Lesson video

Hello, everyone.

I hope you're feeling really well today.

My name's Mrs. Riley and I'll be teaching you today.

In our lesson, we are going to be looking at an amazing poem by a poet called Joseph Coelho all about in imagining what the world would be like if it were made out of paper.

I love this poem and I hope you're going to enjoy exploring this poem with me today.

The outcome of today's lesson is to give a personal response to a poem and read it aloud.

These are our keywords for today's lesson.

I'm going to say it and then I'd like you to repeat it back to me.

Are you ready? Theme and metaphor.

Well done.

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

So when we look at a poem today, we might ask ourselves, "What are the themes in that poem? What are the big ideas, topics, or messages?" A metaphor is a way of describing and comparing something by saying that it is something else.

Maybe today, we might spot some metaphors in this poem.

We have two learning cycles today.

We're going to be looking at a poem called "If All The World Were Paper" by Joseph Coelho.

So in the first learning cycle, we're going to be introduced to this amazing poem, and in the second learning cycle, we're going to explore the poem in a bit more detail and have a chance to read it.

So in today's lesson, we'll be reading and responding to the Joseph Coelho's poem "If All The World Were Paper." It's taken from Coelho's published collection of poems, "Werewolf Club Rules," which was his first published book of poetry.

The poem is also available in the additional materials.

So I would like you before we read this poem, to discuss with a partner, what does the title, "If All The World Were Paper," make you think of? What words or images come to mind? Pause the video and discuss that with your partner now.

Okay, let's come back together.

So perhaps you said something like Jun.

"It makes me think the poem is going to be about imagining what the world would be like if everything were made of paper." Or maybe you said something like, "I imagine the poem will be quite funny, because if things like buildings and cars were made of paper, they would bend and fall apart when it rained." I wonder if the images you had when you thought about this title were positive or negative.

Perhaps you could just show me with your thumbs, a thumbs up if you feel like you had positive images or a thumbs down if it was negative, or maybe somewhere in between if you're not sure.

Can you show me? Ooh, a kind of mixture of responses there.

Well, we'll have to find out.

So the first thing we're going to do now is watch and listen to Joseph Coelho performing this poem, "If All The World Were Paper." So sit back and enjoy watching this poem being performed now.

<v ->My poem, "If All The World Were Paper,"</v> is a poem that imagines a world where everything is made of things associated with paper.

So if you listen carefully, you might hear some words that are connected with papery things like folding and tearing and shredding.

So listen carefully and listen out for those papery words.

"If All The World Were Paper." "If all the world were paper, I would fold up my gran and take her everywhere I go.

I would laminate my baby sister in bubble wrap and lay her to sleep in unbound fairytale book pages.

And should she get scared, rip every fear, shred every scream, tear every tear.

If all the world were paper, I would rebind my grandfather, smooth out the dog-ears to all his stories, place his younger days in a zoetrope and flush the harrowing chapters down an ink-gurgling well.

If all the world were paper, kind deeds would be Post-it Notes that stuck to the doer in ever-growing trails so that we would always remember.

Friends would come with perforated lines so you could keep their best bits with you at all times.

If all the world were paper, Christmas wrapping foil and birthday cards would follow you to school.

If all the world were paper, dreams would be braille, so we could read them whilst we slept.

Nightmares would be shopping lists, because shopping lists are so easy to forget.

If all the world were paper, arguments would rustle before they started and could be put right with a little tape.

If all the world were paper, we could paperclip families together, draw smiles on all the sad faces, rub out the tears, cover our homes in Tippex and start all over again.

All the world is not paper, but whilst we can imagine it were, we can recycle the rough times knowing that we will never ever fold." <v ->Okay, I hope that you enjoyed that.

</v> So we're now going to discuss our initial responses to the poem.

That's initial is kind of the first thing that we might think having listened to the poem.

So I'm going to give my initial response to the poem.

I'm going to think about what I liked about it and if I have any questions about it.

And then you're going to do the exact same thing.

So, oh gosh, what did I like about the poem? I liked so many things, but I especially liked how the poem explored the theme, there's our key word, of family, and capturing special moments.

I really loved that.

And I would like to know, a question I have is if Joseph Coelho wrote this poem about his own family, is it actually, are the things he chose real, because they're about real people in his family? Or did he just make it up? Now it's your turn.

So what's your initial response to the poem? What did you like about it and do you have any questions about it? Pause the video and tell your partner now.

Okay, well done.

Let's come back together.

So I'm going to now read each verse so we can look at it in a bit more detail.

And then on the right-hand side, we're kind of summarising the main things that happening in each verse.

So here's verse one.

Verses, of course, are little sections of the poem.

"If all the world were paper, I would fold up my gran and take her everywhere I go.

I would laminate my baby sister in bubble wrap and lay her to sleep in unbound fairytale book pages.

And should she get scared, rip every fear, shred every scream, tear every tear." So in this verse, the speaker says what they would do if the world was made of paper.

They said they would like to fold a beloved grandmother so that they could be taken everywhere.

Imagine having a little miniature person who you love, being able to fold them up and put them in your pocket.

They want to laminate their younger sibling to protect them.

If you laminate paper, you put it in some sort of transparent plastics to protect it.

So if you've laminated some paper, you could drop it in a puddle and you could just wipe it off and it would be okay.

So they want to laminate their sibling, which is a brother or sister, to protect them.

So we can see these words already being used that are associated with paper like fold.

We can fold paper, we can laminate paper, we can rip paper and shred paper and tear paper.

Let's see verse two.

"If all the world were paper, I would rebind my grandfather, smooth out the dog-ears to all his stories, place his younger days in a zoetrope and flush the harrowing chapters down an ink-gurgling well.

So here the speaker imagines restoring and preserving their grandfather and his stories.

That idea of having a crumpled bit of paper and smoothing it out.

They would cherish his younger memories while getting rid of the painful ones.

So flushing them away down that ink-gurgling well.

Verse three.

"If all the world were paper, kind deeds would be Post-it Notes that stick to the doer in ever-growing trails, so we would always remember friends who would come with perforated lines.

So you could keep their best bits with you at all times." So here it's, we're imagining that acts of kindness would become visible reminders stuck to the person performing them with Post-it Notes.

So imagine every time you did something kind, let's imagine that you helped someone look for their coat when they'd lost it.

That would be written on a Post-it Note and stuck to you.

So that kind people would be covered in Post-it Notes.

Friends would come on paper with detachable parts so that you could keep their best bits close.

Verse four, this is a shorter verse, isn't it? If all the world were paper, Christmas wrapping foil and birthday cards would follow you to school.

So imagine Christmas and birth, elements of Christmas and birthdays accompanying you daily, following you around.

Verse five.

"If all the world were paper, dreams would be braille so we could read them whilst we slept.

Nightmares would be shopping lists, because shopping lists are so easy to forget." So here, dreams could be read using braille while we slept.

Now braille is, it's lots of little dots that are kind of risen up off the paper so that if you're blind, if you can't or if you have some kind of vision impairment, instead of looking and reading the words, you can with your finger, you could trace along these little symbols, these little lines to that's how you would read.

So imagine that dreams could be braille so that we could read while we slept with our eyes shut.

And nightmares could be easily forgotten like shopping lists because they're easy to forget shopping lists.

I'm always forgetting shopping lists.

And so nightmares would be like that.

We would easily forget them rather than holding onto them.

Verse six, again, a shorter verse.

"If all the world were paper, arguments would rustle before they started and could be put right with a little tape." So imagine that sound, that rustling sound.

You'd hear an argument before it started, and if an argument did happen, you could get a bit of celler tape to stick it back to make it better again before it got worse.

Verse seven.

"If all the world were paper, we could paperclip families together, draw smiles on all the sad faces, rub out the tears, cover our homes in Tippex and start all over again." So here, the speaker talks about families being kept together, sadness being erased, so rubbed out, and homes being renewed and refreshed with Tippex.

So wouldn't that be nice if we could just rub out a sad face and put a smile on it instead, or we could paperclip families together again? Verse eight, "All the world is not paper, but whilst we can imagine it were, we can recycle the rough times, knowing we will never ever fold." So here the speaker ends by saying, "Although the world isn't made of paper, imagining it is provides hope for overcoming challenges and remaining strong." So could you now put the following events that occur in the poem in order? So A is families could be clipped together and unhappy faces could be changed into smiles.

B is Christmas and birthdays would follow you each day.

And C, the speaker says they would fold their grandmother up so they could take her everywhere they go.

So I need you to decide which of these would come first, comes first in the poem, second and third.

Pause the video while you decide that now.

Okay, let's come back together.

So C comes first.

That's the verse about folding up their grandma so that they could take her everywhere they go.

B is number two, that idea that Christmas and birthday, wrapping paper and cards would follow you every day.

And then A is third, the idea that families could be paperclipped together and that sad faces could be changed into smiles.

So I would like you now to, or in a second, you're going to discuss how this poem made you feel.

Here's a couple of examples.

You might say something like, "This poem made me think about which people in my life I would like to fold up and carry around with me." Maybe you might say, "This poem made me feel sad, because it made me wish I could keep all the memories of my grandfather with me." So you're now going to discuss how this poem made you feel.

And remember, our personal responses to a poem will always be different, because we're all unique, and that's a really good thing that we should celebrate.

It would be a bit boring if we all thought, had the exact same reaction to a poem.

So it's okay if you and your partner have completely different responses.

That's all right.

Just try and have a little think about how this poem, when you read it and when you listened, watched Joseph Coelho perform it, how did it make you feel? And then share that with your partner.

Pause the video now.

Okay, well done.

It's really, sometimes it can be quite hard sharing your feelings.

So well done for sharing how you feel about this poem, how this poem made you feel with your partner and well done for listening to your partner while they were talking.

So it's now time for your first task.

In this task, you're going to be having a discussion with your partner.

You're going to refer to the poem, so make sure you've got a copy of the poem close by and discuss these questions.

Did the poem make you think about anyone special in your life? That's the first one.

And the second question is, "Can you think of any other things that people might want to turn into paper?" Here are some sentence scaffolds to help you.

"The poem made me think about my hmm, because.

." Or, "I think some people might want to turn mm into paper, because.

." So I hope you enjoy this task.

Pause the video now.

Okay, let's come back together, well done.

So here's an example of what you might have said.

"The poem made me think about my grandmother, because she lives in a different country and I don't see her very often.

If the world were paper, I would roll her up and put her in my pocket so she was close to me." Maybe you said something like this.

"I think some people might want to turn places they'd stayed on holiday into paper, because they could take the happy memory from that holiday around with them." That would be nice, wouldn't it? So we're now going to move on to our second learning cycle where we're going to be exploring the poem in more detail.

Joseph Coelho's poems often explore personal experiences.

This means he's writing poetry using real events from his own life as inspiration.

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

It was one of our keywords.

Some themes in this poem include family, memory, love, and imagination.

"If All The World Were Paper" inspired Coelho to write a picture book called "If All the World Were.

.", dot, dot, dot.

The book explores one of the main themes in the poem, which is protecting those we love and preserving their memory.

The poem is full of examples of imaginative and unique ways of preserving memories, which is something everyone can relate to.

The poem creates an emotional response in the reader.

So which of these are themes, that's our keyword, explored in the poem? A, protecting those we love.

B, the environment.

C, preserving memories.

Pause the video and choose your answer or answers now.

Okay, well done.

So the themes explored in this poem, or two of them are A, protecting those we love and C, preserving memories.

So I would like you to now reread the poem and discuss the different family members mentioned in the poem and how the speaker wishes to protect them.

So could you pause the video now and with your partner, look at the poem, see if you can find all family members that are mentioned and how the speaker wishes to protect them.

Okay, let's come back together.

So perhaps you said something like this.

"The speaker says they want to protect their little sister by laminating her.

Laminating a piece of paper covers it in a protective shield of plastic.

Often with younger children, we want to protect them as much as we can." In the poem, Joseph Coelho explores an imaginative idea by using a poetic device called a metaphor.

That was also one of our keywords.

A metaphor is a type of poetic device, and it's a way of describing and comparing something by saying that it is something else.

For example, "The bedroom was a pigsty." Now I'm pretty sure someone's bedroom isn't actually a pigsty, but if we use that metaphor, "The bedroom was a pigsty," we are comparing it to a pigsty and creating an image in our reader's mind that the bedroom is really messy.

If we were going to use a simile, we would compare using like or as.

So we would say, "The bedroom was like a pigsty." That would be a simile.

But a metaphor is when you compare just by saying it is something.

"The bedroom was a pigsty." So this is a metaphor.

The entire poem is an extended metaphor where the world and its elements are compared to paper and paper products.

Metaphors help to build a vivid picture in the reader's mind.

So all of those things about tearing paper, folding it, laminating it, they're all creating a vivid picture in the reader's mind.

So which of these is the correct definition of a metaphor? A, a way of describing and comparing something by saying that it is something else.

B, a way of comparing something by using like or as.

C, a way of describing something using two adjectives.

Which of these is the definition of a metaphor? Pause the video now.

Okay, well done.

A is correct.

A metaphor is a way of describing and comparing something by saying it is something else.

So it's time for your second task.

In this task, I would like you to reread the whole poem out loud to a partner.

Read the poem clearly and with expression.

Try to vary your voice to emphasise the themes of protecting those we love and preserving their memory.

Before we do this task, we are going to hear what Joseph Coelho's himself's top tips are for performing this poem.

<v ->If you're going to have a go at performing my poem,</v> "If All The World Were Paper," here are some things to think about.

It is an imaginary world filled with wondrous, unusual things.

So I think you could do some wonderful things in bringing that wonder to life through your facial expression, through your gesture, the kinds of movements you are doing.

If you are working in a group, if there are more than one of you reading the poem out loud, you could maybe help create that world.

You could perhaps even bring in some props.

Maybe you could make some things out of paper that you use during your performance.

You could start to show different parts of this world made of paper.

I wish you all the best of luck.

<v ->Okay, so hopefully</v> you've got some really useful tips there of how to perform this poem.

Perhaps you might want to get some little bits of paper to make some props to use while you read or perform it to your partner.

I really hope you enjoy reading or performing this poem to your partner and good luck.

Pause the video now.

Okay, let's come back together.

Well done.

So let's just reflect on how we read the poem to your partner.

Did you manage to read it in a loud, clear voice? Do you think your partner heard every word you said? Did you use your voice to emphasise the themes around family and preserving memories? Did you read with expression in your voice? Did you use gestures perhaps like tear or facial expressions to show emotions? Did you use any props made out of paper? So I'd like you to pause the video now and just reflect on how you read the partner.

Is there any, the poem to your partner.

Is there anything you think you did really, especially well? Is there anything you think you might try and improve on next time? Pause the video now.

Okay, well done.

So here's what you might have said.

"I used my voice to speak more softly on the parts about protecting people.

This was to help create a feeling of love." So let's summarise what we learned today.

Joseph Coelho's poem, "If All The World Were Paper", imaginatively explores what we might do if everything were made of paper.

The poem explores the theme of protecting those we love and preserving their memory.

Other themes in the poem include family, memory, love and imagination.

A metaphor is a way of describing and comparing something by saying that it is something else.

So I hope that you really enjoyed exploring and reading this poem with me today.

I love this poem and perhaps if you did too, you might, after this lesson, want to go and find Joseph Coelho's picture book "If All The World Were" and read that, because as we learned in this lesson, this poem inspired that book.

Hopefully I'll see you for some more learning another time.

Bye!.