Hello there! Welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Mr. Barnsley.

Thank you so much for joining me as we continue to explore the AQA "Worlds and Lives" poetry anthology.

Today we're gonna be focusing on the poem "Homing" by Liz Berry, and you are gonna need your copy of the AQA "Worlds and Lives" anthology in front of you.

It's really important that you have this open so you can see a version of the poem.

Okay, I think it's time for us to get started.

Let's go.

Right, let's have a look at today's outcome then, shall we? By the end of today's lesson, you're gonna explain how Liz Berry, the poet, presents the importance of voice and identity.

There are five keywords in today's lesson.

Let's have a look at what they all mean.

It's really important that we recognise these, 'cause we're gonna see them in today's lesson and we might even be using them in our own analysis.

So dialect is a particular form of language which is peculiar to a special region or a social group.

So it's language that you might only expect to hear in certain parts of the country.

Industrial is of or pertaining to industry.

So linked to industry, manufacturing, commerce, trade, business.

An extended metaphor is a version of a metaphor that extends over the course of multiple lines or stanzas of poetry.

Elocution is the skill of speaking using standard forms of pronunciation.

So the way that people might have been expected to speak rather than in their own dialect from their own specific region of the country.

An intention is something that you want and plan to do.

Okay, there are gonna be three steps today in helping us understand the poem "Homing." First of all, we're gonna be responding to the poem or some of the ideas.

I'm gonna drip feed, share a few ideas from the poem and we're gonna start thinking about responding to those and predicting, thinking about what the poem might be about.

Then we're gonna track the poem.

We're gonna look at the poem in more detail and work our way through the stanzas.

And then finally, I'm gonna share some context with you that might help you understand or interpret the poem in more detail.

So let's start by responding to the poem then.

So today we're gonna be looking at Liz Berry's "Homing." This is in your AQA anthology.

You are gonna need to make sure you have a copy of that in front of you.

Now I'm gonna tell you now before we look at it that the poem uses an extended metaphor of a box that has been hidden away.

So, what are the implications of keeping something hidden away in a box? What does that mean? Why don't you pause the video and think about your response to this? If you've got a partner, you can discuss this with them.

But if you're working by yourself, don't worry, you can just think through this independently.

Okay, over to you.

What are the implications of keeping something hidden away in a box? Pause the video and press play when you are ready to continue.

Some really creative ideas there.

Really well done.

I really liked the kind of response that I heard that were similar to this.

So hiding something out of sight perhaps suggests that it is something you believe that other people would disapprove of, something that maybe you feel a little bit ashamed about.

However, the fact that you're keeping it hidden and you are keeping it rather than just getting rid of it could also suggest that actually it's really important and precious to you.

Otherwise you'd just throw it away, you'd just dispose of it.

So we've got kind of this contradiction of something being quite shameful perhaps or something that others might disapprove of, but actually important and precious to the person who chooses to keep it.

Okay, let's bear that in mind as we look at the poem later in the lesson.

Now, before we read the poem, I'm gonna tell you there are five stanzas in "Homing." In the table, what I've done is I've summarised the first and the last stanza by representing them with an image and a quotation.

So the opening stanza, my word that I've chosen is "rusted" and my picture is of a padlock, and the word I've chosen for the final stanza is "fluttering" and the image is of a pigeon.

I want you to think about, what are the connotations of each, okay? What ideas come to mind when you think of those words and those images? All right, over to you.

Again, you can discuss this in pairs if you have a partner or you can just think through this by yourself if you are working independently.

What are the connotations that come to mind when you look at those images and those words that are linked to the opening and closing stanzas? Over to you.

Pause the video and press play when you are ready to move on.

Some really nice ideas.

I love imagery.

I love when we think about connotations, 'cause we can be so creative here and it's not always going to be the same for everybody.

I really liked ideas around kind of the padlock being something hidden, but something also really, really safe and secure.

Whereas that adjective rusted suggests unused, kind of crumbled, deteriorated, kind of left to go bad.

For the closing stanza, the image of the bird, the pigeon, or something free.

If you know about pigeons, you might know about something called homing pigeons, and homing pigeons are ones that could be let to go free, they can be let to go fly, but they will always come back to their home.

And fluttering, that the fluttering, or it could be an adjective, could mean movement.

It means something being alive.

So well done if you had similar ideas.

Of course, you might have had slightly different ones, and as long as you can justify those, that's also perfectly valid.

Okay, so, in the first stanza then, it seems as if someone, the subject of the poem, has done what? Is it A, hidden away something precious, B, thrown away something precious, C, thrown away something of no value? Okay, why don't you pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Well done if you said it was A.

I think we can start to predict that this is about something or that someone has hidden away something that is very precious to them.

Okay, onto our first task.

I'm now gonna give you even a little bit more of a sneak peek into this poem.

This poem is about someone's accent, the way that they speak.

I want to write down, how do you think their accent is perceived by other people at the beginning of the poem, and do you think that changes by the end of the poem? So think about those images.

So things you're gonna want to consider as you do this.

Think about that extended metaphor of the box, okay? Hiding things away.

Think about the image of the lock in the opening stanza, and think about the image of the pigeon in the closing stanza.

So what do you predict then? Knowing that this is a poem about someone's accent, what predictions can you make about how their accent is perceived at the beginning and the end of the poem? Why don't you pause the video, have a think, give this a go.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, I really like predicting before we read a poem.

I think it really helps set the scene and let us start to think about things that we might expect to see in the poem.

Why don't we compare our predictions then to Aisha's predictions and see, do you agree with what she wrote? So Aisha said, "I think the image of the unused 'lock' suggests that the accent is perceived as something that should be hidden away and not used at the beginning of the poem.

I don't think the image of a pigeon is necessarily positive, as many people have negative perceptions of pigeons, but they are everywhere nevertheless.

So perhaps the speaker is saying that the accent should be free and released regardless of potential negative perceptions," ideas around the accent.

What do you think, then? Why don't you pause the video and compare Aisha's prediction to yours.

Think about where there are similarities, where there are differences.

Do you agree with Aisha or do you disagree? All right, pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, it is time for us now to start tracking the poem.

We're gonna read the poem and look at it in more detail.

So, we are gonna read through the poem, but you're gonna do it independently first.

So you're gonna pause the video now and just read the poem.

So like I said at the beginning, you're gonna need your copy of the AQA "Worlds and Lives" poetry anthology, and you'll need it in front of you now.

All right, so pause the video, make sure you've got your anthology, and read through the poem "Homing" by Liz Berry.

All right, over to you.

Do your reading and press play when you've read the poem all the way through.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope you enjoyed the poem.

I think this is a great poem.

What I want you to think about then, before we start moving through this stanza at a time, I want you to think about what is the relationship between the subject and the speaker? Okay, so the speaker being the voice that we're hearing and the subject being the person that they're talking about, the person who has, you know, hidden something precious in the box.

What do you think the relationship might be and why do you think that is? All right, pause the video, and if you've got a partner you can discuss with them.

Otherwise, just think about this independently.

All right, over to you.

Press play when you're ready to move on.

Some really, really nice ideas there.

I really want to shine a spotlight on people who said something similar to this: that the subject is likely an older relative of the speaker, since the speaker talks about this perception of the accent over the years, it's someone they've known for a long time.

They also reminisce.

They think back about hearing them on phone calls with family members.

The poem is written in the past tense, and the speaker talks of "clearing" their possessions.

And I think to me this implies that the older relative has now sadly passed away.

I wonder if you said something similar.

All right, let's now move through this poem, looking at some of the details in each of the stanzas.

So let's consider stanza one to start off.

The speaker sets up a contrast, a difference between the subject's accent and their elocution lessons, their lessons which taught them how to speak properly, or whatever properly is supposed to mean.

So what do you think is the difference between how the subject's accent and their elocution lessons are perceived? Why don't you pause the video and discuss this question, again with a partner if you have one or just thinking through it independently if not.

All right, over to you.

Welcome back.

Now, you might have said something similar to what you can see on the screen.

The speaker implies that the accent was seen as something to be ashamed of since it's hidden away, while the elocution lessons are presented as being really important, since it's implied that violence was used in order to force the subject to speak in a certain way.

Let's look at stanza two now.

The speaker tells us that the subject's accent sometimes escaped.

What does this tell us about the accent? What do you think it tells us, the fact that it could escape? What does it tell us? Pause the video, have a think.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

Some lovely ideas.

I was really interested in those of you who said actually, this accent cannot be fully contained by the elocution lessons.

You might be supported to speak in a more formal way, but actually it couldn't completely squash the natural accent that is trying to be released.

Looking at stanza three then, the speaker suggests that of all her relative's possessions, she "wanted" the "box," this box being the extended metaphor.

What does this tell us about the speaker and their attitude to their relative's accent? What do you think? Why don't you pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Some really interesting ideas here, because like we said, this box feels like it's kind of metaphorical.

So I think it implies that the speaker places a lot of value on the accent.

Furthermore, if we assume their relative passed away, then their desire to keep the "box" implies that there is a connection between someone and their accent.

It's almost like they want to be able to remember their voice.

And I think that's often, you know, when someone passes away it's very easy to keep a hold of their physical possessions, but something like voice or accent is something that can feel like it can get so easily lost.

So there's this kind of emotional connection, this connection of sadness, of grief alongside this idea of the value and importance of accent.

Okay, looking at stanza four then, the speakers suggests they want to "swallow" the words from the subject.

They hear what the subject is saying and they want to swallow them.

What might this tell us? Okay, what might the use of this verb swallow suggest to us? Why don't you pause video, have a think, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Yeah, I think it could potentially suggest the speaker sees the words as nourishing, fulfilling, since they're talking about them as if they're food.

But it could also, I think, have this wider meaning of the importance, of the necessity of keeping regional dialects alive, that we should be passing dialects and accents on from one generation to the next rather than kind of all speaking in exactly the same way.

I think that that could be an underlying intention or argument of the poet.

Finally, let's think about stanza five.

The speaker expresses their desire to "forge" the subject's accent A forge means to make something with metal.

What do you think that suggests? Why that verb to forge? All right, pause the video, have a think, and press when you think you've got an answer.

Really, really well done.

Some great ideas there.

I really like those of you who said something similar to it suggests the speaker wants to recreate the voice of the subject, as if that's a way of keeping it alive.

And thinking back to what we discussed in that stanza three, the link between grief losing a loved one and the desire to hear them, hear their voice, hear their accent, their dialect again.

All right, let's do a little check to make sure we're understanding everything that we have talked about so far.

What does the speaker's desire to forge the accent imply? Is it A, that they see recreating the accent as a part of connecting with their heritage? Is it B, they believe the accent should be hidden away too? Is it C, that they consider the accent to be beautiful? What do you think? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Well done if you said A.

I think there is an argument to say that we could have said C, that the accent is beautiful to them.

But actually that's not necessarily what I would argue Berry is trying to say.

I think she's saying accents have value, they're part of connecting us to our heritage.

And you know, you might not love every regional accent, but actually, they are still really important in linking us to our heritage of where we came from and our identity.

Okay, over to you now.

Let's return to that same question that we looked at in learning cycle one, but this time we're gonna expand on our answer now that we've read the poem and thought about it in more detail.

So I want you to write an answer to the same question, how does the perception of accent evolve throughout the poem? How does it change from the beginning to the end? Things I want you to remember to do, include quotations, include explanations of the quotations, what are those quotations showing you, and of course, link back to Berry's intentions.

What can you infer that Berry's message might be about accents? All right, pause the video, give this a go, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

Really well done.

Really impressed to see people with their poems open, looking back and forth between their writing and Berry's poem so they could make sure they were selecting the best quotations.

All right, let's consider Aisha's response then and see how she could improve it.

So Aisha wrote: "The image at the beginning of the poem implies that the accent is deteriorating and crumbling due to lack of use.

Berry implies that this should not be allowed to happen, since she writes of the speaker seeing the accent as nourishing and life-giving therefore seeks to recreate it in order to keep not only it alive but, through it, also to keep the memory and identity of her relative alive." Some really nice ideas from Aisha.

Let's see how she did against that criteria, shall we? Did she use quotations? No, she didn't.

Okay, so Aisha definitely wasn't doing what some of you did, which was having your poem open next to you as you wrote.

Okay, let's see how Aisha's response would be improved if we added some quotes in there, shall we? So, "The metaphorical image of the accent being 'rusted' implies that is deteriorating and crumbling due to lack of use.

Berry implies that this should not be allowed to happen since she writes of the speaker longing to 'swallow' the accent, which implies it is nourishing and life-giving and therefore seeks to 'forge' it in order to not only keep it alive, but also through it keep the memory and identity of her relative alive." Okay, so much better by putting those quotations in there, because this has some really nice explanations of what these quotations are showing us.

And it links back to Berry's intention here.

Berry is implying that, you know, it shouldn't be allowed to happen.

People shouldn't want to lose their accents, okay? They should want to keep them as a link to their heritage and their identity.

All right, onto our final learning cycle then.

We're gonna understand some context.

So Liz Berry was born and raised in the Black Country and this is an area in the Midlands in the middle of England.

Her work often celebrates the area and it incorporates dialect and accent into her poetry.

Now, the poem talks about railways, coal, and factories.

What do you think this tells us about the Black Country? So even if you don't know the Black Country, you've never been, you've never visited, what inferences might you be able to make from these words, railways, coal, and factories? Why don't you pause the video, have a think, and press play when you are ready to continue.

I heard some really interesting ideas there and well done for people who were not just making suggestions, but really trying to justify them.

So I think what we could argue is that the Black Country is an industrial area, okay? So there's kind of an area of industry.

However, I think, you know, you could have gone a step further and said actually the idea that the subject felt it necessary to hide her accent I think implies that there is possibly wider negative perception of the Black Country.

Not saying that perception is right or true, but I think if someone is trying to hide their accent one interpretation we could say is, are they to hide their accent because they're embarrassed from where they're from? Are they, question? Okay, so possibly something for us to think about.

So what does the subject's desire to hide her accent imply about perceptions of the Black Country? Is it A, that perceptions are likely positive? Is it B, perceptions are likely negative? Or is it C, people aren't sure where the Black Country is? What do you think that is? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Yeah, well done if you said B.

And again, really important for us to underline that perceptions doesn't mean something is true, okay? But I think it's a logical inference to say if someone is ashamed of their accent and is trying to hide it that it might be linked to them being ashamed of a part of their identity or their heritage.

Not always, but this is something we can be tentative about, perhaps, maybe, might.

Right, over to you then.

The final image of the poem is of a homing pigeon.

So like I said at the beginning of the lesson, that's a pigeon who has this innate ability to be able to fly home.

You can release them, but they will come back to where they've been released from.

So, discussion time.

Why do you think Berry chose to end the poem on this image? What might she be saying about place, voice, and identity? And I want you to link those kind of big ideas together, the place, where you are from, your voice, how you sound and what you say, and how do these two things link to the idea of identity? We know identity is a really important theme across the poems in our anthology.

Okay, over to you then.

Pause the video.

If you've got a partner, discuss with them, but if you're working by yourself, why don't you just make a few notes and think about what you would say if you were discussing with someone.

All right, over to you.

Pause the video, press play when you're ready to move on.

Okay, welcome back, and some really, really fantastic ideas there, and well done for people who were just using the text or quotations from the text to justify their thoughts.

So, Aisha said: "Homing pigeons have an innate ability to find their way home.

Berry's use of this image could suggest that dialect, language, and voice are an innate part of our identity and are a way of connecting us to our home." What did you think about this? Why don't you pause the video, compare your thoughts to this, and if you want to make a note of anything Aisha said, then now's the time to do so.

Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

I really liked Aisha's response to this.

It really did make me think about accent and how important they are and how valuable they are to people in connecting us to our home and to our identity.

So I thought there was some really nice ideas there.

Okay, that's it.

We've reached the end of today's lesson.

Thank you so much for joining me today as we kind of read and understood the poem "Homing." I think it's a fantastic poem about a topic that I think is really important.

Let's just remind ourselves what we have covered in today's lesson.

So the subject of the poem is likely the speaker's relative.

We also learnt that the speaker implies that the subject felt it was necessary to hide their regional dialect.

We also learnt that the speaker is trying to keep the subject's dialect alive by recreating it.

And I think arguably we could say that Berry's intention here is to suggest how important accents are to identity and how they link place, voice, and identity.

So if there's anything in that lesson that you've struggled with, then please do go back and re-watch sections of the video.

I want you to feel really, really confident before you move on.

Right, I hope to see you in one of our lessons in the future.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Have a wonderful rest of your day and see you all soon.

Goodbye.