Hello, everyone.

My name's Ms. Keller, and welcome to today's lesson.

I'm so glad you could join me as we're going to be reading and understanding Carole Satyamurti's poem "War Photographer." For this session, you will need a copy of your Edexcel "Poetry Anthology." So let's get started.

So by the end of today's lesson, we will be able to explain how Satyamurti presents the horror of war from different perspectives.

So let's have a look at today's keywords.

We have ekphrastic, semantic field, sociologist, moral implications, and desensitised.

So what do these words mean? Ekphrastic is a poem that describes or responds to an image or sculpture.

A semantic field is a group of words related by meaning, often within a specific context or topic.

A sociologist is someone who studies human society, behaviour and institutions, analysing patterns, structures and relationships.

Moral implications are judgements regarding right and wrong actions, often influencing behaviour and decision-making.

And finally, desensitised means reduced sensitivity or emotional response often due to repeated exposure to stimuli.

So how is today's lesson going to look? Well, we're going to start off by exploring the wider context of the poem, and then in the second half of the lesson, we're going to explore the poem itself.

So I'd like to start off with a few quickfire discussions.

So have a look at this photo and all I'd like you to start off by telling me is what is happening in the picture? So take a few moments to discuss this with the people around you or make some notes if you're working on your own and then click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back.

So as I overheard many of you were picking up on this idea that this is a photo of people stood on a train platform waiting for a train.

We've got that object there of the train and we've got all those people.

It's fairly clear to us what is happening.

So let's take this a step further.

What do you think happened an hour before this picture was taken? And also what about 30 minutes later? So you might need to use your imagination with this one.

So take some time again to discuss this with the people around you or make some notes and click play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

Some really interesting discussions taking place there.

And I could hear people having to use their inference skills, drawing out clues from this picture and perhaps using that in order to make these predictions about what might have happened before and what might have happened after.

Now, the reason that I asked you these questions, because obviously there's no way for us to know what happened an hour before or 30 minutes later, but it's because pictures have limitations.

They can only capture one moment in time.

While we've got enough information perhaps to make an educated guess about a different point in time, the only one we can actually be sure of is the one that we're looking at in the picture.

So let's continue with this exploration of pictures and their limitations.

So this picture is only part of a larger scene boarded by a frame, and the actual station itself is much bigger.

And we know this because there are things that have been cut off by this picture, like the legs of the people at the front and the other end of the train there in the top right-hand corner.

So again, I have got two more discussion questions for you.

First of all, what do you think is happening over here and what about on that side? So again, pause the video while you discuss this and have a think about what might be going on in those two squares or make some notes if you're working on your own and click play when you're ready to continue and we'll discuss it.

Okay, welcome back.

So over there on the left, I overheard lots of people picking up on this idea that perhaps there might be another platform.

It could be a repetition of the things that we can see in the picture.

If there's a train on the right-hand side of the picture, we could assume that there might be another train over to the left, because we do actually have people waiting on both sides of that platform.

And then over there on the right, I heard a lot of people picking up on the idea that we can see that train that continues along the platform.

So if that picture were to be continued into that box on the right-hand side, we might get to see, for example, the rest of that train.

So again, why am I asking you these questions? Because we can only infer what might occur outside that frame, but we can never be sure.

So it's time for one final discussion and what I'd like you to do is to move away from the sense of sight and start thinking about some of our other senses.

So I'd like you to consider first of all, what sounds might you hear if you were in this station and also what do you think the temperature is like there? So take some time to discuss this again with the people around you or make some notes if you're working on your own.

Pause the video, and click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back.

Some really creative responses there.

I was particularly impressed with this suggestion that there might be announcements, because that's something we quite commonly might associate with a train station, but I was even more impressed that some people were picking up on the evidence or things that they could draw out of that picture to support the idea.

And people were zooming in on these two people there in the bottom left-hand corner at the front of our picture.

Both of them are turned around looking in the same direction.

Perhaps they might be listening to something or maybe there's perhaps a notice board that they've turned around to look at.

And then this other question, what do you think the temperature might be like? I overheard lots of you suggesting that it might be quite warm.

And again, using your inference skills to pick up on the idea that nobody in the picture seems to be wearing any warm clothing.

Nobody's wearing jumpers or coats, and in fact, most people are wearing short sleeve T-shirts or sleeveless T-shirts, which could imply that it's very warm inside the station.

So what I want us to take from this is that pictures don't tell the full story, because they only use one of the five senses.

We can only see what's in that box and it has its limitations.

And moreover, we're only using the sense sight.

We have no idea what it might be like to be there, what sounds we might hear, what smells we might smell, the texture, the temperature.

We can only infer these things using details from the picture.

But actually these are just stories that we're creating.

These are our personal interpretations and we could be entirely wrong.

So let's just summarise the ideas that we've come up with while we were considering the limitations of pictures.

So images can tell us quite a bit.

They can tell us what a place looks like, who was there, and how people or places change over time.

For example, if we saw a picture of the same station perhaps 50 years before, we will be able to compare these two pictures to see how things have changed.

Or if you saw a photograph of two people, we might be able to look at those photos and see how that person has aged over time.

However, there's a lot that images can't tell us.

They can't tell us what people are thinking or saying.

For example, the two people stood behind our couple at the front, the lady with the backpack on there.

I have no idea what she's saying to the other person.

We could only infer perhaps using facial expressions or using our knowledge of the situation, but I have no way of knowing what those people think or what they might be saying.

We also can't know what it's like to be there.

And this links to those sensory descriptions we were talking about a second ago.

We can only see what's happening.

We can't hear the sounds, smell the smells, feel the textures, the temperature.

There's lots we can't access from this photograph.

And finally we can't know or we can't be sure what happened before, what happened after and what happened elsewhere, so outside of this frame.

So why is this important? Because when we're studying the poem "War Photographer," it's really important for us to remember that pictures can only tell us so much and we have to use our inference skills to explore the extra details.

But they're only ever our personal interpretations, stories that we're creating using our imagination and our inference skills.

We can never know for certain if our predictions or our inferences are correct.

So let's apply this to the poem.

Images are really important in the poem "War Photographer," because actually it's arguably an example of what's known as an ekphrastic poem, one of our keywords from today's lesson there.

And an ekphrastic poem is a poem that describes or responds to an image or sculpture.

Now in this poem, Satyamurti is writing about someone whose job it is to take pictures of war zones.

And throughout the poem, we get some descriptions of the images that the photographer has taken or will be taken.

And this poem is set against the backdrop of wars that occurred during Satyamurti's lifetime, namely the first Arab-Israeli War, which began in 1948, and the Falklands War, which began in 1982.

So I'd like to hand back over to you for a quick discussion, thinking about what it might be like to be a war photographer.

So why might people photograph war zones? Pause the video while you have a think and take some time to discuss this with the people around you.

And when you're ready to continue, click play and we'll discuss it.

Okay, welcome back.

So let's just discuss some of the responses that I overheard.

So first of all, a really great response.

People photograph war zones to raise awareness.

Without photographs and images and news reports about wars and conflicts happening on the other side of the world, we would have no awareness that these things were taking place.

And images and videos in particular can show us the realities of war.

I often find personally that images and videos can be a lot more powerful and a lot more shocking perhaps to us to see them than reading a written description or hearing a verbal description of a war or a conflict.

And in that respect, these images teach people back home.

It's how we learn about the different wars that are taking place and what's happening and the destruction that these wars cause is through looking at images or watching videos.

And finally, this links onto that idea of particularly powerful images, but they encourage people to stand up or to help out.

And this has happened before quite a few times in history where a particularly powerful image has encouraged people to stand up for what they believe in or to help out in order to try and do their bit to alleviate the suffering that they've witnessed.

So now I would like to hand back over to you for another discussion.

We've thought about why people do this job.

So now I'd like you to think about the person that does the job, the person themselves, this photographer.

And I'd like you to consider how doing a job like this might impact the person who does it.

So pause the video while you discuss this and have a think or make some notes if you're working on your own.

And when you're ready to discuss it, click play.

Okay, welcome back.

Some really fantastic discussions taking place there again.

So I'd like to just pick up on some of the responses that I overheard.

First of all then, this is a very dangerous and risky job.

People are working out in very volatile situations where people are being injured, some people are losing their lives and it's quite dangerous.

And even more so, a war photographer is perhaps quite a vulnerable person in this situation, because unlike soldiers, they aren't armed, they are unable to defend themselves if they become caught up in the conflict.

It could also be quite damaging to their mental health, because if we imagine, working as a war photographer would involve witnessing so much trauma and witnessing so much human suffering, that it's likely to assume that eventually this might take its toll on your psychological wellbeing, because perhaps you might feel quite powerless to help people or to save them.

Unfortunately, your job requires that you document this suffering or this trauma.

So perhaps you're stood to one side witnessing it feeling quite impotent or detached from the situation and powerless to help or to stop what you are witnessing.

And finally, there is a chance that people doing a job like this may actually become desensitised to the horrors of war.

And we've got that word there desensitised, one of the keywords of today's lesson, which means that repeated exposure to something can often mean that our emotional response to it is lessened or is numbed.

We don't find it perhaps as shocking or as powerful to think about, because it's something that we've been repeatedly exposed to.

And in this regard, somebody who is a war photographer is repeatedly exposed to this human suffering and this trauma, and it may actually end up becoming something that they're quite desensitised to.

They don't find it perhaps as shocking or as powerful to think about as maybe they did when they first started doing this job.

So let's discuss the wider context of the poem then.

So the poet Carole Satyamurti was also a prominent sociologist.

And that word there sociologist is one of today's keywords, meaning somebody who studies human society, behaviour, and institutions analysing patterns or structures and relationships.

So someone who thinks really carefully about who we are as people and perhaps why we do the things that we do.

And in particular, she was interested in the stories that people tell about themselves.

And at this point, I'd like to pause for a quickfire discussion, just to check your prior knowledge.

Which word means writing about your own life? So just take a moment to think.

The correct answer was autobiographical.

Did you manage to remember that word? We've got the word auto as a prefix, which means the self.

And then we've got that important word in the middle there, graph, which means writing.

So self-writing is autobiographical writing.

So well done if you remembered that.

So now it's time to pause and check our understanding so far.

So Satyamurti was a prominent sociologist who was particularly interested in what? Pause the video while you have a read of these options, and when you think you've made your mind up, click play and I'll reveal the correct answer.

Okay, welcome back, and well done to those of you who said C, Satyamurti was particularly fascinated by the stories that people tell about themselves, these autobiographical stories.

Okay, so now it's time for the first practise task of today's lesson.

And what I would like you to do is to read the first stanza of the poem and answer the following questions.

So if you haven't already, you'll need to pause the video here and go and grab your copy of your Edexcel "Poetry Anthology." So once you've read the stanza, I would like you to think about these questions.

Number one, how does Satyamurti suggest that pictures are flexible? Number two, how does Satyamurti suggest that pictures are firm? Number three, what does a speaker's use of the word subject suggest about how they view the people they photograph? And finally, why do you think Satyamurti has chosen to write a poem exploring the boundaries of images? So think really carefully about everything we've discussed in this first part of the lesson and give the first stanza of this poem a really good read through before you start answering those questions.

Pause the video for as long as you need to give this task a really good go.

And when you're ready to feedback your responses, click play and we'll go through it together.

Welcome back, and well done for a fantastic effort with that first task.

I could see lots of you really get into grips with the language of that first stanza, which is fantastic.

So here's an example of how you could have answered each question.

Satyamurti suggests that pictures can be flexible.

As we can infer, think, that what happens outside of an image is different to the subject.

If the picture is distressing, we may find it reassuring to imagine that other people outside of the frame of the image are living better, safer, more comfortable lives.

Number two, how does Satyamurti suggest the pictures are firm? On the other hand, when we see a picture that lifts us, is heartwarming perhaps, Satyamurti implies that we can take reassurance from the firmness of the picture's frame by imagining that the rest of the world is just like in this image.

And number three, what does the speaker's use of the word subject suggest about how they view the people they photograph? Here, Satyamurti suggests that the photographer may have become desensitised to the horrors of war as they've come to view the people in their images as a mere subject that helps to create absurd or tragic images that tell a story.

And finally, why do you think Satyamurti has chosen to write a poem exploring the boundaries of images? Satyamurti was a sociologist who was fascinated by the stories people tell about themselves.

Perhaps she's here trying to emphasise how images can never give us a full story due to their boundaries and limitations.

Furthermore, she may be trying to highlight the human desire to attach a story to something even when we cannot know for certain exactly what occurred, because we didn't experience it firsthand.

For example, in a photograph.

So take a moment to review your responses.

Did respond to each question directly? Did you support your ideas with evidence from the text and your knowledge of the wider context of the poem? So pause the video here while you have a look through your responses and see if you did those things.

And then when you're ready to continue, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, so we've made it to the halfway point of today's lesson.

So well done for all your hard work so far.

In the second half of the lesson, we're going to be exploring the poem itself.

So I'd like to start by reading the whole poem.

And I've included a useful glossary here with some words that you might not necessarily have encountered before.

And once you've read the poem, I'd like you to take some time to discuss or to make some notes on any words in the poem that you can find from the semantic field of photography.

And we've got another one of our keywords from today's lesson there, semantic field, which is a group of words related by meaning often within a specific context or topic.

So we're looking for words that are linked to this idea of photography.

For example, on line one, you have the word frame.

So I've given you that first one and it's up to you to identify the rest.

So pause the video for as long as you need to to give the poem a really good read and identify all those words, and then click play when you're ready to continue and we'll discuss it.

Okay, welcome back.

So let's have a look at these words from the semantic field of photography.

I'm sure that you also realised there were quite a few.

So we had subject on line five, pictures on line six, took on line 10, pressed on line 16, picture again there on line 22, smile on line 23, and caption also on line 23.

So lots of different words from the semantic field of photography there.

So I'd like to return to our earlier discussion of images and what they can tell us and what they can't tell us.

And I'd like to start thinking about how we can apply these ideas to the poem.

So I'd like to hand over to you for a quick discussion.

How does Satyamurti explore similar ideas about images in the poem? So pause the video here while you have a think and take some time to discuss it or make some notes.

And when you're ready to go through it together, click play and we'll carry on.

Welcome back.

Some really fantastic discussions taking place there.

So let's start off then by thinking about what images can tell us and how we can link these ideas to the poem.

So the poem contains descriptions of images taken by the speaker.

Remember, it's an ekphrastic poem.

And in particular, Satyamurti describes two specific images that the photographer has taken.

We have one of the Ascot girls and we also have one of the war zone.

So in this first image, we have very, very vivid descriptions of colours such as peach.

We have the texture of what the girls were wearing, silk-crumpled.

And we've also got the description of the setting, the grass, all of which helps us to paint a really vivid image of that scene in our minds.

And likewise, when we have the war zone image, we have some equally vivid descriptions that the girl is small, that the place has been devastated, and we have that link to the bomb going off.

And again, these three descriptive words really help to paint that clear image in our minds.

And actually if we compare these images, so we had this first one that the photographer notes they took once.

So we had that implication that it was long ago versus the scene from the war zone, which they took the previous week.

These show us how the speaker's life has changed.

So perhaps their job has gone from photographing these safe, comfortable, familiar events such as Ascot, and now they're perhaps feeling very vulnerable.

They're in this war zone in this really dangerous and risky environment.

So their life has changed quite significantly.

And then if we think about what images can't tell us, we have repeated references in the poem to the limitations of images.

So it seems like this idea is something that Satyamurti is very much aware of, frame, edges, boundaries.

She's constantly referencing this idea that perhaps pictures don't give us the full story, they don't tell us everything about a situation.

And in particular, if we look at stanza four and five, she does this through the photographer's description of the scene and how differently it's reported or captioned by the media in that final stanza.

So let's explore this part of the poem in a bit more detail.

Looking at stanzas three, four, and five.

So I'd like you to reread the last three stanzas of the poem and answer these questions.

You can discuss this with the people around you or make some notes.

So number one, in stanza three, what does a photographer see? In stanza four, what happens after the bomb goes off? And then in stanza five, how is the picture reported on? So pause the video while you go over those three stanzas again and answer these questions and click play when you're ready to discuss your responses.

Welcome back.

So let's start then with this first question.

In stanza three, what does the photographer see? In stanza three then, the photographer sees a young child staggering down the street carrying a baby.

They make eye contact as the photographer presses the camera button.

So at the moment that they make eye contact, the photographer captures this image.

And then in stanza four, the bomb went off, and the girl let go of her burden, which we could assume perhaps is this baby that we've seen her carrying earlier and ran.

The photographer acknowledges that her instinct takes over and it's likely that she'd been taken care of the baby but had abandoned this duty in the chaos.

And then in that final stanza, when it's reported, the girl's face wears a different expression, an almost smile.

Whereas in stanza four, we had this description of her mouth forming a scream.

So we're already getting a different, in a different interpretation of the events perhaps to the description we had from the speaker who was there.

And the caption that they attached to this picture seems to have misunderstood the situation, focusing on the spirit, the human spirit of the girl who is in hell.

So here perhaps she's being painted or portrayed in one way as demonstrating this human spirit.

Whereas arguably in stanza four, we see a very different version of the story.

So ultimately then, the story of the girl is misunderstood by the media, and my question to you is, does this matter? Is it important that these stories that we hear of these conflicts and these wars perhaps could be misunderstood? Is it important that we're not necessarily getting the entire story? So some of our Oak students were discussing this, and Andeep said, "Yes, it is important, because individual stories are important to humanising victims of war and conflict." Whereas Izzy said, "No," she doesn't think it's important, because, "Suffering is still painful no matter the story and it encourages empathy for victims of war." Lucas said he didn't think it was important either.

"How can we hold the girl accountable for leaving the baby while she experiences so much trauma?" And Alex said, "Yes, it is important, because the girl didn't display the spirit because she abandoned the baby and ran." So just having a look at these four different interpretations, I'd like you to think about who you most agree with and why.

So pause the video and take some time to discuss this.

And when you're ready to continue, click play.

Welcome back, some really interesting debates taking place there.

And it was interesting to see that not all of you necessarily agreed with the same interpretation, which is always a fantastic sign of a great debate, because it encourages you then to use evidence from the text or things you won't know about the wider context to support your responses, which is fantastic.

So now I'd like to pause and check our understanding.

Which of these quotes indicate that the story of the girl and the baby may have been misreported in the media? So pause the video while you have a think and when you've made your mind up, click play and I'll reveal the correct answer.

Okay, welcome back, and well done to those of you who said B, almost-smile.

Because a picture's caption describes the girl's facial expression as an almost-smile, whereas the photographer focused on how her mouth struggled to form the scream.

And these two facial expressions give a very different impression of the girl's experience.

Okay, so now it's time for the final practise task of today's lesson.

And what I'd like you to do is to respond to Alex's opinion here.

So he says, "I think Satyamurti wrote this poem to explore the moral complexities of working as a war photographer." So I'd like you to think carefully about whether you agree with him or you disagree with him and why.

And I'd like you to use your knowledge of wider context and evidence from the poem to support your ideas.

And remember to use tentative language.

So these are words such as may, could, perhaps when writing about your own interpretations or opinions.

So pause the video here while you respond to Alex's opinion and when you're ready to discuss it together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

So here is an example of what you could have written.

"I agree with Alex's response somewhat.

While I do think the poem focuses on the moral complexities of working in a war zone like the photographer does, weighing up the moral implications of being able to raise awareness of human suffering while feeling powerless to prevent it.

It also considers the moral implications for those who experience the trauma of war firsthand.

In the final stanzas of the poem, Satyamurti introduces the girl who is holding a baby.

When the bomb goes off, she leaves her burden behind which could here be interpreted as the child and runs to safety.

When the story is later reported, the caption claims that she demonstrates human spirit while surviving in hell.

Here, I believe Satyamurti is encouraging readers to consider their own views on suffering and whether it's possible to hold people to account for behaviours they exhibit in traumatic situations like a bombing.

Satyamurti was a sociologist who was fascinated in the stories people tell about themselves.

And the poem explores this idea since the story told about the girl in the poem is very much out of her control, and in fact seems to misunderstand what actually happened as the picture was taken by the photographer." So I'd like you to take some time to review your own response and to consider whether or not you directly responded to Alex's opinions with your own ideas and whether you supported your ideas with evidence from the text and your wider contextual knowledge.

And finally, whether you used tentative language to indicate personal interpretations.

So take a moment to review your response and set yourself a what went well and an even better if for next time.

Pause the video here while you take some time to review your answer.

And when you're ready to continue, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, so we've made it to the end of today's lesson, and a massive well done for all of your hard work today.

Let's just summarise what we've covered in this session.

Satyamurti is a sociologist with an interest in the stories people tell about themselves.

The poem was published in the 1980s against the backdrop of conflicts, the Falklands War and the first Arab-Israeli Conflict.

The poem addresses the contrast between the atrocities of war and those safe at home.

The story behind many images of conflict published by the media can often be misunderstood.

And finally, a war photographer's job is one with many moral implications.

They raise awareness of conflict but are powerless to help.

Thanks again for joining me and I hope that you feel a bit more confident when it comes to understanding "War Photographer." Have a great day and I hope to see you again soon.