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

My name is Miss Halladay, and I will be teaching you today.

Thank you so much for joining me.

It's brilliant to have so many of you here.

This will serve us really well when we're discussing the poem "London" that we're going to be reading in today's lesson.

It is an absolutely fantastic and equally fascinating poem that I'm so excited to share with you and hear your thoughts on.

So let's get started.

So today's lesson is called "Understanding 'London,'" and by the end of today's lesson, you will be able to explain how William Blake presents power in 18th century London.

Here are some keywords that you will need to unlock today's learning.

This is a poem all about oppression.

Now, oppression is a situation in which people are ruled or governed in an unfair way.

Now, people who govern the country are in a position of authority, and authority means the power or right to give orders.

Unfortunately, in the poem "London," Blake presents some of these people with authority as corrupt.

Now, corrupt means being immoral or dishonest in some way.

In his poem, Blake also explores the effects of industrialization upon the capital city.

Now, industrialization is the process of transforming an economy from one which relies on traditional farming methods to one which relies on factories and machinery to manufacture goods.

Now, Blake was often considered a radical, and a radical is someone who believes that there should be extreme social or political change.

These are really, really important keywords, so if you feel that you might struggle to remember the definitions, then please do feel free to take a moment to pause the video and jot them down.

Here's today's lesson outline.

We're going to begin, first of all, by reading the poem together, and then we're going to move on to looking at some of the context that informed the writing of this poem and thinking about where we can see that within the poem itself.

But let's start, first of all, by reading the poem.

I'd like you to imagine the following scene.

Now, you can either close your eyes and try and imagine as I'm reading the text, or you can feel free to read the text along with me and imagine at the same time.

It's up to you.

I'd like you to imagine an 18th century street that is cobbled and filthy.

There are people everywhere, and it would be difficult to get anywhere in a hurry.

The buildings lining the street are falling apart.

There are holes in their walls and roofs.

Through these holes, you can see crowds of people all crammed in together, drinking beer, huddled together.

A vile smell of old urine and the vinegary smell of alcohol fills the air.

You notice a scantily-clad woman clutching a crying naked baby.

The baby is hungry.

Her clothes are in tatters and her shoes have little sole left.

She too is hungry.

Everywhere you look, people's clothes are torn and thread-bare.

So now that you're imagining that scene, I'd like you to discuss the people around you.

Well, what do you think it might have been like to live on a street like this, or to be part of a community like this? Now, you can either discuss this with the people around you if you have access to other people.

If you don't and you're working independently, that's absolutely fine.

You can either consider it in your mind or you can jot some ideas down if you have a piece of paper in front of you.

But I'd like you to try and imagine what it might have been like to live on a street like this, or be part of a community like this.

So pause the video and see what you come up with.

Fantastic discussions, really well done, and some really, really insightful perceptive answers there.

So, well done.

So the scene that I just described to you was actually a description of a very, very famous 18th-century painting by an artist called Hogarth, who depicted social issues affecting society at the time in his work.

Now, the issues in London that he tended to depict were things like overpopulation, overcrowding, the unsanitary living conditions, the unhygienic living conditions, and the fact that this led to rapidly spreading diseases, the widespread poverty and food shortages, and the increasing inequality, which led to really high rates of crime.

So those are the issues Hogarth was depicting in his artwork.

And those were some of the issues that people that were living in London were very much facing in the 18th century, particularly those who were already poor or part of the lower classes.

So what we're going to do now is read the poem.

Now, this poem is called "London," so we can obviously assume that it's about London, which is England's capital city.

So what I would like you to do is open up your anthologies, please, and get ready to follow along.

I'm going to read the poem to you, and it would be great if you could be following along before we start to have some considerations and discussions about what we think of the poem.

So as I'm reading, you need to be listening really carefully and really actively.

So here we go.

This is "London" by William Blake.

"I wander thro' each charter'd street, near where the charter'd Thames does flow.

And mark in every face I meet, marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man, in every Infant's cry of fear, in every voice, in every ban, the mind-forg'd manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry, every blackning Church appals, and the hapless Soldier's sigh, runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro' midnight streets I hear, how the youthful Harlot's curse, blasts the new-born Infant's tear, and blights with plagues the Marriage hearse." So, a very impactful poem.

So what I'd like you to do now is just a bit of reflection on your first reading of the poem.

Because when you first read a poem, it's really important to consider your first impressions, and most of all, how it makes you feel and why.

That's a really important question to ask yourself whenever you're approaching a poem.

So what I'd like you to discuss is, well, first of all, how did the poem make you feel and why? Who do you think is speaking in the poem? So, whose perspective is that poem written from? I'd like you to write down one question that you might have about the poem that you'd like to know the answer to.

And I'd like you also to think about, was there anything that you found interesting about the poem as well? And as I said, these are all really useful questions to ask yourself when you read a poem for the first time to try and help you to get some level of understanding of the poem before you study it.

So what I would like you to do now is pause the video while you discuss these questions with the people around you.

Feel free to do this independently if you would prefer, or if you obviously are working independently anyway, you are absolutely fine to just consider the ideas on your own, or jot some of them down if you have some paper in front of you.

But I'd like you to now go and pause the video and reflect on the poem that you've just read.

Fantastic.

Brilliant.

And it was great to hear so many of you saying that you actually really enjoyed this poem and you really thought that Blake's use of language and rhyme was really interesting.

So thank you very much for those contributions.

Brilliant stuff.

So what we're going to do now is we're going to have a look at the bits of the poem.

So we're going to break it down a little bit and have a look at each of the stanzas in a bit more detail.

So I'd like you, first of all, to reread the first stanza again.

And what I've done here is just clarified a few bits of vocabulary that you might need in order to make sense of the poem.

So first of all, that word "charter'd" is a document issued by the government which outlines the city's rights.

The Thames is the river that flows through London.

And finally that word "woe" means great sadness.

So, after you've reread the first stanza, I would like you to consider the following questions.

Where do you think that the poem set? And we've touched on this already.

Who might the speaker be in the poem? and what does the speaker notice about other people? So again, some of those questions we've just touched on, I'd like you to just revisit those in relation to the first stanza, and then thinking about what it is that the speaker notices about other people.

So you may want to do this in groups by discussing the questions, or you may want to do it independently and write your reflections down, if possible.

But I'd like you to pause the video now while you consider those three questions.

Off you go.

Fantastic discussions, and really well done because everybody seem to remember that the poem is set in London, which is England's capital city.

Now the speaker sounds as if he could be Blake himself, the poet.

Okay, the fact that he talks about, "I wander thro' each charter'd street," and based on what we know about Blake, which we're going to explore in a while, this could very possibly be Blake speaking in the poem, and we tend to assume that it is.

Now, in terms of what the speaker notices, well, he tends to notice that every single person that he passes on his walk through London looks really weak and miserable.

And we're going to talk about why that might be in just a moment.

But that is one of the key observations that the speaker makes as he goes on his journey through the streets of London.

So well done if you've got those ideas.

Brilliant understanding.

So let's have a look at the second stanza again, where we're going to start hearing more about kind of the misery that these people are facing.

So, again, to clarify the vocabulary, we've got mind-forg'd, which means imagined, it's not really real, and manacles means handcuffs or restraints for the wrists.

So I'd like you to consider here, well, first of all, what can we infer about society from this stanza? And what is it do you think that is making the people so miserable and so weak? So again, I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you consider those questions, again, either with people around you or just independently if you would prefer.

I'm excited to hear what you've got to share.

So off you go and we'll come back together in just a moment.

Again, some really insightful suggestions there, and many people really picking this poem up quite quickly and managing to understand it really well.

So, well done.

Now, we can infer that everybody in this society is miserable because they're clearly being deeply affected by something.

Now in terms of what that might be, well, it seems that the people seem to be being oppressed by something or someone.

And if you remember, that word "oppressed" is a keyword, and it means when you are governed or treated or ruled unfairly by somebody in a position of authority.

Now, the speaker talks about bans and manacles, and that shows perhaps that people in London feel that their freedom at that moment is being really restricted.

So they perhaps feel controlled They perhaps feel somewhat marginalised as well.

So these words give us a little bit of a clue as to exactly why the people are so, you know, full of woe, and it seems to be because they feel like they're being restricted, controlled, and oppressed.

So well done if you got that.

Really great comprehension.

Looking more closely at the third stanza, which I would like you to reread in just a moment, and when you do, it's useful for you to know that the word "hapless" means unlucky or unfortunate, and that a palace is a large building where a ruler lives.

So once you've reread the third stanza, I'd like you to consider the following questions.

So, what is it that you think the poet means when he writes the blackning Church? What do soldiers represent? Why is it significant that even they are sighing? And finally, how do the people in power seem to be responding to society's suffering? So these questions are a little bit harder than the previous ones, because as we go through the poem and your confidence with this poem increases, I'm expecting more and more from you by means of understanding.

So yes, these questions are a little bit more difficult, but I know that with patience and perseverance, you will definitely be able to have a go at answering them.

If you're not sure, that's absolutely fine.

Just have a guess.

Okay? Poetry is very subjective.

There isn't necessarily a right or wrong answer, and therefore, it's always important for you to just have a go at poetry.

So what I'm going to invite you to do now is pause the video while you reread the third stanza and consider those three questions on screen.

Again, this can be done independently or you can do it in groups.

It is up to you.

Pause the video and off you go to consider those questions.

Fantastic discussions.

I told you you could do it.

It's brilliant to see your confidence developing as we move through the poem, and I thought that some of the responses that were raised there were really, really perceptive and insightful.

So really well done.

Now in terms of what the poet might have meant by the word "blackning," well, perhaps he's suggesting that the Church is in some way corrupt.

And again, if you remember that word "corrupt," it's one of our keywords of the lesson, and it means kind of behaving in an immoral or in a dishonest way.

So perhaps Blake, at the moment that he's writing this poem, isn't a huge fan of the institute of the Church.

Secondly, in terms of soldiers and what they represent, well, soldiers typically represent patriotism and pride for their country, and that is something that we will see as we move through the poetry anthology.

However, the fact that the soldiers are sighing in this poem could show their disappointment with the state of their country.

So clearly, something is very, very wrong, because soldiers, these are the people that sign up to fight for their country because they believe so strongly in the good of their country.

So the fact that even the soldiers, who are arguably some of the most patriotic people in the country, are sighing shows us that something very, very wrong is happening right now in this poem.

And finally, in terms of the people in power, so the Church, the monarchy, and the government, and how they seem to be responding to the suffering, well, they actually seem to be ignoring the suffering of other people because they're just allowing the misery to continue.

Okay, they're allowing the blood to just run down the Palace walls.

And the fact that that blood is on the outside perhaps shows us their ignorance, and the fact that maybe they're shutting themselves away inside their kind of ivory towers and ignoring all the suffering that's going on around them.

So they we're really not seeing a useful response from people in positions of authority there.

And perhaps this is where some of Blake's anger and some of Blake's, you know, passion is coming from.

Perhaps it's not just the issues that he's noticing and observing as he walks through London, but also the way that people in authority are dealing with these issues, or not dealing with these issues, as it's probably more appropriate.

So really well done if you've got any of those ideas.

Really brilliant reading and comprehension work there.

So let's check for understanding before we move on to the fourth stanza.

True or false? Those in positions of authority seem to be doing everything they can to fix the suffering of the general public.

I'm going to give you a moment to decide whether you think that that is true, or whether you think that that is false.

So pause the video and make your decision now.

Fantastic, and a massive well done if you correctly selected false.

Really well-remembered there.

And what I'd like you to do next is justify your response.

So I'd like you to tell me why that statement is in fact false using one of the two reasons below.

So what I'm going to invite you to do now is pause the video while you read both justifications and decide which you think is the correct one for that statement being false.

Off you go.

And well done if you selected a.

Blake criticises people in authority for their inaction in the poem.

Well done.

So let's have a look at the fourth stanza in more detail now.

And just to clarify that vocabulary, a harlot is a prostitute, so somebody who sells their body for money.

If you blight something, you cause an infection or disease.

And a hearse is a vehicle that carries the body of a dead person to their funeral.

So once you've reread the fourth stanza, I'd like you to consider the following questions.

Why do you think that the poet explicitly tells us that the harlots are youthful? What is powerful about the image of a baby crying in misery? And finally, what does the word "plagues" tell us about the living conditions in the 18th century? So again, some difficult questions there, but I know you can do it.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you have a go answering those questions.

Off you go.

And a massive well done if you said that actually, Blake shows us how lots of women, even young women, had to resort to prostitution to survive.

Okay, and that's the kind of society that they were living in.

That was the only way that many women could make money.

And it wasn't just older women, it was also young women who were resorting to prostitution to make money.

Secondly, Blake shows us how bleak life was for many people in the 18th century.

So bleak that even newborn babies had no hope.

And the image of a baby crying is absolutely heartbreaking because babies are supposed to be innocent.

They're supposed to not really understand the suffering and the poverty that, you know, goes on around them, and yet these babies are acutely aware of the situation that they've been born into, and that's really sad.

And finally, Blake's reference to plagues shows us the damage that disease was doing to society.

Diseases were being spread through prostitution and poor living conditions.

Okay, so Blake here showing us more of the issues that seem to be affecting London in the 18th century, that Hogarth was depicting in his artwork that we explored earlier in the lesson.

So really well done if you've got those answers.

Brilliant work.

So onto our first task of the lesson.

So what I'd like you to do is write one sentence that summarises each of the stanzas in the poem "London." I'd like you to try and give as much detail as possible in your sentence.

However, you are only allowed to write one sentence per stanza.

You are only allowed to use one full stop, so you will need to think very, very carefully about the words you choose and the order in which you put them.

So here's an example.

In the first stanza, the speaker, assumedly Blake, narrates his walk through the streets of London, during which, he observes misery and suffering on the faces of every passer-by.

So you are basically looking to get as much information about that stanza into one summary sentence.

So what I'd like you to do now is complete your summary sentences for stanzas two, three, and four.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you have a go at doing that now.

Fantastic work, and it was really great to see so many of you taking the time to really think about the vocabulary that you were choosing and thinking about how to be as concise as possible, but also how to explain what happens in the stanza as much as possible.

So really well done there.

So what we're going to do now is have a look at some of my summary sentences, and you can compare yours to mine and add anything that you feel might improve your sentences or add further detail.

So here's what I came up with.

In the second stanza, we understand the extent to which society is suffering, as the speaker informs us that everybody is suffering because of the oppression they are facing at the hands of those in positions of authority.

The third stanza is a condemnation of those in positions of authority, like the churches and the government, who are willfully ignoring the suffering of others because they themselves are comfortable.

So Blake starting to touch upon the hypocrisy of those in authority here.

And finally, the fourth stanza shows the lack of hope that individuals have in society because of the widespread disease and corruption that injustice and inequality is spreading.

So as I said, take a moment to pause the video if you like, and compare your answers to mine and steal anything that you think might be useful for your notes.

So there's our stanza summaries, and now, what I would like you to do is to write one sentence that summarises the entire poem.

So this is really challenging because the poem actually expresses many ideas, and you'll have to think really carefully about how to contain all that in one sentence.

Here's a sentence starter to help you out.

So feel free to use it or feel free to start it in your own way.

Pause the video and have a go at that now.

Fantastic work, and here's what you might have written.

Blake's poem "London" is a condemnation of the inequality and oppression that was corrupting society in 18th century London.

So really well done if you managed to distil all of Blake's ideas from "London" into one sentence.

I'm really impressed.

So onto the second part of the lesson now.

We're going to have a look at exploring context in a bit more detail.

So I'd like you to discuss, well, based on the poem "London" that you've just read, what do you think Blake's politics were? So why do you think Blake wrote about London? What do you think he thought about the government at the time? What do you think he felt about religion? And what do you think he thought about industrialization? So what I'm going to invite you to do now is pause the video while you consider those questions, again, either independently or with the people around you, whichever you'd prefer.

Fantastic, and it was great to hear all of your ideas, and many of you were spot on with many of the questions, which shows me that you had a really good understanding of this poem.

So, it's worth mentioning that Blake was a Londoner through and through.

He was born in London and he lived there his whole life.

So, he therefore must have understood very well the issues that were affecting society in the capital, and he was clearly very passionate about his home city and making it into a better place, which perhaps might explain why he wrote this poem.

Now, "London" is taken from Blake's collection of poems titled "Songs of Innocence and Experience." And in this collection of poems, Blake explores how society can corrupt innocence.

Blake commonly highlights the effects of the inaction of greedy and selfish leaders on the vulnerable.

So what I'd like you to do now is think, well, based on that information, which leaders does Blake seem to be blaming for the inequality and oppression of society in the poem "London"? And how do you know that? So who is it that Blake feels is the problem in 18th century London? So pause the video and discuss that question now.

Fantastic discussions, and many of you spot on in saying that, actually, in the poem, Blake blames the monarchy, the government, and the Church for the mind-forge manacles, charters, and bans which have led to widespread misery and depression.

So really well done there.

Now, as we mentioned at the beginning of the lesson, Blake was a radical.

So he was somebody who believed in, you know, overthrowing current political system in favour of a new one.

And he was really inspired by the French Revolution, which saw the overthrow and the execution of the French monarch Louis XVI in response to widespread oppression and poverty that was caused by injustice.

Now, Blake felt that both the Church and the Government had become corrupt and that they were restricting people's freedom and imagination through the policies that they were passing.

So he felt that the policies that some of these people were passing were actually quite harmful to society's freedom.

Now, the Church in the 1700s had a lot of influence on society because most people in Britain were Christian and the Church was allied with the Government.

Blake was really frustrated with those people in power who were willfully ignoring, and in some cases exacerbating, the injustice and the oppression that the general population was facing.

Now, the issue that Blake perhaps had with the Church and the Government being allied is the fact that that creates one larger kind of power of authority.

And actually, he questioned whether or not some of the decisions being made were to benefit the general public, or whether they were to benefit those two institutions.

So let's check for understanding now.

Which of the following quotations from "London" shows that Blake felt people in authority were ignoring the suffering of others? I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you read the three quotations and decide which you think exemplifies Blake's frustrations with people in authority.

Pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic work, and really well done to those who identified it is in fact c.

"The hapless Soldier's sigh, runs in blood down Palace walls." This exemplifies the idea that, actually, people like the monarch were just ignoring the suffering and the misery of others.

They were letting the blood, metaphorically, run down the Palace walls and not cleaning it off.

So they were ignoring the misery and woe of the general population.

So well done if you got c.

You're absolutely right.

So Blake was a romantic poet who was really critical of the effects of industrialization.

Now, the rapid industrialization of Britain as a result of the Industrial Revolution in the late 17th century created many issues that Blake really disapproved of.

Because of the industrialization of Britain, there was a mass movement of people from the countryside into large cities like London.

Now, I'd like you to discuss, well, what problems do you think that this mass movement might have caused in the bigger cities like London? I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you discuss your ideas, again, with the people around you, or just consider them independently if you would prefer.

Off you go.

Fantastic discussions, and you're absolutely spot on.

If like Izzy, you said that, "This caused overcrowding, which meant that diseases spread rapidly because living conditions were extremely cramped." If you think back to the scene that I described to you at the beginning of the lesson, and when we talked about Hogarth and his criticism of London at the time, a lot of the issues that he was kind of picking up on were directly as a result of overcrowding.

So diseases spreading, high rates of crime.

You know, all those are kind of negative side effects of overcrowding.

And Blake was very, very keenly aware of the impact that overcrowding was having on cities like London because of the rapid industrialization of Britain.

I'd also like you to think, well, where can we see that in the poem then? So where can we see Blake's criticism of overcrowding or diseases spreading and poor living conditions in the poem "London"? So pause the video and find me one line which shows you those ideas now.

Fantastic, and here's just one of a few lines you could have selected.

"The youthful harlots curse, blights with plagues the Marriage hearse." Now, this phrase "blights with plagues the Marriage hearse" shows us how rapidly diseases were spreading in London at the time because of all the overpopulation and overcrowding, which resulted in poor living conditions.

So that is just of the lines that you might have selected that shows Blake's criticism of the industrialization of Britain in the poem.

So, as a result of industrialization, smog pervaded London because of the smoke and fumes released by all the factories, and this made the air unclean and it was dangerous to inhale.

So smog is like a dirty fog that results from all the chemicals being released from the factories at the time.

And as we've just said, it made the air really unclean and very dangerous to inhale.

Blake also really disliked the exploitation of young children, who were sweeping chimneys and working in factories from as young as five years old, and that was another consequence of industrialization that Blake really, really disapproved of.

He felt that this was really exploitative and immoral.

So, again, I'd like you to try and identify where we see either of these ideas in the poem "London." So, again, I'm going to invite to pause the video while you try to identify a quote that shows us these ideas from Blake.

Off you go.

Again, fantastic work.

And here's just a suggestion of a line that actually encompasses both of these ideas.

"How the Chimney-sweeper's cry, every blackning Church appals." So there, again, that word "blackning" could be a reference to the smog, as well as the immorality in the churches, but also this reference to the chimney sweepers crying and being miserable because they were being exploited at a very young age.

So well done if you selected that line.

Really, really good analysis skills there.

So, onto the last task of the lesson.

Taking the context that we've just explored into consideration, I'd like you to rank the following statements in order of how much you agree with them, starting with most agree and ending with least agree.

So if you imagine that this is your spectrum, you are going to rank the following statements in order of which you most agree with to least agree with.

I'm not going to read the statements to you as you can read them for yourselves, but I'd like you now to pause the video and have a go at ranking the statements in order, independently, of how much you agree or disagree with them.

So pause the video and off you go.

Fantastic work.

Now, the reason that I asked you to do this independently is because I wanted to provide you then with a space in which you can share your rankings and have a little bit of discussion and debate perhaps about what the order that you've chosen to put them in.

So, we're going to do just that now.

I'd like you to share your order with a partner, and I'd like you to justify your rankings using evidence from the poem.

So I'm going to give you some sentence starters to help you frame your discussions.

So you might say something like, "I put this statement first as most agree because in the poem Blake writes this." And you're going to go to the poem and find a quotation.

So you'll need your poem in your hand as you're completing this activity.

Then you might say, as a second person, "Well, I agree or I disagree with you because I put this." Now, if you're working at home or on your own and you don't have a partner, you can still participate in this activity because what you are going to do is find the evidence yourself independently, and then you can either write a justification, or you can just think about how you would use that evidence to justify your opinion.

So if you've not got a partner, don't worry, it doesn't matter.

You can absolutely still have a go at this task.

So what I'm going to invite you to do now is pause the video while you have a go at either sharing your order and justifying it, or considering how you would've justified it if you had a partner.

So pause the video and off you go to do that now.

Fantastic work, and it was lovely to see actually many of you remembering quotes without needing to look at your poem.

That's really impressive.

So really well done, and it shows me that you've been listening really carefully at this lesson.

So brilliant there.

So to summarise the learning from today.

Well, "London" is taken from "Songs of Innocence and Experience," which explores how society corrupts innocence.

Blake's poem "London" is a condemnation of inequality and oppression that pervaded society in 18th century London.

Blake speaks out against industrialization, depicting a bleak, smoggy and diseased London.

Blake's anger seems to be directed towards those in positions of authority, like the Government, the Monarchy and the Church.

And finally, Blake illustrates how oppressive poverty is and advocates for change.

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

I really hope you enjoyed reading "London" as much as I enjoyed teaching it to you.

I really look forward to seeing you next time, and I hope you have a lovely rest of your day.

See you later.