Lesson video

Hi there, my name is Mr. Charlesworth, and I'm really looking forward to working with you today in this reading lesson.

We're going to be focusing on the poem "The Listeners," which is written by Walter de la Mare.

We're going to be exploring the poem, the poet, and the themes in more detail.

I hope you're looking forward to learning more about poetry.

Let's get started.

The lesson outcome for today's lesson is I can discuss the poet's choice of structure and language.

The keywords are, my turn, your turn, rhyme, rhyme scheme, enjambment, repetition, poetic devices.

Let's try those once more.

Rhyme, rhyme scheme, enjambment, repetition, poetic devices.

Well done.

Rhyme in poetry is the similarity of sounds between the ending syllables of words.

A rhyme scheme in poetry refers to the pattern of rhyming words or sounds at the end of each line of a poem, often represented using letters.

Enjambment is when a line in poetry continues onto the next line without pause or punctuation, creating a sense of flow.

Repetition in poetry involves a deliberate use of words, phrases, sounds, or structural elements that are repeated for emphasis.

Poetic devices are techniques enhancing expression, rhythm, or meaning in poetry.

Don't worry if you're unsure about any of these words.

We'll be exploring them throughout the lesson.

In today's lesson, we're going to be examining the structure and the language in "The Listeners," a poem by Walter de la Mare.

We're going to begin by exploring the structure of the poem, that's how the poem is made up, before we then look at exploring some poetic devices in the poem.

That's the techniques that Walter de la Mare uses to convey emotions or meaning within the poem.

Let's begin by exploring the structure of the poem.

Here's a quick recap about what we know about the poem, "The Listeners," so far.

Walter de la Mare uses different poetic devices to engage readers in the poem.

We'll be exploring a few more of those in today's lesson.

The listeners in the poem are given human-like characteristics to perhaps make them appear like ghost-like apparitions.

That's another word for spectres or ghosts.

Finally, we know that readers bring their own perspectives and experiences, influencing how they interpret the language and the imagery.

So throughout the lesson, you might experience or think of different things to your partner, and that's all valid, provided you're using information available to you from the poem.

We're going to begin today's lesson by exploring rhyme.

A rhyme is a similarity in the sounds of two or more words, especially at the end of the words.

Rhyming words typically share a similar ending sound, either in their vowel sounds, consonant sounds, or both.

You can tell whether two words rhyme by listening to the ending sounds.

For example, door and floor.

The ending sounds here or both sound the same, therefore both rhyme.

We can also look at an example here of cry and sky.

These both have the same sound at the end of the word.

I wonder, can you identify which words rhyme with the word still? I'm going to let you read the examples and then select.

There may be more than one.

Pause the video now whilst you decide.

Well done.

Did you get them both right? It's B and D, the word sill as in windowsill, and the word until.

I wonder if you can do the same with these words.

Which of these words rhyme with the word alone? Sound them out loud and remember to think about the ending sound.

Pause the video now whilst you answer the question.

Well done.

This one was a little bit trickier, wasn't it? We've got the words gone, grown, frown, and stone.

You can see they follow lots of similar spelling patterns, however sound very different.

The words that rhyme with alone are B, grown, and D, stone.

It's important to remember that the same ending of a word does not always mean it rhymes.

Some words, for example, read or read, change their sound depending on the context.

While remember, the context is usually the additional information surrounding the word.

It gives greater meaning.

Let's reread the poem once more, this time focusing on the rhyming couplets.

As I'm reading, I'd like you to write down each pair.

Rhyming couplets are rhyming words.

They're usually located towards the end of each line.

Keep your eyes peeled as we read.

"'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller, knocking on the moonlit door; and his horse in the silence champed the grasses of the forest's ferny floor: And a bird flew up out of the turret, above the Traveler's head: And he smote upon the door again a second time; 'Is there anybody there?' he said." I wonder if you've noticed the rhyming couplets in these eight lines.

Pause the video now whilst you write them down.

Great work.

You should have found door and floor, and also head and said.

Well done if you've got them all.

Let's continue to explore the poem together, noting down the rhyming couplets as we go.

"But no one descended to the Traveller; no head from the leaf-fringed sill leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners that dwelt in the lone house then stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight to that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, that goes down to the empty hall, hearkening in an air stirred and shaken by the lonely Traveler's call." I wonder if you can find all six rhyming words here.

Pause the video now whilst you note them down.

Great work.

You might have noticed some of these already in the lesson.

In the top four lines, the words sill and still rhyme.

In the next four lines, then and men.

And in the final four lines on this page, hall and call.

Well done if you've got them all.

You might have started to notice a pattern too.

We're now going to read the next 12 lines, drawing out the rhyming couplets as we read.

"As he felt in their heart their strangeness, their stillness answering his cry, while his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 'neath the starred and leafy sky; for he suddenly smote on the door, even louder and lifted his head: 'Tell them I came, and no one answered, that I kept my word,' he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners, though every word he spake fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house from the one man left awake." Did you notice that the rhyming couplets are placed on the end of every other line? So you should have cry and sky, head and said, and spake and awake.

Well, remember, spake is another word for speak.

It's an example of antiquated language that's no longer in use.

Let's now read the final four lines of the poem together.

"Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, and the sound of iron on stone, and how the silence surged softly backward, when the plunging hoofs were gone." Now, you might be expecting this pattern to continue with the words stone and gone to be rhyming.

What do you notice about the final set of rhyming couplets? Discuss with your talk partner.

Pause the video now whilst you answer the question.

I hope you had an interesting discussion.

The two words sound quite different.

The words stone and gone, they almost rhyme.

So this is an example of a slant rhyme.

Slant rhymes do not have the same vowel sounds.

There's a small discrepancy, that means a small change that could reflect the uncertain or unresolved nature of the poem's ending.

So Walter de la Mare placed these words with an intention, perhaps to make us feel uncertain or uneasy.

The fact that all of the other lines follow that same pattern, but this one doesn't, means that the poem ends in this weird kind of eerie feeling.

It's an interesting technique, don't you think? Here's our next check for understanding.

Can you match the following rhyming words that we've just encountered in the poem? Pause the video now whilst you match them up.

Well done.

Let's check your answers.

On the left-hand side, we've got cry, head, hall, and still, and on the right-hand side, we've got the corresponding words, said, call, sill, and sky.

Cry can mean to cry tears.

It can also mean to call out.

And that rhymes with sky.

The sky that was starred and leafy.

Head I know rhymes with said.

Hall and call both had the same ending sounds, so they rhyme.

And that means still, to be still and stationary, and sill, as in window sill, rhyme.

Well done if you've got them all correct.

Now that we've discussed the rhyme and the rhyming couplets, we're going to have a look at the rhyme scheme.

Well, notice it's one of our keywords.

We can discover the rhyme scheme of the poem by assigning a letter of the alphabet to each set of rhyming lines.

We're going to go through an example together.

Here's four lines from the poem.

We'll read them once more.

"Never the least stir made the listeners, though every word he spake fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house from the one man left awake." We can help discover the rhyme scheme by focusing on the final word in each of the lines.

So here we have listeners, spake, house, and awake.

We already know that the second and fourth lines both have rhyming words at the end of each line, so we can assign the first line the letter A, "Never the least stir made the listeners." So if anything else rhymes with listeners, we would then use the same letter A to show that that line rhymes with another.

I wonder if there's a word that rhymes with listeners as we continue.

"Though every word he spake." Spake is a different rhyme to listeners, so we assign that the letter B.

The next line ends with the word house.

House doesn't rhyme with listeners or spake, so we give that a different letter, which is C.

And then the final line ends with the word awake.

Awake rhymes with spake, so the final line corresponds with the letter B.

I wonder if the rhyme scheme of the poem follows this pattern throughout the whole thing.

It's important to remember that not all poems need to have or have a strict rhyming scheme.

Here's our next check for understanding.

The rhyme scheme of "The Listeners" is A, ABAB, B, ABCB, or C, ABCD.

They're quite tricky and confusing, aren't they? I'll read them once more.

Is the rhyme scheme of "The Listeners" in the pattern A, ABAB, B, ABCB, or C, ABCD? Have a think back to what we've just learned to help support you.

Pause the video now whilst you decide.

Well done.

You'll have noticed that lots of the lines follow the pattern ABCB.

That means that the second and the fourth line end with a rhyming couplet, word that rhymes.

It's important to note that each stanza should be carefully checked as some might not follow the same rhyme scheme throughout the entire poem, and we know that to be the case with the listeners.

It ends on a slant rhyme, with those final two rhyming couplets having a close rhyme, not an exact one.

We're now going to explore some poetic devices which are contained in the poem.

Enjambment is a poetic device where a sentence or a clause runs over from one line to the next without a pause or punctuation mark at the end of the line.

This is in contrast to end-stopped lines, where each line of a poem concludes with a punctuation mark, creating a pause.

Let's have a look at an example from the poem.

"No one descended to the Traveller; no head from the leaf-fringed sill leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, where he stood perplexed and still." Just like with our rhyming couplets, we can identify words and punctuation at the end of each of the lines.

We have traveller with a semicolon, sill, grey eyes with a comma, and still with a full stop.

This is an example of enjambment, because the second line continues almost straight into the third.

Let's read them together as if they were one sentence.

"No head from the leaf-fringed sill leaned over and looked into his grey eyes." Poets use enjambment to help with the rhythm of the poem and how it's said out loud.

In this next check for understanding, I'd like you to read the following four lines and see if it includes an example of enjambment.

Do any lines join exactly onto the next one without any pauses or breaks? Pause the video now whilst you read and decide.

Well done.

You should have found a few examples of enjambment here, so the answer is yes.

I'd now like you to say why you think that.

Pause the video now whilst you discuss.

Well done.

You might have said that each line in the example, except for the final line, continues over from the previous one without any punctuation, breaks, or pauses.

In this task, we're going to be exploring the structure in a little more detail.

I'd like you to return to the poem, make sure you've got a copy of it in front of you.

The first question I'd like you to discuss is, how many sentences are there in the complete poem? Pay particular attention to full stops.

The second part of the question is, how does this make you feel as a reader? So you might like to use the sentence stems, I think that, or Walter de la Mare may want readers to feel.

Have a discussion with your partner and answer the following questions.

Pause the video now whilst you complete the task.

Great work.

Were you surprised by how many sentences there were in the complete poem? That's right.

There are only five sentences.

"The Listeners" is only five sentences in length.

I wonder how that made you feel as a reader.

You might have said something like, "B1y only including five full stops, I think that Walter de la Mare wanted the readers to feel as though they could not stop to take a breath, which creates a spooky and thrilling feeling.

This relentless pace keeps me wondering about unanswered questions in the story." I wonder if your discussions with your partner were similar or different.

We're now going to explore the poem, looking at poetic devices in a little more detail.

Repetition is a poetic device that involves the deliberate, that means it's intentional, the deliberate use of words, phrases, sounds, or structural elements that are repeated for emphasis.

I'd like you to refer back to the poem.

I wonder which words, actions, or imagery is repeated, and why do you think that might be? Pause the video now whilst you discuss the question with your partner.

Well done.

There are a number of things that are repeated within the poem.

One of the things that is mentioned at least three times is the knocking on the door.

I wonder why Walter de la Mare used that knocking to be a repeated theme or action within the poem.

Perhaps it's to draw attention to the knocking remaining unanswered.

No one answers his call.

Perhaps it reflects the poem's own unanswered questions.

We don't get to find out the reasons why the Traveler's at the house, nor who the listeners are.

Lots of the poem is unresolved, so perhaps Walter de la Mare included those to make the reader feel a certain way about the poem.

Here's our next check for understanding.

True or false, repetition in poetry refers to the deliberate choices made by the poet.

That means that those choices were intentional.

They were deliberately put there.

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

Well done.

I wonder if you're correct.

Poets usually spend lots of time crafting poems, so most of the words and choices that they make are deliberate.

So it's true.

And I'll let you to justify your answer.

Is it because A, repetition of lines, stanzas, if the poem includes them, or entire phrases can emphasise particular aspects of the poem? Or B, poets might repeat lines, stanzas, or entire phrases at random? Which one links to the above statement? Pause the video now whilst you decide.

Well done.

The correct justification is A, repetitions of lines, stanzas, or entire phrases can emphasise particular aspects of the poem.

Repetition is used deliberately by a poet to draw attention to something.

It's not usually done at random.

We're now going to have a look at an example of a poetic device in a singular line from the poem.

Let's read it together.

"The silence surged softly backwards." What do you notice about the line? Pause the video and discuss with your partner.

Well done.

You might have picked up the words, silence, surged, and softly.

These all begin with the same sound, the same letter.

Alliteration is a poetic device where consecutive words in a phrase or line of verse begin with the same consonant sound.

So here we have silence surged softly.

Alliteration can contribute to the poem's rhythm.

It enhances its musical quality and can draw attention to specific words or ideas.

In this case, the line is right towards the end of the poem where the Traveller is galloping away.

The silence surged softly backwards is referring to the setting being put back into silence again.

Let's explore another example within the poem.

"'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller, knocking on the moonlit door; and his horse in the silence champed the grasses of the forest's ferny floor." Well done.

Did you notice that forest's ferny floor is another example of alliteration? I wonder, what effect does it have on you as a reader? Reread the final line and discuss with your partner what it makes you think of, how it adds to perhaps the rhythm or maybe the imagery within the poem.

Pause the video now whilst you answer the question.

Fantastic discussion.

For me, forest's ferny floor paints a vivid imagery of what the forest might be like.

We know it's almost carpeted with ferns.

It makes it sound really wild.

You might have also mentioned how alliteration can add to the flow of the poem when it's read aloud, forest's ferny floor.

It adds rhythm to the poem, don't you think? Here's our final check for understanding.

Which of the following are examples of alliteration in the poem? Is it A, "he suddenly smote on the door," B, "host of phantom listeners," or C, "hearkening in an air stirred and shaken"? There might be more than one.

Pause the video now whilst you decide.

Well done.

The answers are A and C.

Let's have a look at reasons why.

In the first example, A, "he suddenly smote on the door," we have the consonant sounds of suddenly smote.

The third example C is an example of alliteration because it uses stirred and shaken.

It's important to remember in alliteration, the words don't necessarily have to be right next to each other, but the repeated consonant sounds should occur in close proximity.

That means they should be within the same line or nearby to each other.

In this final task, I'd like you to describe the following characters in "The Listeners" using the poetic device of alliteration.

I wonder if you can come up with descriptions about the Traveller, or the Listeners or Phantoms. To help you, you might want to make a list of some adjectives that would describe the characters with similar consonant sounds.

These don't always have to begin with the same letter, but that can help.

You can make a list of nouns with similar consonant sounds, and you can make a list of verbs with similar consonant sounds.

When you have these lists together, it can help you create a description that uses the poetic device alliteration.

I wonder if you can keep in mind the atmosphere created by the poem and themes which focus on the supernatural.

Can you try and link your description to follow those themes and emotions? Pause the video now whilst you complete the task.

Well done.

It can be really challenging sometimes to create alliteration that follows a particular mood or creates an atmosphere.

Let's have a look at some examples.

The tired Traveller trembled, that's a repetition of the tuh sound.

The trepidatious, that means worried or anxious, the trepidatious Traveller tip-toed towards the door.

Lifeless Listeners leant against the leaf-covered window, and frail Phantoms listened from the frozen fireplace.

Here we have a difference in letter, but the same consonant sound, fuh, so frail Phantoms from the frozen fireplace.

I hope you enjoyed playing around with language and using alliteration to create a description.

Poets do this all the time.

I wonder if you're inspired to write your own.

In today's lesson, we've been examining the structure and the language in the poem "The Listeners" by Walter de la Mare.

We've discovered that the rhyme scheme of the poem follows an ABCB structure.

The final four lines has an example of a slant rhyme.

We know that enjambment is a poetic device where a sentence or clause runs over from one line to the next without pause or a punctuation mark at the end of the line.

We've explored the poem and how it uses several poetic devices, including repetition and alliteration.

And finally, we know that Walter de la Mare uses repetition to draw readers' attention to the knocking on the door and the unanswered response from the listeners.

It helps create an atmosphere or mood to the poem.

I really enjoyed working with you today.

Well done for all the hard work.

Looking forward to seeing you again soon.