Hello, everybody, and a super warm welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Ms. Halliday, and I'll be taking this lesson for today.

In today's lesson, we are going to be analysing Wilfred Owen's fantastic poem, "Dulce et Decorum est", which is one of the most famous and moving war poems of all time, looking at how Owen presents the brutal realities of war to us as the reader.

I'm really looking forward to hearing all your ideas and contributions, so let's get started.

So today's lesson is called "Analysing Dulce et Decorum est".

And by the end of today's lesson, you will be able to analyse how Owen uses language, form, and structure to present the brutal reality of war.

But first, here are some key words that you will need to unlock today's learning, starting with the word vulnerable.

Now, if someone is vulnerable, they are able to be harmed either physically or emotionally quite easily.

If someone becomes desensitised to something, they become less sensitive or reactive to it.

Imagery is a literary term that means words used to create a vivid picture in the reader's mind.

The word gruelling means extremely challenging and demanding.

And finally, PTSD is a mental illness caused by trauma in which the patient may suffer flashbacks, hallucinations, depression, and substance abuse.

These are all really important keywords that you will need for today's lesson.

So if you feel you might forget any of their definitions, you might want to pause a video and jot some of them down.

Here's today's lesson outline.

We're going to begin by discussing how Owen presents war as brutal before moving on to Owen's presentation of war as traumatising.

But let's start first of all by examining how war is presented as brutal in the poem.

We're gonna begin today's lesson, as always, with a discussion, my favourite.

So first of all, I'd like you to discuss what impression of the soldiers is created in the beginning of the poem, and why might this be a surprising portrayal of the soldiers.

Now, you can do this either by discussing it with other people, or you can consider it independently if that's how you're working today.

It's completely up to you.

But I'd like you to go and pause the video while discuss these two questions.

Off you.

Fantastic discussions and some really insightful and perceptive suggestions made there.

And as Lucas points out, "Well, Owen portrays the soldiers as weak, vulnerable, old women." Now propaganda, at the time of World War I, had inspired many young physically fit and healthy men to join the war effort.

And Owen begins the poem by immediately contradicting public perception by showing what the war had reduced soldiers to.

And what I really like about Lucas's response here is the fact that he's touched on the disparity between the perception of war versus the reality of it.

And we know that that is a really key theme of this poem.

So really well done if you've got any ideas like Lucas's.

So what we're going to start doing now is tracking through the poem looking at how Owen presents the war as brutal.

So we're going to begin by examining stanza one and identifying words and phrases that portray the soldiers as vulnerable, and then you are going to explain their effects.

So what do they show us about the soldiers? How do they make us feel? So what I'm going to invite to do now is start annotating stanza one of the poem, looking at identifying those words and phrases that portray these soldiers as vulnerable and weak.

Pause the video, and off you go.

Fantastic, really well done.

And great to see so many of you highlighting straight onto your anthologies and annotating with your thoughts and ideas.

So really well done for that.

So first of all, the very first word of the poem, "Bent," portrays the soldiers as vulnerable because actually it shows that the soldiers are bent over, and this immediately contrasts with a very straight and attentive stance that we tend to associate with soldiers.

So this could show in some way that they have been bent out of shape, they have been broken by this war both physically and mentally.

So this is a really clever way to start the poem by dispelling or dismantling public perceptions of soldiers as being very kind of straight up, standing tall very proud by showing just how physically broken these soldiers are.

So really well done if you selected that.

We also see Owen in comparing the soldiers to old beggars.

And again, this shows how the effect that war has had on these men's bodies and the desperation they feel.

The fact that they're compared to beggars shows that they're absolutely desperate to be shown some kind of mercy by this war, and they've been made really physically vulnerable by this war as well.

So that simile there is really effective in showing the brutality of the war and the effect that it has had on these soldiers both mentally and physically.

They're also described as coughing like hags and cursing through sludge.

And again, this similarly here has been used to compare the soldiers to old women, which shows how frail they have become as a result of this war.

And it shows us that they're really not in the peak physical condition that we would expect soldiers to be in.

So again, this first stanza is arguably Owen really dismantling the stereotypes and the public perception of soldiers by showing that actually, even though, yes, they might once have been these brave young proud men, they've now been reduced to kind of these desperate, very physically and mentally weak people who have been broken by this war.

So again, really well done if you selected that.

It's brilliant.

And the fact that the soldiers curse through the sludge shows that they are no longer patriotic.

Again, many of these soldiers, when they signed up for the war effort, would've done so with real patriotism and pride for their country.

But here we see that that patriotism seems to have evaporated, and that the soldiers are actually now cursing and resenting the war and, in fact, the cause that they are fighting for, which again, shows how much this war has damaged the soldiers.

Now, moving on further through stanza one, we see Owen using this metaphor here, "drunk with fatigue," to show how delirious that have become because of the lack of sleep.

And delirious means kind of not of sound mind.

So they've been kind of tortured with the lack of sleep to the point where they're no longer having clear thoughts.

We also imagine them swaying almost like a drunk person as they walk, showing how tired they are because they're trying to keep awake.

So we imagine them in this kind of half asleep, half awake state because of the fatigue that they've been faced with as a result of the violence that they've witnessed, perhaps they're having nightmares, but also perhaps because of the great, the gruelling physical conditions of war and the fact that they would've had to keep moving on.

So again, really well done if you selected that.

And finally, we can see how desensitised these men have become to the sound of the bonds dropping behind them.

We get the impression that they have given up.

They simply don't care anymore.

Okay, they almost can't.

They're so used to hearing these sounds of dropping shells that they almost can't hear them anymore.

And again, that shows us just how gruelling the war has been, because we know that the response to dropping gas bombs would be hysteria and panic normally, but they've just become so desensitised to it now that it's just background noise to them.

So really well done if you selected any of those quotations and were able to explain their effects.

Fantastic work.

So moving on now, and here we have an extract from stanza two.

And what I'd like you to consider here is, well, how does Owen portray the gas attack really graphically? And what graphically means is kind of vividly, as if we are there.

So again, this can be done as a discussion.

You can work on annotating your anthology with other people, or you can work on this independently if that's how you're working today.

But I'd like you to pause the video while you go to think about how Owen portrays this gas attack really vividly and graphically.

Off you go.

Again, fantastic annotations there.

Really detailed and really perceptive.

So here's some of the things that you might have identified.

Now, I saw that many of you have picked out these verbs, yelling and stumbling.

And here many of you were saying that the effect of these is that we actually see the soldier really struggling and shouting for help.

And that word out here is really significant in presenting the soldier as vulnerable.

If the soldier was just yelling and stumbling, that would suggest that the soldier was yelling in pain.

However, here the word out is suggestive that the soldier was asking or pleading or desperately crying for help here, which again shows the soldier's vulnerability and desperation in this moment as they are almost begging for assistance in this moment.

So that word to me is really significant because it shows how vulnerable the soldier is in this moment.

Now, this man who is unfortunately suffering and is dying, is described as being "like a man in fire or lime." And this is a really kind of poignant and memorable point in this poem, because actually gas in World War I was a very, very new war weapon, and it was actually used for the first time in this war.

And Owen arguably has to explain what a gas attack was like to the public through the only comparison he knows that they would understand, which is that of fire.

So because gas was a new weapon, I think Owen arguably is trying to draw on experiences that the reader might be familiar with to try and convey accurately the absolute horror and pain of this gas attack and the effect that this gas has on the human body.

So here he creates a really vivid picture of a man on fire or a man in which acid is burning through his skin to try and portray the really awful effects of this gas on human beings and the human body.

So again, really well done if you've identified that and you were able to explain why it's been used.

Now, Owen describes the effect of the gas on the soldiers, again, really graphically because, again, he compares the gas to a green sea, and that shows how much it surrounds soldiers and how inescapable that gas is, and the fact that once it's been dropped, it's very, very difficult to get away from it.

And it shows how quickly the toxic gas corrupts the lungs of the soldier and starts to kill him.

So let's check for understanding.

Which of the following quotations uses a metaphor to convey the true horrors of war? Is it A, "misty panes"; B, "as under a green sea"; C, "I saw him drowning"; or D, "flound'ring like a man in fire"? I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you make your answer selection.

Fantastic if you selected A and C, because actually B and D are both similes.

So the other two here are metaphors.

Really well done if you got that.

So let's have a look at an extract from the final stanza now.

And again, I'd like you to discuss how what is presented as brutal, thinking specifically this time about how Owen uses imagery to show the brutal nature of war.

So again, I'd like you to highlight words and phrases that show the soldiers suffering in the stanza but also Owen's utter disgust with war.

So where can you really see that in the small extract from the last stanza? So again, you can do this as a discussion, you can communicate and collaborate with other people, or you can consider it independently if you're working on your own today.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you start to annotate this extract from the last stanza looking at really how war is presented as brutal.

Pause the video, and off you go.

Fantastic discussions, and congratulations if you selected this verb gargling here.

Now, this verb gargling, I'm not gonna lie, I find it utterly repulsive in the context it's used in because it creates such graphic imagery.

This is such a clever verb choice from Owen to convey the true horrors of war, because, again, we can really imagine the soldier choking and spluttering in his final moments and the pain that he must be in, you know, being suffocated by this toxic gas.

So again, I think this is just such a clever verb choice from Owen as it really conveys the suffering that a soldier is undergoing in this moment.

Again, same with the word froth here.

I just think that word froth is such a provocative word to use, as it instantly, for me anyway, conjures up this kind of awful scene of the man foaming at the mouth because of the effects of the toxic gas.

Now, the word corrupted has that dual meaning here as well.

So again, a very clever choice of word from Owen, because not only has the toxic gas corrupted or ruined the soldier's lungs, but it's also arguably illustrating Owen's feelings towards war, which is that it corrupts innocent people and it corrupts people's natures and souls because they are forced into a situation where they have to behave really aggressively and violently and murder people.

So again, I think this word's really effective in showing Owen's utter disgust with war and how much he finds the violence deplorable.

So again, really well done.

If you got that, brilliant work.

And here finally we have these similes, "Obscene as cancer," "the vile, incurable sores." And each of these similes shows the gruelling nature of war upon soldiers, both physically and mentally, because arguably, the site that the speaker has witnessed is an incurable sore in his mind.

Okay, and this fact that it's incurable shows us he will never get over it.

He will never be able to not see the sight of this soldier dying.

So it's going to haunt him and traumatise him forever.

And that's an idea that we'll explore in the second part of the lesson.

But I think that this is a really good point with which to start those discussions about war being really traumatic and having a long-lasting effect on soldiers, because, again, it shows the brutality of war and how much it traumatises, you know, very innocent men.

So again, really well done if you've got those ideas.

Fantastic, fantastic work.

So onto the first task of the lesson now.

And what I'd like you to do is note down your responses to the following questions.

If you had to choose one and only one line from the whole poem that best conveys the brutality of war, which line would you choose and why? And this is really actually quite a difficult task because this is such a great poem in conveying the brutal nature of war.

And it'll be so hard for you to slim it down to just one line, but you're going to have to, because I'm gonna be really strict and say you may only pick one line.

So you need to think very carefully and pick the line that you think best exemplifies the brutality of war.

And secondly, and again, this is quite a harsh task 'cause it's so difficult, but again, if you had to choose one, and again, only one word from the poem that best conveys Owen's anger with the glorification of war, which word would you choose and why? So as I said, this is actually a much more difficult task than you might initially think because it's going to require to really evaluate different options and choose the one that you think exemplifies these ideas best.

So make sure that you choose wisely.

I'm really looking forward to what you select.

So pause the video and off you go to make your choices now.

Fantastic.

Really, really well done.

And I could see many of you actually really struggling to pick one, which is great because it shows us how effectively Owen has actually conveyed the reality of war, so it's clearly a very effective poem.

So what I thought would be really nice and equally very interesting is if you were to be able to share your choices with a peer.

And as you share, I'd like you to consider using phrases like this to express and justify your opinion.

So you might say things like, "Well, because, shows, reminds me of, or makes me feel." Now, if you don't have a discussion partner, that's absolutely fine, because what I'd like you to do is formalise your ideas in the form of a written paragraph, again, using these phrases to really justify your opinion.

So either way, whether you have a discussion partner or not, you are able to participate in this reflective task.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you either discuss your choice with someone else or formalise your ideas in a written paragraph using the phrases suggested below.

Pause the video, and off you go.

Fantastic discussions.

And it was great to hear such a wide variety of ideas and different phrases that you'd selected that really show the brutal nature of war.

So thank you very much for your contributions.

Brilliant discussions there.

So onto the second half of the lesson now where we're going to consider how Owen presents war as really traumatising and having lasting effects.

So we're going to look at how Owen uses tense to show the lasting impact that war has on a person.

So I'd like you to read the first stanza again, and I'd like you to highlight all of the verbs that Owen uses.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you do that now.

Brilliant, thank you very much.

And it's great to see that many of you were able to pick out the verbs quite easily.

So here were some of the verbs that you might have highlighted.

We've got bent, we've got cursed, we've got turned, we've got went, and we've got marched.

And what I'd like you to think now is, well, looking at these verbs, what tense is that first stanza written in? And why might Owen have written this first stanza in this tense specifically? What might he be trying to convey or what mood or atmosphere might he be trying to create? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you either discuss this with people around you or consider it independently, if that's how you've chosen to work today.

Pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic, and some really, really interesting suggestions made there.

And as many of you pointed out, the past tense actually makes the opening sound as if Owen is describing the scene to somebody else, perhaps a doctor.

Now we know that Owen was treated for PTSD when he was sent home from the war, and we also know that Owen used his poetry as a way to kind of try and heal himself or to try and come to terms with what he had experienced while at war.

So arguably, perhaps this first stanza and the fact that he uses the past tense could be reflective of him trying to explain the experiences to somebody else, like a therapist or a counsellor as part of his treatment for PTD.

So really, really well done to those of you that suggested that, because I think it's a really, really valuable and interesting idea.

So let's have a look how the tense then shifts in the second stanza.

So I'd like you to consider, well, how does the tense shift, and why do you think Owen has made this shift? So again, this will require you to look at the verbs that Owen uses in the second stanza and decide what the tense is and why he might have used it.

Again, this can be done as a discussion or you can consider it independently, whatever you would prefer.

Pause the video and off you go to analyse the use of tense now.

Fantastic and well done to those of you who identified that this stanza is written in the present tense and actually the use of direct speech in that "Gas, gas, quick boys!" throws us really kind of chaotically into the present tense.

We feel almost ambushed, so surprised by the change of tense, probably as ambushed and surprised as the soldiers themselves felt by the gas attack.

So perhaps Owen was trying to put us in the same situation or try to make us empathise with how it would feel to be suddenly ambushed by a gas attack.

Okay, so maybe Owen was trying to convey the chaos that the men felt when they were ambushed in this way by ambushing us with the tense change here.

Now, you also might have picked out this verb fumbling, and we know that that verb fumbling is in the present tense.

So again, perhaps Owen is trying to use that present tense to show us that this flashback makes the soldier feel as if he's actually there again, experiencing this scene again.

Okay, 'cause we know that this isn't happening in real time.

We know that this poem was written after Owen had experienced this, and therefore, perhaps the flashback feels so real to Owen that he's trying to show us, you know, how vivid and how graphic these flashbacks were by making us feel as if we too were there.

So let's check for understanding.

Which of the following is not an explanation as to why Owen shift tense in the middle of the poem? Is it A, to reflect one of the symptoms of PTSD, which is flashbacks; B, to convey the chaos and confusion that the soldiers felt when they realised they were being attacked; or C, to convey that though this was a traumatic experience, it is now just a distant memory? I'm gonna invite you to pause the video while you make your answer selection.

And a massive well done if you correctly selected C.

You are absolutely right.

Okay, this is unfortunately not just a distant memory for the soldier.

This is clearly something that really, really affects him to the day that he was writing this poem, which we will see in the last stanza that we are going to examine now.

So in the last stanza of the poem, the tense shifts again for the third time.

And I would like you to highlight one line which exemplifies this tense shift.

So again, you can do this as a discussion with other people, or you can do it independently.

But I'd like you to pause the video while you have a go at highlighting one line that shows us that tense shift for the third time.

Off you go.

And as Lucas points out, "The last tense shift comes in the final stanza where Owen uses verbs like could and would to indicate the conditional future tense." So you could have highlighted a line that had either of those conditional verbs in, those modal verbs.

So what I'd like you to discuss now is, well, what kind of tone does the conditional tense in this final stanza create? And why, again, might Owen have changed the tense? So I'm going to invite you to pause the video.

You know by now that you can do this as a discussion, or you can do it independently.

So pause the video and off you go.

Again, some really brilliant and fantastic suggestions there.

And arguably in using this conditional future tense, Owen emphasises that the true reality of war is impossible to imagine by those who haven't witnessed it.

So he's saying here, "If you could picture this, if you could hear this, you wouldn't tell anybody to go and join the war effort." So here, the conditional tense may be used to emphasise the vast, vast disparity or difference between what people thought the war was like and what the reality of it was like.

Because Owen's actually creating a really condemning and accusatory tone here to emphasise his utter disgust with the people that were glorifying war.

Because he's saying if there was any way that you could understand what war was really like, there is no way that you would tell anybody that it's sweet and fitting to die for one's country.

So again, that conditional tense here shows us kind of Owen's disgust and Owen's condemnation of those people who were putting out this propaganda that was really glorifying the war and making it seem like some kind of exciting holiday or adventure.

So again, really well done if you've got those ideas in your analysis, great work.

So onto our last task of the lesson, and our Oak pupil, Alex, had this to say about the poem.

"I think Owen's use of tense is really striking.

It reflects the nature of the PTSD that he suffered because we see the flashbacks, the hallucinations, and the lasting effects that war will continue to have on Owen through his use of tense." So I would like you to write an explanation of how Alex could be right by considering how Owen's use of tense shifts and changes throughout the poem and what parts of PTSD this might represent.

So make sure that you're providing evidence in the form of quotations to support your argument.

So to clarify, what I'm asking you to do here is to consider the different aspects of PTSD and consider how Owen shows those or conveys those or portrays those through his use of tense in the poem and the fact that he changes the tense throughout.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you have a go at writing your explanation using evidence from the text to support your opinion.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what you come up with, so pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic responses.

And again, some real effort has gone into those, so I'm really, really impressed.

You should be really proud of those responses, as this was a difficult task, and tense is a difficult thing to analyse.

So you've done really well there.

So here's a suggestion of some of the things that you might have said.

"The use of past tense in the beginning of the poem could be representative of Owen having a flashback, as he describes his memories of coughing like a hag as he cursed through sludge towards his distant rest.

Now, the use of present tense in the middle of the poem could be reflective of Owen being transported back through his flashbacks to a gas attack that he experienced in which he witnessed a soldier floundering.

We also hear through the present tense how this scene continues to affect Owen because he still witnesses the death of this man in his nightmares." So before I move on to the last stanza, I'm just gonna give you a moment, if you'd like, to pause the video and you can take anything from these responses to enhance or improve your own or just for your notes if you think they'd be useful.

So before we look at that last stanza, I'll just give you a moment, if you want, to pause the video to take any ideas that you want to take.

And finally, "In the end of the poem, Owen arguably uses the present tense to show us the long-lasting impact of war on his mental health, warning others that witnessing this kind of violence has long-term effects." So perhaps in the very last stanza, Owen is really trying to show us that war will continue to affect him forever, that it will affect these men coming back from war for as long as they live because of the PTSD and the mental torment that they have suffered as a result of the violence and brutality that they have witnessed at war.

So thus, arguably Owen's use of tense and the structure of the poem itself is representative of his battle of PTSD.

The use of tense allows Owen to recreate the experience of PTSD for the reader so that we can empathise with his struggles.

He shows us what it's like to have flashbacks.

He shows us what it's like to hallucinate.

He shows us how long he's going to have to suffer with the effects of PTSD because of the violence and brutality that he witnessed at war.

So what I'd like you to do now is just read that highlighted line again in green, and I'd like you to try and evaluate how successful you think Owen has been in conveying his experiences of PTSD in this poem.

Now, there is no right or wrong answer to this.

I'm just interested to hear your thoughts.

So please don't worry that, you know, I'm judging your answers in any way.

I'm absolutely not.

It's for you to decide how successful you think Owen has been.

So I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you discuss that, again, with the people around you, or just perhaps bullet point some ideas if you're working independently.

Off you go.

Fantastic, and really, really well done.

Some brilliant ideas there.

As I said, there is no right or wrong answer, but well done for those discussions because they were really perceptive and insightful.

So to summarise the learning from today, well, first of all, Owen uses graphic imagery to portray the brutal reality of war.

He shows the vulnerability of the men in the beginning of the poem which contrasts with the public perception of soldiers.

Later on in the poem, Owen uses figurative language to convey a vivid account of the gas attack.

It's also worth remembering that Owen switches tense three times throughout the poem, perhaps to represent his experiences with PTSD.

And finally, arguably the inclusion of three different tenses could illustrate the impact that war has had on Owen's past, present, and will have on his future.

Thank you so much for coming to today's lesson.

It's been brilliant to discuss this poem with you in more detail and share some ideas about how Owen presents the reality of war and how brutal and traumatising it actually was.

I've really, really appreciated all of your engagement and your contributions, so thank you so much for those.

I really look forward to seeing you next time.

I hope you have a lovely rest of your day, and I will see you later.

Bye.