would be number, would be B.

That's number one, the clock notices that Matthew isn't looking at it.

Then number two, the bell sounds and the children leave.

And number three, finally, the clock repeats the word ticking three times.

How did the poem make you feel? "This poem made me laugh about the idea that objects could have feelings like people." That's what Izzy thinks.

And Andeep says, "The poem made me picture my kitchen clock and what it would think, watching my family and me having dinner." So there's a couple of examples.

I'd like you now to pause the video and have a discussion with your partner.

How did the poet make you feel? Pause the video and discuss now.

Welcome back, I wonder how it made you feel.

I feel quite similar to Izzy, "The poem did make me laugh about the idea that objects could have feelings like people," thinking What would my kitchen toaster be thinking this morning is a really quite funny thing and it's a useful skill that we will look at in this lesson to use in your poetic writing.

Now remember, our personal responses to the poem will all be different because we are all unique.

So it's absolutely okay for someone to feel very differently about a poem compared to you.

If you would like a bit more time, please pause the video and have a further discussion about how the poem made you feel.

Pause the video and do that now.

Welcome back.

Time for a task.

I would like you to refer to the poem and discuss these questions with your partner.

How do you think the clock felt about being in a school classroom? What objects in your house would you like to write a poem from the point of view of, and why? Which parts of the poem did you find the most humorous and why? So which parts were the funniest? You may use this talk scaffold.

"I think the clock didn't like being in a classroom because.

." And then you can give your reasons why, referring to the poem, or "I think the funniest part was.

." And then tell me which part you thought was funniest.

Okay, it's over to you.

Time for a discussion with your partner.

Refer to the poem and discuss those questions with your partner now.

Welcome back.

I hope you enjoyed your discussion.

Let's have a look at an example answer.

"I think the clock didn't like being in a classroom because it uses the word relief after all the children have left." Absolutely it does, doesn't it? If it liked the children being there, it wouldn't be relieved when they've all left.

So, I agree.

I think the clock didn't like being in a school classroom.

And Jun says, "I would like to write a poem from the perspective of my scooter because it could be funny to hear how scared it is when I do lots of jumps." That's a really nice idea.

So we imagine our scooters perhaps to be quite brave.

And so Jun's been quite clever and flipped it around and is going to write a poem from the perspective of his scooter saying how scared the scooter is and how perhaps he wants to go really slow.

Very, very good idea.

And we have one more idea.

"I thought the most humorous part was when the clock became annoyed with Matthew." Yes, I found that funny too.

The clock seemed really grumpy with Matthew because he hadn't learned to read at a long time.

Let's move on to exploring the poem.

Rachel Rooney uses a poetic technique called personification.

In the poem, "Home Time," this was one of our keywords, wasn't it? Now personification is a way of describing a non-living thing as if it acts or feels like a human.

For example, the blanket cuddled the little girl warmly.

This describes how a blanket is being wrapped around a little girl, but the way it's written is using personification because it says, "The blanket cuddled the little girl warmly." Well, a blanket can't cuddle anyone.

It's just an object.

However, using personification, it helps to describe that moment in a bit more detail.

The sun smiled down happily.

Now we know the sun does not smile.

It is a huge burning ball of gas, millions and millions of miles away.

It is not smiling at us.

However, on a summer's day, it does feel a bit like that, doesn't it? Like the sun is smiling down on us, we are feeling positive.

So that's an example of personification.

The wind blew angrily.

Wind can't blow angrily.

It can't blow happily.

Wind just blows.

It's not a person, so it can't use an adverb like angrily.

However, with personification, you can describe how that wind is blowing and how it's making.

Perhaps the characters feel.

The alarm clock screamed at me.

Yes, in the morning it feels a bit like the alarm clock is screaming at you 'cause you are tired.

You want peace and quiet and it's very loud.

It's like it's screaming at you, again, personification.

The clock in the poem is speaking as if it acts and feels like a human.

It seems to experience humans' emotions such as relief.

It says, "I felt relieved." And so, therefore, that's personification.

Which of these is an example of personification? Is it A, the river flowed through the city? B, the oven cooked the food.

C, my watch looked up at me.

Which one is an example of personification? Pause the video and decide now.

Welcome back, so the correct answer is C.

Well done if you said C, my watch looked up at me.

Watches cannot look at anyone.

They don't have eyes.

However, you can describe a watch looking up at you.

And that's a really interesting and poetic way of describing a moment between a person looking down at their watch and seeing that it's looking back up at them, personification.

Now, Rachel Rooney writes the poem, "Home Time," from the perspective of the classroom clock.

Perspective is the point of view or position from which the poet writes.

This means the poem is written like the clock is talking to the reader.

This can be a good technique to use in humorous poetry as it allows us to experiment with what an object might think or feel.

This can be particularly funny if the object thinks or feels differently to how we might expect.

For example, a classroom clock, which seems to not like noisy children.

You'd think a classroom clock in a primary school classroom would love being there.

However, Rachel really flips that around and it makes for an interesting and humorous poem.

Time for you to have a discussion.

Now, how does the poet create a sense of the clock not liking children or noise.

How is that done? I want you to reread the poem and discuss what things you noticed.

Pause the video and have a discussion how does the poem create a sense of the clock not liking children or noise? Pause the video now.

Welcome back, okay, let's have a look at an example from Izzy.

Izzy says, "The clock seemed annoyed at one of the children who isn't looking and uses the word relief to describe when the class have all gone home." Absolutely.

That clearly, paints a very clear picture of the clock, not liking children or noise.

A poet chooses words carefully to have an impact on the reader.

Rachel Rooney chooses certain words in her poem to create a sense that the clock doesn't like being a classroom clock.

Words like disgrace, which is a noun and it means strong disapproval or disappointment.

Relief, again, a noun, a feeling of happiness that something bad has ended or not happened.

The clock called a child a disgrace for not being able to tell the time.

So that tells us that the clock has strong disapproval or disappointment that the boy can't tell the time.

And the clock says that it is a relief when the class have left.

So we know that the clock has a feeling of happiness that something bad has ended.

So we have to presume that something bad is the children being in the class.

These words create a sense that the object is grumpy and frustrated with being a classroom clock.

Time for a quick task.

I would like you to read lines six and eight out loud.

Now remember, some words should be emphasised when reading aloud.

Now in lines six and eight, we have the words disgrace and relief.

When you read line six, that's where disgrace is.

You are emphasising the word disgrace to express to the audience how grumpy and frustrated the clock is with a child who can't tell the time.

So you may want to use gestures, you may want to use facial expressions, use your voice.

You really want to emphasise how grumpy and frustrated the clock is when you say that word disgrace.

When you read line eight, you are emphasising something quite different.

You are emphasising the word relief to express to the audience how thankful the clock is that the children have all left and how it's now nice and quiet.

Okay, over to you.

Read lines six and eight out loud.

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

Welcome back.

How did you get on? Did you enjoy reading those two lines? I hope you emphasised the word disgrace and relief 'cause we are going to use that practise to be able to now reread the whole poem out loud to a partner.

I'd like you to use your voice to read the poem clearly and with expression, focus on expressing the mood of the clock and how it feels about the children and the noise they make.

You may want to use gestures to help you.

Okay, over to you, bring the poem to life.

Reread the whole poem out loud to a partner.

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

Welcome back, okay.

Did you reread the whole poem out loud to a partner? Did you use expression or gestures? Well, now let's reflect on how you read the poem.

Did you read the poem in a loud, clear voice? Did you emphasise certain words to create a sense of the clock's mood? We know, we know the clock was grumpy and quite thankful when all the children left.

So did you emphasise that? Did you use any gestures to express how grumpy or thankful the clock was at different points in the poem? Well, here's an example.

I emphasised the word relief by doing a big exhale after I said it.

So an exhale is, ah.

(deeply exhales) If you say the word relief and then breathe out afterwards, relief, (exhales) it really emphasises how relieved you actually are.

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

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

Rachel Rooney's poem, "Home Time," is written from the perspective of a classroom clock.

Personification is a way of describing a non-living thing as if it acts or feels like a human.

Now, in this poem, the clock is speaking as if it is a human.

We read aloud.

When we read aloud, we emphasise certain words to express a feeling or emotion.

Brilliant word today.

That is "Home Time," by Rachel Rooney.

Another poem you know.

You may even want to spend time learning that poem because the more poems that you can recite off by heart, the better.

I will see you again very soon.