Lesson video

Hello everyone.

My name is Mr. Brown and I'm your English teacher for today's lesson.

We are going to be writing today.

We will be writing our own imaginary poems. These will be based on the poem, "The Magic Box" by Kit Wright, so let's get started.

The outcome for today's lesson is, "I can write my own imaginative poem following the same structure as 'The Magic Box'." The keywords we will use are structure, verse, imaginative, and contrasting.

Let's say this together, my turn, and then your turn.

Structure, verse, imaginative, contrasting.

Fabulous.

Let's get the definitions of these words.

Structure refers to the way a poem is organised or put together.

Verse refers to a single line or a group of lines within a poem.

Imaginative means having the ability to create vivid mental images or concepts that may not exist in reality.

Contrasting is the comparison of two or more things that are very different.

So we'll start today's lesson by generating ideas and then move on to writing a poem.

In today's lesson, we'll be writing our own imaginative poems. We'll be following the same structure as Kit Wright's poem called "The Magic Box".

Let's remind ourselves of the poem by reading it with a partner.

Pause the video and read Kit Wright's poem, "The Magic Box" now.

Welcome back.

I hope you enjoyed that fabulous poem.

Once you've read the poem, tell your partner your favourite line from the poem.

So pause the video and talk about your favourite line from the poem now.

And welcome back.

Let's check your understanding.

Which of these items are placed into the special box? Is it A, the flames from the nose of a dragon? Is it B, purple wishes said in another language, or C, a hot air balloon floating over a jungle? All very imaginative, creative ideas, but which of these are placed into the special box? Pause the video and decide now.

Welcome back.

Let's see if you found the correct answers.

There are two correct answers.

If you've only got one, quickly pause the video and see if you can find the other one, because we are ready to reveal.

So well done if you said A and B, flames from the nose of a dragon, and purple wishes said in another language.

There is not a hot air balloon floating over a jungle in the special box.

"The Magic Box" follows a structure for most of the poem.

Structure in poetry refers to the way a poem is organised or put together.

Now, poets often split their poems into something called verses.

A verse is a single line or group of lines within a poem.

Let's read the poem again, but this time focusing on the structure.

Do you notice anything that Kit Wright has done to organise the poem? Are there any patterns you notice? Pause the video and reread the poem again, this time focusing on the structure, and then have a conversation with your partner about what you noticed.

What patterns can you see? Do you notice anything that Kit Wright has done to organise the poem? Pause the video and have that conversation and read the poem now.

Welcome back.

I wonder what you noticed.

Let's have a look at the poem in a bit more detail.

So let's look at the verses in "The Magic Box" and how they're organised.

So here's verse one.

The first verse starts with a line where the poet says that he will put something in the box.

The remaining three lines of the verse are the poet listing the things that he will put in the box.

In verse two, the second verse follows exactly the same structure with an identical first line to the first verse.

And again, the remaining three lines of the second verse are the poet listing the things that he will put in the box.

Okay, verse three, any different? Nope.

It continues the pattern and follows the same structure as verses one and two.

Now the pattern continues for most of the poem.

Let's check your understanding.

True or false? "The Magic Box" is organised into verses that mostly follow the same structure.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and decide now.

Welcome back.

Let's see if it's true or is it false? What did you think? Okay, well, well done if you said true.

"The Magic Box" does follow the same structure.

It's organised into verses that do mostly follow the same structure.

Well done if you said true.

Today, we will write our own poems following a similar structure to "The Magic Box".

Our poem will be called "My Special Bag", and will follow a set structure.

Each verse of our poem will begin with the phrase, "In my bag I will put" and then we will describe two things that we will put in our special bag.

We will use the joining word and to join our ideas together.

The structure will be repeated throughout the poem, so we will keep using the same structure throughout our poem entirely.

Here is an example of a poem that has been inspired by Kit Wright's poem, "The Magic Box".

Let's have a look at a poem, and we'll see what we're aiming to produce by the end of the lesson.

It's called "My Special Bag".

"In my bag I will put a fluffy, white cloud and a huge heavy rock.

In my bag I will put thick, yellow custard and icy, fresh snow.

In my bag I will put the sound of a speeding, red race car and the smell of crusty, fresh bread.

In my bag I will put my baby sister's first word and my grandfather's loud, deep laugh." Okay, so that is an example of a poem that has been inspired by Kit Wright's poem, "The Magic Box".

Let's have a look at it, shall we? Now we have a title, "My Special Bag", and that is the title that you will use for your poem, "My Special Bag".

Now each line of the poem starts with a repeated opening, "In my bag I will put".

The next line will have, "In my bag I will put".

The third line, "In my bag I will put".

We are repeating that opening.

We then have the first thing that goes into your bag.

"In my bag I will put," and in this example, it's a fluffy white cloud.

We then have the joining word and, and that joins the second thing.

In this case, a huge heavy rock.

"In my bag I will put a fluffy, white cloud and a huge, heavy rock." We will then continue to repeat this verse structure for the rest of our poem, so we are going to have just one sentence per verse.

A poem can be any length, but we will aim to write four or five verses.

Which of these verses describe two things that will be put into the special bag? Is it A, in my bag, I will put the neck of a tall giraffe? In my bag I will put a pile of birthday presents.

That's B.

C, in my bag I will put burning lava and freezing ice.

Which of these verses describe two things that will be put in the special bag? Pause the video and decide, is it A, B, or C now.

Welcome back.

Okay, let's have a little look through, shall we? So A, in my bag, I will put, let's list them.

The neck of a tall giraffe.

Oh, and that's it.

So just one, A.

It's not A, because A is just one thing that goes in the special bag, and we are looking for a verse with two things.

Let's look at B.

In my bag, I will put a pile of birthday presents and, okay, no, just one again, so it can't be B.

Is it C? In my bag, I will put burning lava and freezing ice.

That's two things.

Well done if you said C.

C is the correct answer.

The first thing is burning lava, adjoining word, and the second thing is freezing ice.

We will now need to come up with ideas for our poem that we'll put in our special bag.

So what are the things we're going to put in our special bag? We need ideas for the items that will go in.

Now this is an imaginative poem where anything is possible.

You can choose to put anything you like into your special bag.

Here are some ideas.

You might want to put rare objects, so things you wouldn't normally be able to touch, like the crown jewels, a racing car, a spacecraft, or an Olympic medal.

Maybe you want to put objects from your life, so things that are special and personal to you, imaginary objects, things that do not exist in real life, like a unicorn's horn, dragon's eggs, a genie's lamp, or a superhero's cape, or sensory experiences, so things that you can see, hear, smell, or touch, or taste, like the taste of your favourite food, or the smell of freshly cut grass.

All of these are examples of things that you could put into your special bag and use in your poem.

With a partner, come up with three items that you would like to put in your special bag.

They might be rare objects, objects from your life, imaginary objects, or sensory experiences, and remember, that's things that you can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch.

So pause the video and discuss with a partner and come up with three items that you would like to put in your special bag.

Pause the video and complete this task now.

Welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look at an example.

So Andeep says, "In my bag I will put in a dinosaur fossil, some warm bread and a colourful butterfly." Lovely ideas.

Something Kit Wright is well known for is using contrasts in his poems. Now, contrasting items mean comparing two things that are very different, so contrasting items means comparing two things that are very different.

For example, a contrast to something hot would be something cold.

We will try including contrasting things in our poems to make it fun, engaging, and interesting to read.

Here are some helpful contrasts to keep in mind when generating ideas, so hot and cold, big and small, fast and slow, old and young.

Which object would be a contrast to a grain of sand.

So a grain of sand, imagine holding one in your hand, just one tiny grain of sand.

What objects would be a contrast to that grain of sand? Hmm, how about something huge such as the moon would be a contrast to a grain of sand.

It would be a good contrast to a grain of sand.

A grain of sand is very, very small, so anything very, very big would be a good contrast.

Here are some contrasting ideas for things we could include in our poems. So I put a table on the screen.

You can see you've got two columns.

You have one that says first thing, and then another that says second thing, and the second thing is going to be contrasting to the first thing.

For example, I've put a speeding, red race car and a contrast to something very, very fast, like a speeding, red race car is something very, very slow, like a tiny, slow snail.

We've got hot, spicy vegetable curry.

What could be a contrast to hot, spicy vegetable curry? Hmm, well, how about a layer of thick ice on top of a lake, because hot vegetable curry, it's hot, it's spicy.

I want something cold to contrast that, and a layer of thick ice on top of a lake is very, very cold.

Okay, how about this one? An ancient dinosaur fossil, so something very, very old, exactly.

So something very, very old would need to be contrasted with something very, very new, like a newborn baby's first cry.

So when a baby is born, the first cry that it does, I mean, it's so new, very, very contrasting to an ancient dinosaur fossil.

Okay, how about the sound of loud celebrations at a wedding, something very, very loud, and then we've got the taste of warm bread fresh from the oven.

Hmm, so perhaps you were thinking that the sound of loud celebrations at a wedding, we'd say the sound of something very, very quiet, and that would be a contrast, but I'm contrasting senses here.

I've got the sound and then the contrast to something you can hear is perhaps something you can taste, so that's quite a clever and interesting way to play around with the contrast.

How about a delicate, colourful butterfly? Well, let's contrast that with a heavy, powerful rhino.

A butterfly, very delicate, very light, very colourful, a rhino, grey, heavy, powerful, that's a contrast.

Which two of these ideas would work well together in a contrasting poem? So which two of these work well together because they contrast each other? Is it A, precious, shiny diamonds, B, warm sunshine on a summer's day, C, the first snowflake falling in winter? Which two of these could you put together because they contrast each other? Pause the video and decide now.

Welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look, so warm sunshine on the summer's day, and the first snowflake falling in winter are excellent contrasts because warm sunshine on a summer's day makes me think of very, very hot, and the first snowflake falling in winter makes me think of a very cold thing, so they contrast very well.

Okay, time for a task.

I would like you to generate your own contrasting ideas for things that you will include in your special bag.

Include adjectives to describe your items. Now an example of something that I would put in my special bag might be a tiny raindrop.

Tiny is the adjective and raindrop is the noun, so you may want to use that as a start and think about something that would contrast to a tiny raindrop.

Okay, it's over to you now.

Pause the video and generate your own contrasting ideas now.

Welcome back.

How did you get on? Did you manage to generate lots of creative ideas that contrasted? Let's have a look at some examples.

So a tiny raindrop, Lucas said that that would contrast with a tall tree standing proudly.

That's a really nice idea.

A raindrop is so small and tiny, a tall tree standing proudly very, very big, that's a really good small to big contrast.

He then had a thick slice of chocolate cake.

Oh delicious.

So a thick slice of chocolate cake contrasts with a glass of bubbly lemonade, so the chocolate cake is something you eat.

It is very thick.

A glass of lemonade is something you drink.

It is obviously liquid, so it's not thick and solid like a cake, so that's a nice contrast.

The sound of a dragon's roar with a sight of a beautiful sunset, something you can hear, something you can see, contrasting.

A bright flash of lightning with a deafening boom of thunder, lovely contrast, and these are two things that actually contrast together when we have a storm, we have the lightning and the thunder.

They go together, but one of them is something that you can see.

One of them is something you can hear.

Finally, Lucas said, the slimy skin of a snake, and the soft fur of a fluffy rabbit.

These two things contrast very well.

They would feel completely different, and so that's why it's a clever contrast.

Well done, Lucas.

Let's move on to writing a poem.

We will now write our poems inspired by Kit Wright's "The Magic Box".

Remember these key things when writing your poem.

Poems are a type of fiction writing and they do not have to be real, so let your imagination run wild.

Anything is a good idea.

Come up with as much as you can.

Push yourself to be creative and imaginative.

Anything is possible.

Include adjectives to describe your items. Poems can use punctuation differently, but we will still write in sentences with capital letters and full stops.

Each verse will contain one sentence with and to join our two ideas together.

Okay, time for a check.

Use your ideas to say the first two sentences of your poem out loud.

If you would like you can use my plan here of some contrasting ideas, so that's the speedy, red race car and a tiny, slow snail, and the hot, spicy vegetable curry contrasting with a layer of thick ice on top of a lake.

Use your ideas if you want to, or use mine if you need to, and say the first two sentences of your poem out loud and remember to use this talk.

This is how every sentence in your poem will start.

"In my bag I will put," and then you'll list one thing and then use and to join it to the second thing.

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

And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look at an example from Sophia.

She says, "In my bag I will put a sprinkle of sparkling, magical fairy dust and the long, sharp sword of a pirate captain." That's a lovely creative contrast, Sophia.

Great idea.

It is now my turn.

I will now model writing my own poem inspired by "The Magic Box".

You'll get a chance to watch me write.

So let's go for it, shall we? Okay, so you join me as I have already written my title and the first verse of my poem.

Now we know that our poem is going to be called "My Special Bag".

That's the title.

You can see I have centred it in the middle of the page rather than writing it on the left side like we would normally do, and I've also put each word in my title with a capital letter.

That's something that we can do in titles when we are writing a title of our poem.

Then I've written the first verse, and we know that every verse is going to be one sentence long, and that sentence will have a capital letter and a full stop, and I've got both of those.

Every sentence or verse in our poem will start with, "In my special bag I will put," and I have that in place.

I'll read you what I've got so far.

"In my special bag I will put a speeding, red race car and a tiny, slow snail." Perfect.

Okay, so that's my first verse done.

I have used my plan to guide my ideas, but I have noticed that I've made a mistake with my punctuation.

It's not the full stop or the capital letter.

They're in place, but I'm missing something.

I'm missing something twice.

Can you spot it? I'll give you a clue.

I'm missing two things on this middle line here.

Those two things are commas.

I'm missing two commas, but where should they be? Well, I can tell you one of them should be here.

Why have I put that comma in there? Why have I added a comma between the word speeding and red? Yes, I've added it because these two words are adjectives, speeding, red race car.

That is an expanded noun phrase.

The race car is my noun, and speeding and red are adjectives, and we know when we write an expanded noun phrase, it should be adjective, comma, adjective, noun, so I needed to put a comma in between my two adjectives, but there is one more comma missing on this line.

Where do you think it goes, and it's a bit trickier.

Look closely.

Well, well done if you spotted that there is another adjective on this line, and it is the word tiny, and then the second adjective is on the next line, slow referring to the snail, tiny, slow snail.

Now the adjective needs to go here, and this is trickier because the two adjectives are on separate lines, so well done if you spotted that.

The last thing I've noticed is that I have made a spelling mistake.

Can you spot it? I'll give you a clue.

It's on the final line here.

Yes, well done if you see that I've spotted the word snail wrong, s, n, and now I've put an A, but that's not an A sound on its own.

That's an a sound, s, n, a, l, snal.

I need this a to make an a sound, so I need to cross out the A and put the sound A and I there with a little arrow, s, n, ey, l, snail, because ai A goes before the L in words like tail and rail and snail.

Well done if you spotted that.

Okay, I'm now onto the second verse of my poem, and it does not start here.

We jump to a new line when we are starting a new verse, and to show in my poem that I'm actually starting a new verse, I'm not going to jump to just this line like I would do normally.

I'm going to leave another line and jump to here, because in a poem, we want our verses to look quite separate.

So I'm going to start on this line here.

And again it's, "In my special bag," exactly the same as the first verse.

"In my special bag I will put", I will put, now I'm gonna use my plan, so my plan says hot, spicy vegetable curry, and a layer of thick ice on top of a lake.

Perfect.

"In my special bag, I will put hot, spicy" Oh, I can hear some people already telling me I've made a mistake.

Ah, yes, it's the same problem, isn't it? It's a comma between the two adjectives, hot and spicy, and they're on separate lines, so well done if you spotted that.

'In my special bag, I will put hot, spicy vegetable".

Veg, that's quite a tricky word to spell veg.

I'm looking at my plan to help me vegetable, vegetable curry and, and there's my joining word and a layer of, and I think we said a layer of, let's check my plan.

"A layer of thick", I'm not gonna forget the comma this time.

"Thick," what's another adjective I can use in layer of thick, cold, freezing maybe? A layer of thick, freezing, I think is best than cold, "A layer of thick, freezing ice on top of a lake.

Let me just read through and check.

"In my special bag, I will put hot, spicy vegetable curry and a layer of thick, freezing ice on top of a lake." Now, in my plan it just said thick ice, but I wanted to add another adjective, so I have moved away from what my plan said to add the word freezing, and that's absolutely fine to do.

We use our plan to guide us, but we do not have to stick to what is in our plan.

We can add to it or we can take away, or we can come up with new ideas.

The plan is there to guide and support us.

Okay, I would now leave the rest of this line and move on to my next verse, which in my plan says will be about an ancient dinosaur fossil and a newborn baby's first cry, and I'll do that now.

And welcome back.

So you left my video as I was two verses into my poem, and I continued and finished that.

So it's now your turn to have a little think about how I did.

Was my poem imaginative? Did I use creative ideas? Did I include adjectives to describe the nouns that I chose? Did I write in full sentences with capital letters and full stops, and did I include two contrasting ideas in each verse? What do you think? Well, I used my plan, which meant that the ideas I used were imaginative, and I made sure they had adjectives even when my plan only gave me one adjective before a noun, I added a second, and I ensured that I had commas in between those adjectives too.

I wrote in full sentences with capital letters and full stops, and I did include two contrasting ideas in each verse, and again, I used my plan to help me to do that.

Write your own poem inspired by Kit Wright's "The Magic Box".

It's over to you now.

Use your ideas generated earlier in this lesson to help you, or you can use the ideas that I have used as examples too.

Don't forget to do the following.

Be as imaginative as you can.

Use adjectives to describe the items. Write in full sentences with capital letters and full stops, and describe two contrasting ideas for each verse using and to join.

Over to you now.

Write your own poem inspired by Kit Wright's "The Magic Box".

Pause the video and complete this task now.

Welcome back.

How did you get on? Did you enjoy the process of writing your own poem? I bet you did.

Let's have a little moment to read your poem back to yourself and check if it makes sense.

Reflect on your writing by answering these questions with a partner, and make edits if you need to as well.

Is your poem as imaginative as it could be? Did you use adjectives to describe? Did you write in full sentences with capital letters and full stops, and did you use two contrasting ideas using and to join in each verse? So pause the video again, read your poem back to yourself, then check it makes sense.

You may need to make edits.

Then reflect on your writing by answering these questions with a partner and make further edits if you need to.

Pause the video and complete this task now.

Welcome back.

You are now hopefully in a position where your poem is finished, it's edited, you've reflected, possibly even improved.

Well done.

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

"The Magic Box" by Kit Wright is a poem about putting a variety of unique and wonderful items into a special box.

We can use poems by other poets as inspiration for our own poetry.

The structure of a poem is how it is organised and put together.

"The Magic Box" is organised into verses that mostly follow the same structure.

Kit Wright is well known for using contrasts in his poems. Brilliant work today.

You wrote your own imaginative poem, and that is an exceptional thing to do.

Well done.

I will see you again very soon.