Lesson video

Hello everyone.

My name is Mrs. Riley and I'll be teaching you this lesson today.

In our lesson today, we will be learning all about a poet, a poet called Joseph Coelho.

Perhaps you've already heard of him or maybe you haven't yet.

Well, let's find out all about him together.

The outcome of today's lesson is to learn about the poet Joseph Coelho.

Here are our key words for our lesson today.

My turn, your turn.

Let's say each one.

Poet.

Poem.

Theme.

Well done.

A poet is the name for someone who writes poems. A poem is a piece of writing that uses creative and rhythmic language to express thoughts, feelings, or ideas.

And a theme is a big idea, topic or message that recurs within a text.

We have two learning cycles today.

First, we're going to learn about Joseph Coelho as a person, and then we'll look at some of his poetry.

So we'll start off by learning about Joseph Coelho.

So a poet is someone who does all of these, creates poems, writes and sometimes performs poetry, expresses ideas, thoughts and feelings, uses language to express themselves in a creative or artistic way, draws inspiration from the world around them, loves using and speaking language.

So a poet does all of those things.

Could you discuss with your partner do you know any poets? Pause the video and discuss that now.

Okay, well done.

Let's come back together.

Maybe you said, I know the poet Kit Wright, he wrote a poem called "The Magic Box." Or perhaps you said, I remember reading a poem called "What Did You Do at School Today" by a poet called James Carter.

It was a really funny poem.

So maybe you had some different answers, but they're two examples of what you might have said.

Okay, so is it true or false? All poets write about nature.

Is this true or false? Pause the video while you decide your answer.

Okay, well done.

This is false.

And now how would you justify your answer? A poets can cover a wide range of topics beyond nature, or B, poets only draw inspiration from nature? Which of those would you choose? Pause the video now.

Okay, well done if you chose A.

Poets can cover a wide range of topics beyond nature.

So some poets might write about nature, but it's not just nature, there's lots of topics that poets can cover.

So Joseph Coelho is a British poet and children's author, and here's a picture of him.

Coelho is a celebrated writer known for his captivating poetry and imaginative children's books.

Let's meet Joseph Coelho.

(gentle music) <v ->Hello, my name is Joseph Coelho.

</v> I'm a writer, so I write books for young people like you guys, and I write all sorts of books.

I write picture books, middle grade books for slightly older readers and YA books that that are for really big readers.

And it all started I think when I was a kid.

Because when I was a kid, I would observe the world around me.

And back then I was getting ideas that have quite literally become stories and poems and books.

Growing up in a tower block has deeply inspired my poetry.

When I was growing up, I would oten get frustrated that I would never see homes like mine represented in books or in film or TV.

And so now that I'm a writer, it means that I can write about the places I grew up in.

So I can write about council estate and blocks of flats, but I can also start to bring in the magic that I so enjoyed reading about when I was a kid.

I used to love reading things like "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" or "Five Children and It" where you've got groups of children discovering magical world or indeed magical creatures.

So in my writing, I try and do that, bring the magic but onto the estate, into a slightly more urban environment because I think it's important that we all realise that we all have access to magic.

Writing a poem can take anywhere from half an hour to several months to several years, but no matter how long it takes you to write that first draught of your poem, you then have to edit and redraft your work.

That's something I always do, and I will often edit and redraft a poem 10, 15, 20 times before I publish it.

So that's always part of the process no matter how long it took for that first draught to come out.

And sometimes a first draught of a poem does come very quickly.

Sometimes it does come out and half an hour you've got that first draught and think, yes, this is a poem.

Sometimes it does take longer, sometimes I have to keep coming back to that first draught over days, weeks, or months before I feel like I've got something that yes, there is a strong poem here and then the editing and redrafting process begins.

So I was lucky enough to become the Waterstones Children's Laureate between 2022 and 2024, and my role as children's laureate was to represent children's literature and to encourage young people like yourselves to read.

I also got a silver medal, which I got to wear lots, which was lots of fun.

<v ->Okay, hopefully you enjoyed meeting</v> or being introduced to Joseph Coelho there and him telling us a little bit about himself.

So I would like you to tell your partner one thing you just learned about Joseph Coelho.

Pause the video and tell your partner now.

Okay, let's come back together.

Maybe you said he grew up on a counsellor state and got frustrated he would never see homes like his represented in books or in TV.

Maybe you said he got lots of his ideas from his stories and his books when he was a child.

He sometimes edits a poem up to 20 times before it's published.

These are all things he just shared with us.

So Joseph Coelho was born in Roehampton and hopefully you can see there on that map where Roehampton is.

It's an area in southwest London.

Coelho grew up during the 1980s and lived in a tower block with his mother and little sister.

At school, he never imagined that he would become a writer and didn't consider it to be something he could do.

So let's check your understanding.

Joseph Coelho grew up in which area of London? Was it A, Richmond, B, Roehampton, or C, Wimbledon? Pause the video and choose your answer.

Okay, well done.

It was B, Roehampton.

Well done if you remembered that.

Coelho was not able to read or write properly until the age of seven.

However, his love for writing was always there and he remembers how he liked to copy out the drawings from his favourite books and write out the stories in large letters.

His earliest memory of writing poetry was when he was in secondary school during his time in year eight.

Joseph entered a poetry competition and wrote a poem about a performing bear called "Unbearable." He didn't win the competition, but he kept on writing.

Joseph Coelho continued to write during his time at school.

He wrote poems about lots of different things.

He wrote poems about how he was feeling about life at school.

He wrote some angry poems and some sad poems and some funny poems. Sometimes he would even nervously share these poems in drama classes.

Okay, so is it true or false? Joseph Coelho did not write poetry during his time at school.

Is it true or false? Pause the video now.

Well done.

It is false.

We know he did write at poetry at school.

How would you justify your answer? A, Coelho wrote poems about life at school as well as his feelings.

Or B, Coelho wrote poems about war and fighting.

Which of those would you choose? Pause the video now.

Well done, the answer is A.

Joseph Coyer wrote poems about life at school as well as his feelings.

At university, so we've learned a little bit about his childhood when he was at school.

Now we're learning about when he's a bit older and he went to university and he studied something called archaeology, which means learning about the past using ancient things that have been left behind.

So for example, you might go digging and find a coin, an ancient coin, and you can then learn about the past from studying that coin.

That's what archaeologists do.

Coelho even went to Peru for two years to dig for ancient artefacts.

He said that this time it was lots of fun, but he still wrote poems. Coelho continued to write his own poetry and he joined a performance poetry course which gave him the chance to write poems and share them on stage.

Some of Joseph's poems made people laugh and he was asked to share his poems in schools.

He spent many years running workshops in schools and writing plays, and he slowly began to dream about being a published writer so having his poems or his stories made into a book.

In 2014, his dream came true and Joseph Coelho had his very first poetry collection published.

It was called "Werewolf Club Rules." And he's been writing and performing his poetry ever since.

Okay, so let's take a breather and check what we've learned so far.

Can you remember what was Joseph Coelho's poetry collection "Werewolf Club Rules" published? What year was it published? A, 2004.

B, 2014.

Or C, 2024.

Which year was his first poetry collection published? Pause the video and decide your answer.

Well done if you got the answer B.

It was in 2014.

So it's time for your first task.

In this task, you are going to have a chance to show off all the things you've just learned about the poet Joseph Coelho.

You have got to fill in the blanks.

You have got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 different sentences and you need to fill in the blanks.

I'll read them to you now.

So the first one is Joseph Coelho was born in ____, an area in southwest London, so you have to fill in that blank.

The second one is he grew up in the 1980s in a tower block with his _____ and little sister.

Coelho studied archaeology at university and spent two years in _____ digging for ancient artefacts.

He spent many years running poetry workshops in _______.

Finally, Coelho had his first _______ of poems published.

It was called "Werewolf Club Rules." So could you pause the video while you complete this first task? And good luck.

Okay, let's come back together and see how you did in this task.

So Joseph Coelho was born in Roehampton.

Well done if you remembered that, an area in southwest London.

He grew up in a tab block with his mother and little sister.

You might have written mum.

He studied archaeology at university and spent two years in Peru.

He spent many years running poetry workshops in schools.

And finally he had his first collection of poems published.

It was called "Werewolf Club Rules." Well done if you managed to remember all that information about Joseph Coelho.

So we're now going to look at our second learning cycle where we'll be looking more specifically at some of Joseph Coelho's poetry and we're even going to see him perform one of his poems. So Joseph Coelho's poems for children are easy to read and engaging with playful rhythms and subjects that young readers can relate to.

He often explores themes of the following.

Identity, so how we identify, family, friendship, imagination, and the power of storytelling.

So all of these things you can see that children could relate to.

So let's watch Joseph perform one of his poems called "The Satyr's Head." And as you watch him perform this poem, see if you can notice which themes does he explore in the poem.

Does he explore identity? Does he explore family? See if you can notice that as you watch him perform.

<v ->My poem, "The Satyr's Head"</v> is absolutely inspired by an old Victorian garden that was very close to where I lived in Roehampton when I was growing up.

So at the bottom of my block of flats, there was an old abandoned derelict Victorian mansion.

And in its garden, there was this old fountain and the fountain had this marble sort of statue within it.

And it was the head of a satyr.

Satyr is like a mythological creature, which is half man, half goat with big curly horns.

And me and my friends were scared of it.

So I wanted to write a poem inspired by the satyr and this poem is called "The Satyr's Head." The hidden garden we played in was bordered in red brick.

Crenellations of a faded fort, ivy-scattered and wind-aged.

A Victorian garden.

The towering walls tempted us to climb, the bricks testing their mortar, forming steps and hand-holds we climbed.

Urging frail frames against the height, then daring to drop to the spiky grass below.

Protected by a wisp of arrogance, an armour of childhood.

We danced in the light of the Satyr's grin, the limestone details of the fountain, weathered and mean, the endless grimace of a fiend.

The garden cloaked our tower block's stares, its trees veiling the aerials and satellite dishes.

Its bricks a smoke screen to the traffic's roar, the yells of our mothers.

Its bushes covering up the smog.

The jam-sweet scent of winter berries disguising the stench from the bins.

We danced like our fathers told us we could, spinning in the dead leaves that spun from our steps, like wry circus performers.

<v ->Okay, let's come back together.

</v> <v ->So here are some examples of some themes,</v> which is one of our key words today.

And maybe you thought in that poem that Joseph Coelho explores themes of friendship and imagination in that poem.

I hope you enjoyed it.

In his first published collection of poems, "Werewolf Club Rules," Coelho includes poems written about school and family life.

He demonstrates a delight in language and an ambitious use of words.

The book was well received and even won the prestigious CLiPPA, which stands for Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award in 2015.

So he won an award for this collection of poems. Okay, so let's check our understanding.

Which of these themes are explored in Coelho's Poetry collection, "Werewolf Club Rules?" A, fear, B, School, C, family life.

Pause the video and choose your answer.

Okay, let's come back together.

So the correct answers are school and family life are two important themes explored in the collection of poems "Werewolf Club Rules." In his second publish collection of poems, which is called "Overheard in a Tower Block," Coelho explores some of the same themes from the "Werewolf Club Rules." This book contains poems more suited to slightly older readers and is very powerful and moving.

Each poem offers the reader glimpses into the life of the main character as he grows over the course of the collection from a young boy through adolescence into adulthood.

Joseph Coelho has also published children's picture books.

In Coelho's book, "Luna Loves Library Day," he explores the theme of family as a young girl spends time with her dad, exploring her favourite place, the library.

In another picture book entitled, "If All the World Were," Coelho writes a moving story around the theme of protecting those we love and preserving their memory.

So could you discuss now, have you ever read anything by Joseph Coelho? Maybe it's a picture book or a poem.

Maybe you haven't read anything yet.

Could you pause the video and discuss that now with your partner? Okay, let's come back together.

Thank you for sharing.

So maybe you might have said, we actually have the book, "Luna Loves Library Day" in our book corner.

And maybe you've read it or maybe you've read the poem in class, "If All the Worlds Were Paper," which is a poem written by Joseph Coelho.

Maybe you haven't read anything by him yet, and don't worry, that's fine because we're going have the chance to do that together.

So let's now find out what Joseph Coelho's favourite picture book is.

<v ->My favourite picture book</v> is "Fungus the Bogeyman" by Raymond Briggs, who also wrote "The Snowman," which is on every Christmas.

The animation is on, you probably know it about little boy and the snowman, that writer slash illustrator also wrote "Fungus The Bogeyman," which is about this green sort of ogre type creature who is pretty disgusting and gets it into all sorts of adventures.

And it's a cross between a picture book and a comic book.

So that's what I really like about it, and I remember really to borrowing that book lots of times from my local library and devouring the story.

<v ->Ah, you know what?</v> I've never read that one.

I'm going to go and try and read it after this lesson.

In 2022, Joseph Coelho won the amazing title of Children's Laureate.

The Children's Laureate is an appointment made every two years to a writer to celebrate their exceptional talent.

It is a huge honour for a writer.

Previous children's laureates include Malorie Blackman, Julia Donaldson, Michael Rosen, and Cressida Cowell.

I'm sure you recognise some of those names.

So let's find out more from Joseph Coelho himself about when he was made the children's laureate and what this meant.

<v ->So I was lucky enough to become</v> the Waterstones Children's Laureate between 2022 and 2024, and my role as children's laureate was to represent children's literature and to encourage young people like yourselves to read books.

During my time as children's laureate, I decided to focus on free areas, I focused on libraries, and I did that by joining a library in every library authority in the UK.

So I now have 217 library cards and I was doing that to promote libraries and to encourage people to join their libraries.

I also created 80 videos to get young people like yourselves writing poetry, and those videos are between five and 10 minutes long and are available via my website and totally free to use.

And they also tie into the curriculum.

And I also created a series of live events, highlighting new up and coming brilliant writers and illustrators to help diversify bookshelves.

So that's what I was doing during my time as laureate.

I also got a silver medal, which I got to wear lots, which was lots of fun.

<v ->Okay, hope you enjoyed learning</v> a little bit more about that.

So in what year was Joseph Coelho made children's laureate? Was it A, in 2020, B, in 2022, or C, in 2024? Pause the video while you choose your answer.

Okay, well done.

It was B, 2022.

So it is time for your second and final task of this lesson.

For this task, you are going write five questions that you would like to ask Joseph Coelho if you had the chance to interview him.

So you need to imagine that Joseph Coelho is coming to your school later on today, and you are going to have the chance to ask him five questions.

It could be any question at all, about himself or his childhood or his poetry, and you are going to write those down.

You need to consider what you've learned about him so far in today's lesson, and that will help you to create some questions to learn more.

Here are some questions starters.

So you could start with who, what, where, when, why, or how.

So if you are struggling to think of a question, think about what we've already learned.

So for example, we learned that he went to Peru for two years when he was studying archaeology.

So you might think, oh, I might want to know a bit more about that.

So you might choose one of those questions.

For example, you might have said how, use how, and you might say, how old were you when you went travelling in Peru? Or what things did you find when you were in Peru? So use what we've already learned to help you think of some questions.

I hope you really enjoy this task and writing down some things you would like to find out about the amazing poet Joseph Coelho.

Pause the video while you complete this task now.

Okay, let's come back together.

So let's have a look at some examples of what you might have written.

Maybe you wrote something like this.

How did living in a tower block inspire your poetry? Did you tell your friends and family that you were writing poetry in secondary school? Which is your favourite poem you have written and why? How did it feel to be made the children's laureate? What will you write about next? Oh, I'd love to know that answer to that one.

Perhaps you could even do some research to find out some of the answers to your questions.

So if you leave this lesson and think, gosh, I really actually do want to know the answer to that, maybe you could go and do some research to try and find out the answer.

Okay, let's summarise what we have learned together today.

We've learned that Joseph Coelho is a British poet and a children's author.

He's known for using engaging and emotive themes in his poetry, such as identity, family, and friendship.

In 2014, he had his very first poetry collection published called "Werewolf Club Rules." He was appointed the children's laureate in 2022 to celebrate his exceptional talent.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed learning with me today all about this incredible author and poet Joseph Coelho, and hopefully I'll see you for some more lessons where we might learn a little bit more about him and explore some more of his poetry.

Bye for now.