Lesson video

Hello, everyone.

How are you today? I hope you're really, really feeling good.

I'm Ms. Afzal, and I'm feeling good because we are gonna write to poetry together today.

We are going to be writing tankas, the Japanese form of poetry, and we'll be writing about the heat.

Mm, how do you feel about the heat? Maybe you love it, maybe you're not so into it.

However you feel, you are gonna be expressing your feelings about the heat through our tanka poems today.

Shall we get started? Let's do that.

The outcome for today's lesson is, "I can write and revise my poem about the heat." We have some keywords in our lesson today.

Let's go through them, my turn, your turn.

Tanka, editing.

Fantastic, I enjoyed hearing those words loud and clear.

Let's find out what they mean.

A tanka is a form of Japanese poetry consisting of five lines with a specific syllable pattern, 5-7-5-7-7, often expressing emotions, observations, or narratives.

Editing is the process of improving writing to improve text flow and overall quality.

Let's make sure we are looking out for those words, let's listen for them, let's think carefully about them, they will be coming up in our lesson.

So our lesson today, "Writing a poem about the heat," has two parts to it.

First of all, writing a tanka and next, editing and revising our poem.

So let's begin writing a tanka.

Today you are going to write your own tanka poems. When preparing to write a tanka, we will spend time developing our ideas.

Here are the ideas we previously generated about heat: Blazing heat.

Scorching temperatures.

The heat hung in the air like.

Waves of fiery energy.

The pavement sizzled.

Air, thick with humidity.

Some really fantastic ideas there.

Ideas and imagery can be developed and spread across lines.

We'll take some of our ideas from our mind map and expand them in more detail.

And take a look at that image of the sun, low summer sun.

So we could take our idea, blazing heat, and expand it.

We could describe the heat as an inferno, giving us some more detail there, scorched the parched land.

We could take "The pavement sizzled" and expand it to, "The pavement was a blaze.

It was as hot as an oven," adding in a simile there to really bring this image to life.

Tankas follow a syllable structure.

Remember, syllables are units of sound within a word.

So we need to keep in mind that our lines will eventually five or seven syllables in length.

The heat hung in the air.

So if we want to make that into five syllables, we need to make some kind of adjustment.

So maybe we could edit out the first word and go with "Heat hung in the air," five syllables.

"like a dense oppressive weight," "like a dense oppressive weight," seven syllables.

We can edit our ideas to fit the syllable structure once they have been written down.

And remember, "edit" is one of our keywords and it means to improve our writing, to improve the text flow and the overall quality of our writing.

We can use a range of poetic devices to develop our imagery, including personification, alliteration, and repetition.

Let's go into each of these.

Personification is describing a non-living thing as if it is person.

"Sun's raise stroke the landscape gently." This suggests that the sun's rays are softly touching the landscape like a human could stroke something.

"Heat devours the shadows," and "devours" means to eat.

Heat is not living and cannot actually eat.

This creates a negative impression of the heat, which is hungry and relentless as it devours the shadows.

So we can see that personification can be really, really powerful and really helpful in giving us an impression of what we are describing.

Check for understanding.

Select the line that uses personification, "The sun painted the sky with warm hues." "A fiery ball of warmth." "Radiant light illuminates the world." Pause the video while you decide which line uses personification.

Well done if you selected the first line, "The sun painted the sky." So the sun isn't actually painting the sky, but that is our use of personification there to give the sun human-like qualities.

So now I'll write an example of personification, and then afterwards it will be your turn.

Here we go.

"Sunlight whispers secrets to flowers." So remember the sunlight doesn't actually whisper, but this is my example of personification, I've given it this human-like characteristic of whispering secrets.

And now it's your turn to write an example of personification, so describing a non-human thing in a human-like way.

Pause the video while you have a go at this.

Okay, well done for having a go.

Did you describe a non-living thing as if it is a person? I hope so, I hope you enjoyed doing that.

Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound found at the start of words that come close together.

"The haze of heat shimmers." So the alliteration draws attention to the haze, but the same sound at the beginning of the words, "haze" and "heat." Repetition in poetry involves a repeated use of words or phrases that are repeated for emphasis or for a particular effect.

"The sun burns, burns, burns." Repetition develops the intensity of the sun's heat.

Okay, let's have a go at this.

I'm going to write an example of alliteration.

Afterwards, it will be your turn.

"The sun-soaked sand." So we've got the same sound at the beginning of sun, soaked, and sand.

And now it's your turn to write an example of alliteration.

So pause the video while you have a go at this.

Did you include the same sound at the start of words that come close together? Hope you enjoyed writing your example of alliteration.

And now let's move on to repetition.

I'll write an example of repetition, and then it will be your turn.

"The embers blazed and blazed." So I've got my word, "blazed" repeated the emphasis.

And now let's your turn to write an example of repetition.

Pause the video while you have a go at this.

Did you repeat any words or phrases to add emphasis for a particular effect? Hope you enjoyed doing that.

And now it's your turn to write a tanka using your generated ideas.

Remember tankas have a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure.

So here we go, line one, we'll have five syllables, line two, seven syllables, line three, five syllables, and both lines four and five, will have seven syllables each.

We can edit our ideas to fit the syllable structure once they've been written down.

So the most important step is to write five lines of ideas.

So pause the video now while you have a go at writing your first tanka.

It's great to be back with you, how did you get on? I hope you enjoyed writing that, and now it's time to read your poem.

So please read your tanka poem out loud.

Pause the video while you do this.

So you've written your poem, you've read it out loud, I've got a few questions for you.

What is your favourite line or phrase that you've written so far? Is there a line that you think you could improve? Have you followed the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure? So pause the video while you reflect on your answers to these questions and share them with someone nearby.

Well done however you got on with writing and reading your tanka.

We will have an opportunity to edit and refine these lines now.

Editing and revising.

When we edit our writing, we carefully review and make changes to words and phrases.

That's what editing is all about, it's about improving our writing, improving the flow of our writing and the overall quality.

Editing word choices and phrases can help to improve the imagery and impression created by our poems. When editing tankas, we will review the following elements, our line length and our language choices.

In tankas, line length should be either five or seven syllables long.

"The sun blaze like a furnace in the sky." This line has 10 syllables.

We can edit the line to the correct length.

"The sun blazed - a sky furnace." That's much better, seven syllables.

It can be challenging to make lines shorter.

Try to focus on the key image you're trying to convey to the reader of your poem.

And remember lines in poetry do not have to be a full sentence.

Check for understanding.

Have you followed the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure? Check the length of your lines and adapt any that are too long or too short.

Pause a video while you do this.

Here's Laura, "I edited 'Heat wrapped around us like a fiery embrace' to 'Heat hugged us with its warm flames.

'" "Heat hugged us with its warm flames," fantastic Laura, that's seven syllables, well done.

We can refine our language choices in each of the lines of the poem.

As the lines are quite short, we want to make sure we've used the most precise language we can.

"Sweat dripped like raindrops." We can refine this language.

So instead of dripped, we could go for trickled, "Sweat trickled like raindrops." Ah, a little bit more specific there.

And instead of raindrops, "Sweat trickled like rain," and that takes us to five syllables.

"The heat burned deeply." Hmm, what can we do here? Instead of heat We could go for blaze.

So we can edit words such as sun and heat to be more specific and convey the atmosphere we want to.

We can think about the positive to negative scale and consider where we want our writing to be on that scale.

Check for understanding.

Look at your tanka.

Can you revise any of the vocabulary you used to better convey the impression or emotion of your poem? Pause video while you have a go at this.

Let's have a look at Aisha's revision.

"I revised the line, 'The sun shimmered on the sea" to 'The sun scorched the sea with flames.

' It links better to my idea of describing a heatwave." Oh, I really like that revision, Aisha, you've really changed the impression you're giving of the sun with this edit.

You might like to share some of your lines with your partner to check that they convey the impression and emotion you are after.

And now it's time for your next task.

Now that you have your final poem, we can read it aloud.

When reading your tanka aloud, remember to think about: Rhythm and flow, use of your voice, gestures and movement, showing expression and emotion.

You may wish to perform the poem individually, in a pair, or in a group.

So pause the video here while you perform your poem while you read it aloud.

Enjoy this task, I'll see you when you're finished.

So how did you get on with reading your poem aloud? What was your favourite line or phrase in your poem, and what did you like about writing a tanka? Pause the video and share your answers to these questions with someone nearby.

Let's hear what Alex has to say.

"I enjoyed writing my poem following the syllable structure.

It made me think carefully about the words I was using to describe the heat and its effect on nature.

My favourite line was, 'Sunshine kisses Earth with light.

' It uses personification." Oh my goodness, Alex, that's a really fantastic use of personification, it's really quite moving, that image of the sunshine, kissing the Earth with light.

Thank you for sharing that.

I hope you all enjoyed sharing your poems, and hopefully you had some personification in there, some alliteration, some repetition.

Well done, team tanka.

In our lesson today, "Writing a poem about the heat," we have covered the following: A tanka is a traditional Japanese form of poetry that originated more than 1,300 years ago.

Tankas consist of five lines with the syllable pattern of 5-7-5-7-7, totaling 31 syllables.

Tankas often explore themes of nature, emotions, and the passage of time.

When editing tankas, we can consider line length and language choices.

Editing word choices and phrases can help to improve the imagery and impression created by our poems. Well done, everybody, I really, really enjoyed this lesson with you.

Your tankas were fantastic, full of imagery, fantastic language, feeling, and I hope you're feeling really proud of yourselves for what you created.

I look forward to seeing you at another lesson soon.

Bye for now.