Hello everyone.

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

In this session, we are going to be reading and understanding Thomas Hardy's poem, "The Man He Killed." So let's get started.

So by the end of today's lesson, we will be able to explain how Hardy explores attitudes to war.

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

We have perception, contradiction, dehumanising, propaganda, and futility.

So what do these words mean? Well, perception is the way something is understood or interpreted, influenced by personal beliefs or biases.

Contradiction is a statement or situation that is inconsistent or incompatible with another, causing a conflict.

Dehumanising means depicting people as less than human, stripping them of their individuality or complexity, often for propaganda.

Propaganda means information or material spread to promote a particular cause or viewpoint, often biassed and misleading.

A futility, a feeling of pointlessness or ineffectiveness in achieving a desired outcome or goal.

So just looking at a few of these meanings here, we can already start to see links between these words because we've got that word bias there, turning up with perception and propaganda, and also that link there between propaganda and dehumanising.

So just bear that in mind as we go through today's lesson.

So what is the lesson going to look like? Well, for the first half, we are going to explore the poem, and then in the second half we are going to focus on the wider context.

So let's start by having a look at the title, "The Man He Killed." So this poem is part of your poetry anthology entitled Conflict.

So my question to you is how do you think that this poem will link to the idea of conflict? Just looking at the words in the title.

So pause the video here while you take some time to discuss this with people around you, or if you're working on your own, that's okay.

Just make some notes on your paper or in your exercise book.

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

Welcome back, some really interesting discussions there to kick us off.

I was really impressed with the way that people were zooming in on the individual words in the title in order to draw out those subtle meanings.

So I would like to just pick up on a few of the fantastic responses that I overheard, starting with that word there at the end of the title killed.

So from this word, we are getting those obvious links to death and to violence, which straight away has given me the impression that that conflict here might be dealing with war military conflict, but also it could suggest potentially interpersonal conflict because there is a man and he, there are two different people and therefore the conflict might have occurred between these two people because he killed the man according to this title.

So now let's think about that then that man.

So we've got this focus here that the victim is what is important in the title.

"The Man He Killed", not he killed the man.

It's the other way around.

And this could actually imply that there might be a bit of internal conflict that perhaps the speaker is conflicted about how he feels about perhaps killing the man.

This could link to the idea of guilt.

And last of all, then that pronoun he.

So we've got the third person pronoun.

So in the title, we're getting this impression that the speaker may be talking about somebody else or perhaps it could be a critique of a war or another historical event.

And the he here might refer to a soldier rather than the words of the speaker themselves.

Perhaps they're channelling how they might feel if they were speaking through the words of somebody else.

So let's read the poem.

So grab your copy of the poem and take some time on your own to just give it a really careful read through.

Pause the video for as long as you need to, and when you're ready to continue, click play.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope you've had a chance to get to grips with the poem.

What did you think of it? I really like this poem, and I particularly like Hardy's poetic and narrative style in the poem and some of the vocabulary that he uses.

So I'm sure as you were reading the poem, you noticed that there was lots of archaic vocabulary.

So these are words that perhaps you think of as quite old fashioned, and we don't really use them so much in our language today.

And I made a list of those words down there on the left hand side.

So my challenge to you is this.

Now you've seen each of these words in the context of the poem, can you match them to the correct definition? So pause the video here while you give each of these definitions are really good read through and perhaps discuss it with the people around you or make some notes on your paper.

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

Okay, welcome back.

I could hear lots of interesting discussions and I certainly overheard a few of you matching up some of these words to the correct definitions.

So let's just quickly run through what each of these words means.

Starting with that first word then inn and inn is a place for providing accommodation, food, and drink.

A nipperkin is a small container for liquids holding about half a pint.

Infantry are soldiers trained and equipped for fighting on foot.

A foe is an enemy or an opponent in a battle or a conflict.

So that next word then lists, we had a bit of a clue there because we have that apostrophe at the beginning, which indicates to us that contraction that we've got some letters missing.

So well done if you worked out that that was short for enlist, which is a word that means to join or enrol in the armed forces.

The next one then quaint means attractively, unusual or old fashioned in a charming way.

Curious is something unusual that you'd like to learn more about.

And those two words are interesting there because they both have that word unusual in the definition, however, they explore a different aspect of what it means to be unusual.

And that last word then half-a-crown, leaves us with an old British coin phased out in the 1970s.

So now I would like to explore this poem together.

We're going to take it stanza by stanza.

We are going to see these words again in context, and we're also going to discuss some key ideas from the poem.

So let's start with stanza one.

"Had he and I but met by some old ancient inn, we should have sat us down to wet right many a nipperkin!" So in this first stanza, then we've got this idea that the speaker imagines what might have happened if two soldiers met in a pub.

So that word inn instead of on the battlefield.

And he imagines that he is one of those two soldiers had he and I met.

So instead of on the battlefield, they've met in a pub.

So I would like you to take a moment for a quick fire discussion.

Does the speaker think the two soldiers would get on? And how do you know? So pause the video for a moment while you discuss this write your notes and click play when you're ready to discuss it together.

Welcome back, some very interesting responses there.

So well done if you picked up on that idea that he does imply the soldiers would get on well and they might even perhaps sit down together for a drink because we've got that word nipperkin, they might sit down together and enjoy half a pint.

So on stanza two, "But ranged as infantry, and staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, and killed him in his place." So again, we've got the reminder of infantry, the soldiers that were trained and equipped for fighting on foot.

So in this stanza, Hardy contrasts the warm and friendly image that we got in stanza one with this image of the impersonal, brutal battlefield.

So they've gone from being perhaps two men sat in a pub together, maybe chatting and enjoying a drink to now standing face to face holding their weapons on the battlefield.

So again, over to you for a quick fire discussion.

How do we get the impression that the speaker views the other soldier as an equal? So pause the video for a moment and click play when you're ready to discuss it.

Okay, welcome back.

So well done if you are also picking up on this use of repetition, so in lines six and seven, we've got the repetition first of all of this face to face.

So we have this idea of two of the same thing face to face, but also we've got a shot at him as he at me.

We've got that repeated sentence structure as well.

So Hardy's quite subtly implying here that perhaps the speaker views these two men himself and the other soldier as equals.

Stanza three, "I shot him dead because because he was my foe, just so my foe, of course he was; That's clear enough, although", so the speaker kills the enemy soldier in this stanza but appears to have mixed feelings about it.

So over to you again then how does Hardy suggest that the speaker feels some inner conflict about this? So pause the video while you discuss it and click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back.

I had some really interesting discussions there about the type of conflict and in particular people picking up on how there's this inner conflict, but also this interpersonal conflict between the two soldiers.

So well done if you were drawing on that idea as well.

So how does Hardy suggest the speaker feels this inner conflict then? Well, arguably, we first of all have this use of repetition because, and my foe, we see these words appearing more than once in the stanza, and we could argue that they might mimic stammering, particularly that because a shot him dead because because he was my foe.

It's almost like our speaker isn't quite sure how that sentence is going to finish when they started it, they were hesitating in the middle there.

Perhaps they weren't sure of the reasons why they shot this other soldier dead.

And we could also pick up on the idea in Hardy use of ambiguous phrasing.

So particularly this second bit, just so my foe, of course he was, that's clear enough; although.

So although he is using phrases like that's clear enough, I would argue that the phrasing of that sentence is itself quite unclear, is quite confusing perhaps the way that Hardy has chosen to phrase that sentence again, which could imply that the speaker doesn't understand the orders he was given.

He shot him dead because he was his foe.

He doesn't really understand it perhaps any more than that.

He was simply a soldier following orders.

Onto the next stanza, "He thought he'd list, perhaps off-hand like- just as I- was out of work- had sold his traps- No other reason why.

So in this stanza, the speaker wonders whether the other soldier enlisted in the army for the same reasons that he did.

So our speakers beginning to think a bit about the sort of person that this other soldier was.

So my question to you here then is why do you think Hardy keeps identifying similarities between both men? So pause the video, have a think, discuss it with the people around you and click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back and well done if you are picking up on this idea that the similarities between both men helps to humanise the enemy soldier.

He's no longer a faceless evil, a faceless, impersonal enemy or a foe, but rather he's just another man like the speaker.

And we've got that just as I, we've got that direct comparison there where the speaker is starting to view this other soldier as being just like him.

And onto the final stanza then, "Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You'd treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown." So in this final stanza then, our speakers like to think about how war affects the way that we perceive other people.

So my final question to you then for you to discuss and think about these words, quaint and curious, these two adjectives are quite strange words to describe war, in my opinion.

Why do you think Hardy chooses to use this description? So pause the video again and click late when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back.

Some really interesting interpretations there with people thinking quite creatively about why Hardy might have chosen to use these two words.

So he could be implying that there's a contradiction in how we're encouraged to view a war.

And remember that a contradiction is when we have these two conflicting ideas.

So on this one hand that perhaps people are encouraged to view war as good people versus evil people as heroes versus enemies.

However, he thinks that there's a contradiction here since all those people that are fighting are equals because they're all men just like him.

Okay, so now it's time to check our understanding.

So true or false, Hardy questions the way society encourages us to perceive war as simply a fight between good and evil.

So pause the video while you have a think and when you're ready for me to reveal the correct answer, click play.

Okay, welcome back and well done to those of you who said true.

So now it is time to justify our answers.

So take a moment to read through these two possible explanations and decide which one you think best supports that statement above.

Pause the video while you have a think and click play when you're ready for me to reveal the correct answer.

Okay, welcome back and well done, to those of you who said B, throughout the poem, he draws many similarities between the speaker and, "The Man He Killed" exploring the things they have in common.

So now it is time for our first practise task of today's lesson.

So what I would like you to do is choose three words from the list that I'm going to show you in a second that you think best complete this statement below.

In, "The Man He Killed" Hardy presents conflict as, and there are lots of different options here.

So I would like you to select your three words that you think best complete that statement.

And then when you've done that, I would like you to discuss your choices with the people around you, or if you're working on your own, that's okay, just make some notes.

But in particular, I would like you to explain why you chose each one and support your ideas with evidence from the text.

So pause the video while you give this a really good go.

And when you are ready to feedback your responses together, click play, and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back.

So here is how some of our Oak students responded to this challenge.

So Jun said, "Hardy presents conflict as dehumanising because it encourages people to view opposing soldiers purely as no more than an enemy who should be defeated.

Throughout the poem, Hardy draws similarities between the speaker and the other soldier, considering whether the other soldier enlisted because he was out of work, just as the speaker was." And Alex said, "Hardy presents conflict as internal.

As well as external conflict, we can infer from the backdrop of the soldier meeting on the battlefield, Hardy emphasises the internal conflict of the speaker who wonders whether he and the enemy soldier would've been friends or allies in different circumstances, perhaps sharing a drink and nipperkin." So both of these responses are really effective summaries of why they chose those words because we've got clear and compelling reasons to support that initial idea.

And in both cases we've also got evidence from the text.

So one final challenge to you then I would like you to have a think about who you most agree with, Jun or Alex and why? So take some time to think and discuss this with the people around you or make some notes.

And 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 efforts so far and keep up the good work.

So in this part of the lesson, we are going to explore the wider context of the poem.

So I'd like to start by thinking about who was Thomas Hardy? So he grew up in rural Dorset, which is on the south coast of England, and it's a place known for its idyllic scenery and close-knit rural communities.

And he wrote, "The Man He Killed", during the Victorian era.

So I'd like to pause here for a quick discussion thinking about what you already know about the Victorian era.

So pause the video while you take some time to discuss this or make some notes.

And when you're ready to feedback your responses, click play.

Okay, welcome back.

So let's discuss it together then.

I heard some really fantastic responses in those discussions.

So I'd just like to pick up on a few things that I overheard.

So first of all then the Victorian era was a time of great change.

There were many, many different advancements and developments that happened during this historical period.

So let's explore what a few of these looked like.

So first of all, the British Empire.

So the British Empire didn't necessarily start during the Victorian times, but during this period it expanded to make Britain the most powerful trading nation in the world.

And Britain's global power increased.

And we also had the Industrial Revolution.

So this was the introduction of factories, a mass migration to cities to avoid unemployment and also the pollution that these factories brought with them.

So the invention of manufacturing, mechanised manufacturing had a real distinctive change on our country and the environment that people were used to living in.

And finally, the Victorian era was thought of as a class-based society.

It was a time of mass poverty and social inequality, which means that the gap between the richest people and the poorest people was enormous, and the lives that they led were very, very different.

So that's just a flavour of the Victorian era and the important things that perhaps we need to consider when we're analysing a Victorian poem.

When it comes to, "The Man He Killed", I would like to think mostly about this idea of the British Empire.

So let's just take this idea a little bit further.

So Thomas Hardy's writing often had hopeless and melancholic undertones.

And it has actually been argued that his pessimistic writing in, "The Man He Killed", was informed by his negative views about the Second Boer War, which happened between 1899 and 1902 in South Africa.

And it was a conflict that was fought over the British Empire's control of South Africa.

They were trying to expand their control at this point.

And Hardy's criticisms were mainly about Britain's use of brutal military tactics such as scorched earth, which was destroying land that could otherwise grow crops and the use of concentration camps.

So Britain taking prisoners of war and imprisoning them in these concentration camps.

And it was also quite suspicious that Britain wanted to exploit South Africa's natural resources.

So not only was he critical about how this war was taking place, but also he was quite critical of perhaps the British Empire's motivations for the conflict in the first place.

So our Oak pupils had some interesting opinions about the message of, "The Man He Killed", after they'd been exploring this contextual knowledge.

So Sam said, "This poem explores the futility of war and implies that working class soldiers are merely puppets used by governments to fight political wars." Whereas Andeep said, "This poem critiques society's perception of war as good versus evil.

Hardy encourages the reader to ignore propaganda and see the humanity in the 'enemy.

'" So I would like to hand over to you at this point for you to have a think about which of them you most agree with and why? So pause the video here while you discuss this with the people around you or make some notes and when you're ready to discuss it further, click play.

Okay, welcome back.

I could overhear some really fierce debates there, which is always a good sign of great analysis because when we don't necessarily agree, it forces us to justify our reasons and back them up with evidence and that all important analysis from the text.

So well done for really getting to grips with that debate.

So both of these interpretations are valid, but they just draw in on different interpretations of Hardy's use of language and of key ideas.

So what I would like to think about is how could we support these ideas with evidence from the poem? Well, if we start with Sam's idea that this poem explores the futility of war and implies that working class soldiers are really puppets used by governments to fight political wars, or we could have selected this quotation from the middle of the poem, he was my foe.

My foe of course he was, that's clear enough.

And in this stanza, Hardy use of ambiguous phrasing actually implies that he doesn't really understand the war, although he says that's clear enough and of course he was, which are both phrases that that imply a sense of certainty.

The repetition of this, he was my foe, my foe almost makes it seem as though our speaker doesn't really understand what it means to be a foe.

He can't really quite understand himself exactly why it is that he's supposed to view this person as the enemy.

And then looking at Andeeps interpretation.

And so he was discussing how this poem critiques society's perception of war as good versus evil.

And Hardy encourages to read it, to ignore propaganda and to see the humanity in the enemy.

So evidence we could possibly have chosen here, then we could have looked at this bit he thought he'd list perhaps offhand like just as I, 'cause we've got this idea that Hardy repeatedly identifies similarities between the speaker and the enemy.

This idea just as I, that he's drawing these similarities, he is not really recognising this distance between them anymore, this good versus evil, hero versus enemy distance.

And in fact, he is starting to the humanity in both of them, they're a lot more similar than perhaps he might have first thought.

So let's pause here and check our understanding.

Again, true or false? It is likely that Hardy had negative views about the expansion of the British Empire and the Second Boer War.

Pause the video away, have a think and when you'd like me to reveal the correct answer, click play.

Okay, welcome back and well done to those of you who said true.

So now it is time to justify our answer.

So once again, have a look at these two possible explanations and select which one you think best supports our ideas above.

Press pause while you read and think.

And when you're ready to discuss click play.

Okay, welcome back and we'll run to those of you who said, A, in, "The Man He Killed", Hardy repeatedly identifies similarities between the speaker and the other soldier, implying that we are often encouraged to dehumanise the enemy.

So now it is time for the final practise task of today's lesson.

And what I would like you to do is to return to these two interpretations that we were just exploring from Sam and Andeep.

And I would like you to write a paragraph explaining who you most agree with and why? And crucially, I would like you to support your ideas with evidence from the poem and links to the writer's intentions or the wider context.

So drawing all those things that we've been discussing in the second half of the lesson.

So click, pause, and take as much time as you need to give this a really good go.

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

Okay, welcome back.

And can I just say a really big well done for all the effort that people put into that task.

It's not easy weighing up to different interpretations of a text, but it is such a useful skill to have.

If we can include multiple interpretations into our analysis, then it really enables us to add that all important extra detail and show that we've got a really thorough understanding of the text.

So now it is time to self-assess your work using the checklist below.

So I'm going to show you lots of things that effective responses would have included.

And as we go through each one, I would like you to think to yourself, did I do this well? Did I include it? Did I include it effectively? Or perhaps is this something that I need to think about including next time I do a task like this? So number one, I made it clear which opinion I most agreed with and provided clear and compelling reasons.

Number two, I used evidence from the poem to support my ideas.

Number three, I zoomed in on keywords and phrases from my evidence.

Number four, I identified Hardy's use of methods and analysed their effects.

Number five, I made links to Hardy's intentions and/or contextual knowledge to support my interpretations.

And number six, I used tentative language, for example, perhaps, may, imply to indicate personal interpretations of the text.

So take some time to review this checklist and think really carefully about how effectively you included each of those things in your response.

And what I would like you to do is decide whether you think each of these things are, or what went well for your response or they're an even better if they're things that you need to think about for next time.

So pause the video while you self-assess your work and when you're ready to continue, click play.

Okay, so we have made it to the end of today's lesson, and I'd like to just say a massive well done for all your hard work during this session.

So let's just summarise everything that we've covered.

The poem was written during the Second Boer War.

Hardy was very critical of this war.

And the British Empire's military tactics.

Hardy was suspicious that the British Empire wanted to exploit South Africa's natural resources.

In the poem, Hardy explores the similarities between two enemy soldiers.

And finally, he implies that perceiving war is simply a battle between good and evil dehumanises the people fighting.

So thanks again for joining me and I hope you've enjoyed today's lesson as much as I have.

Have a great day and I hope to see you again soon.