Hello, thanks for joining me in today's lesson all about the poem "The Emigree" by Carol Rumens.

I'm Miss Sutherland and I'll be teaching you today.

In this lesson, we are going to read and understand the poem "The Emigree".

Our learning outcome for today is to be able to understand "The Emigree" and map the big ideas within the poem.

We have four keywords.

Let's go through them together.

The first keyword is identity.

Identity are the qualities that make a person different from others.

So we all have our own unique identity.

And identity can be shaped by many things in our lives.

It could be shaped by the people we spend time with, our family, our culture, and many more things.

Emigrate is our next word.

Emigrate means to leave one's own country to settle in another usually for political reasons.

So emigration is the decision to leave a country and go to another one usually because something unsettling is happening in the country that that person lives in.

Idealised.

Idealised means regarded as perfect or better than in reality.

So if someone has an idealised perspective on the past, they might view the past as better than it actually was.

And permeate.

permeate means to spread through something.

So if an idea permeates a text, that idea spreads through the whole text.

I'll give you a moment to reread and jot down those keywords.

Off you go.

We have two learning cycles today.

In the first part of the lesson, we are going to read and explore the poem "The Emigree".

And in the second part of the lesson today, we'll be mapping the big ideas in the poem.

We'll be looking at how the themes of power and of conflict and many others appear in this poem.

So, let's begin with exploring the poem.

Before we begin reading, I have a question for you.

I want you to consider what makes up your identity.

Pause the video and discuss.

I had some really interesting discussions.

Perhaps you said that your family, friends, and other people you spend time with shape your identity, places you've lived in the past shape your identity, your cultural heritage shapes your identity, and also your hobbies and interests shape your identity.

Our identity is made up of a variety of things.

We will be looking at what the author of "The Emigree" suggests shapes identity in her poem.

You probably mentioned that places indeed can shape a lot of your identity.

So let's consider this question.

What did you think of your home country when you were younger? And what memories do you have of it? Pause the video and discuss those two questions.

Thank you so much for sharing your perspective and memories about the place in which you grew up.

I now want you to consider, has your opinion of your home country changed since you've grown up? Pause the video and discuss.

It's really interesting to note how our opinions could change on a place as we get older because we begin to get a different perspective on that place.

And this is an idea that Carol Rumens explores in the poem "The Emigree".

Now, a really important question to consider before we read the poem is, what might make a person leave their home country? What are all the possible reasons? That is going to help us fully understand the speaker's perspective as we read the poem.

Pause the video and discuss.

Let's go through what you may have said.

So firstly, war could make a person leave their home country because their home country may be unsafe for them if there is a war going on.

Political pressure might make a person leave their home country.

Perhaps if someone doesn't agree or align with political views of leaders in their country.

Educational advancement might make a person leave their home country.

Perhaps they would have a better opportunity at an education elsewhere in the world.

Career opportunities might make a person leave their home country.

They may get a job offer somewhere else, or the job opportunities may be better elsewhere.

Poverty might make a person leave their home country and the prospect of a better quality of life elsewhere in the world might make someone leave.

Natural disasters that render someone's home country unsafe again might make them leave.

How might it feel to leave your home country for whatever reason? How might it feel? Pause the video and discuss that now.

There may be positive and negative reasons as we've discussed for someone leaving their home country, but regardless of the reason, someone may feel fear and regret at such a big change because someone's home country may be very dear to them.

It may have a lot of precious memories associated with it.

It may be where their family remain.

And so to leave it, no matter if it's for opportunities elsewhere or for a more sad reason, it's still a very, very big change and a really hard decision to make for a lot of people.

And understanding this is going to really help us connect with the poem "The Emigree" today.

And here are some images that appear in the poem.

We're not reading it just quite yet.

Here are some images that appear in it.

How might these images link together? Let's make some predictions now.

Pause the video and reflect how might these images link together to create the story of "The Emigree".

Off you go.

It's really interesting that those images all appear in the poem, because at first glance, they don't really go together.

We have a picture of war.

We have a picture of a doll.

And we have a picture of sunlight.

But we are gonna finally read the poem now and we are going to find out how these images link.

Let's go.

Open your anthology and read the poem "The Emigree".

I hope you enjoy the poem.

Pause the video and have a read.

What did you think of the poem? Pause the video and discuss.

What are your initial thoughts about this poem? Off you go.

I really enjoyed this poem because I really love how the speaker seems to be telling a really intimate story.

Here is the title of the poem you've just read.

Let's explore this title in detail.

"The Emigree." An emigree is someone that leaves their native country often for political reasons.

So, why do you think Rumens chose the title "The Emigree" for this poem? Pause the video and discuss.

Let's go through some possible reasons for Carol Rumens choosing the title "The Emigree" for her poem.

Firstly, this title may reflect how emigration has shaped the person's identity.

So by titling the poem "The Emigree" Carol Rumens doesn't give the speaker a name of her own, doesn't give any detail about where she's from.

It just says she is an emigree.

And that means her status as an emigree is probably very, very important to who she is.

She might feel like she belongs to two places.

She may feel this sense of conflict in her identity, because while she lives somewhere else, she may feel like she belongs where she grew up.

Another reason why Carol Rumens may have chosen the title "The Emigree" is to give a voice to the many people who experience emigration.

So as we've said, this poem does not mention a particular place or that someone has emigrated from a particular part of the world.

In that case, it allows this poem to relate to all people who've experienced emigration in their lives.

And again, because of the lack of mention of place, it shows how the place in this poem could be anywhere in the world, and that helps to build the reader's sympathy as we acknowledge that the speaker of this poem could indeed be anyone.

Let's reread the poem's opening line now.

What do you think the tone is at the beginning of the poem based on this line? Pause the video and discuss.

When I read that first line of the poem, I felt that it had a very nostalgic tone because it's almost like the speaker is reliving a moment of her past or even a story of her past.

I now want you to reread the poem's closing line.

How does the tone change by the end of the poem? Pause the video and discuss this now.

The poem seems to take a darker tone by the end.

We'll explore that in greater detail later in the lesson.

And finally, what are we told about between the opening and closing lines? Can you explain why the tone changes? Pause the video and discuss.

Between the opening and closing line, we are told about the speaker's experience of emigration.

We are told about her fond childhood memories in the place she grew up, but we are also told and we're given glimpses of the reasons why she left and the political pressures that exist in her place in the current day.

So ultimately, we can explain the change of tone by a feeling of loss because this speaker has experienced a huge loss in her life in that she's no longer able to live in a place she once loved and a place that shaped her identity and that's because of being forced to leave due to the political pressure of war in her home country.

Let's check your understanding of what we've discussed in the lesson so far.

The poem "The Emigree" describes a person that has.

Pause the video and complete that sentence.

The poem "The Emigree" describes a person that has left their home country due to war.

Well done if you've got that right.

And there are direct and explicit mentions to this in the poem.

The tone in the opening line of the poem is, is it enthusiastic, nostalgic, or fearful? Pause the video and complete that sentence.

Well done if you said the tone in the opening line of the poem is nostalgic.

The opening line seems to suggest that the speaker has very fond memories in her home country and potentially longs to go back to this idyllic childhood that she had in this place.

Now, you have five questions and answering them is going to help you understand the poem "The Emigree".

Let's go through your five questions.

Whose perspective is the poem from? That means, who is the speaker behind the poem? Number two, how does the speaker feel about the country of her origin, in the country she grew up in? And how does she convey this? Number three, how can you tell the speaker did not leave her country by choice? Number four, why do you think the speaker cherishes her language so much? And number five, do you think the speaker's view of the past is idealised? Do you think in other words that the speaker has a view of the past that's better than reality and a view that the past was perfect? And remember, use quotes to justify all of your answers where possible.

Pause the video and answer those five questions.

Off you go.

Great job on answering all those five questions.

I hope you have a solid understanding of the poem now.

Let's go through some possible answers.

Whose perspective is the poem from? The poem is written from the first person perspective of an emigrant.

It allows the reader to experience the struggles of emigration firsthand.

Number two, how does the speaker feel about the country of her origin and how does she convey this? The speaker feels fond of her country of origin.

We can see this when she says that even hearing negative stories about it doesn't change her bright opinion of it.

This shows the speaker associates positive memories with their home country.

Number three, how can you tell the speaker did not leave her country by choice? We know the speaker did not leave her home country by choice because she describes her home country as sick.

This suggests that the country was no longer habitable for the speaker and that they were forced to leave.

Number four, why do you think the speaker cherishes her language so much? The speaker may cherish their language because it is the only thing they have left of their home country.

It was also the way in which they communicated whilst living there.

So this language brought meaning to life in her home country.

And the final question, do you think the speaker's view of the past is idealised? Why or why not? The repetition of the word sunlight may imply the speaker has an idealised version of the past.

So, essentially, the speaker repeating sunlight could show that her view of the past is very bright and so bright that perhaps it is idealised.

Perhaps she's looking at it like it was perfect when in actual fact it wasn't.

However, when we consider the speaker is recounting their childhood memories of their home country, we can understand that sunlight may be a realistic portrayal of the carefree, innocent, and idyllic childhood memories that the speaker once had.

So on one hand, we could say the speaker has an idealised version of the past.

Perhaps she is remembering it's in a better way than it was, but we could also consider that the speaker's view of the past is realistic because her memories are childhood memories.

And in our childhood, we tend to have this outlook on life that is carefree and innocent.

So her memories could very much be quite realistic and true to the way in which she experienced that place as a child.

Well done on answering those five questions to understand the poem "The Emigree" better.

Let's move on to our second learning cycle now where we'll map big ideas in the poem.

I want you to discuss which themes are shown in the poem "The Emigree".

And how are they shown? So you have eight themes on the screen there.

Unpick them, discuss them, and talk to your partner about which ones are shown in "The Emigree".

Pause the video and discuss.

You may have said that quite a lot of these themes are indeed shown.

Memory is shown because the speaker has vivid memories of her home country.

Loss is shown, because as we mentioned, the speaker feels a sense of loss that she can no longer live in her home country and she feels a sense of loss that her home country isn't the place she remembers it as.

We can also see trauma in this poem, the act of emigration, the act of being forced to leave a place due to political reasons can be quite traumatic.

We definitely see the theme of identity.

The speaker seems to have her identity tied to her home country.

We see innocence.

We see the childhood memories of the speaker and how her view of her home country is wrapped up in childhood innocence.

We also see hope.

There's the sunlight, the motif of sunlight could indeed reflect the speaker's hope that her country will be well again.

And we see war.

We see war because it's mentioned that one of the reasons that the speaker can no longer live in her home country is due to war.

Now, let's move on to our next discussion question.

How do the themes of "The Emigree", for example, trauma, identity, war, hope, loss, innocence, how do they link to power and/or conflict which are our big ideas of the anthology? Pause the video and discuss.

Let's go through what you may have said.

Power.

The speaker's memory of the past is powerful.

We can see this in the way that the word sunlight is used to represent her memories.

These must be very strong and vivid memories.

Power is also shown through the speaker's connection to a place.

It seems very powerful because she has these strong nostalgic feelings and the place stays with her throughout her life.

Her connection to that place does not diminish as she grows older.

Let's look at conflict now.

The speaker experiences conflict between different parts of their identity.

We can see this in the way that the speaker feels connected to her childhood memories of her home country and perhaps struggles to reconciliate these childhood memories with the current state of her home country in which it isn't habitable anymore, and it isn't friendly, it isn't welcoming.

Perhaps she struggles to harmonise her childhood memories with the current reality of her country and that creates conflict within her identity.

The next way in which we see conflict could be through the way the physical conflict in the speaker's home country forced her to emigrate.

The next way in which we see conflict, the speaker's loss is due to physical conflict.

So the speaker loses the opportunity to live in her home country and that is due to the war as mentioned in the poem.

Lastly, the speaker may experience inner conflict through the complex emotions associated with emigration.

As we've mentioned before, emigration can be a traumatic process.

The process of having to leave somewhere you spent a lot of time, you have personal connection to, you have family in, and being forced to leave that place, start life afresh somewhere else.

Well done on discussing the big ideas of power and conflict in the poem "The Emigree".

This is going to help you compare "The Emigree" with other poems from the anthology when the time comes.

Let's check your understanding of what we've talked about.

How is memory shown in "The Emigree"? Pause the video and answer that question.

Memory is shown in "The Emigree" because the speaker has vivid memories of her home country and that is shown through the repetition of the word sunlight in order to represent these vivid and clear strong memories.

The last stanza of the poem shows that the speaker.

Pause the video and complete that sentence.

Well done if you said the last stanza of the poem shows that the speaker feels conflicted in her identity.

We see the poem take a darker tone in the final stanza, and that could be because the speaker realises that the current state of her home country is not the same place in which she remembers it.

The last task for your lesson today.

I want you to find quotes that correspond to the big ideas in the poem.

Some examples have been done for you.

So you need to find quotes that reflect the reality of conflict, the power of place, the power of memory, loss and/or death, and identity.

You are going to need your anthology for this.

You're going to need to write quotes in that table to match those themes.

Pause the video and give that task a go.

Well done on your effort on that task.

Here's some ideas.

For the reality of conflict, you could have found line 10.

For the power of place, line 5 to 6 is quite striking.

We see the mention of death on line 24.

On line 16, we see identity being alluded to due to the permanence of the speaker's memories of her home country on line 16.

On lines 9 to 10, we see the speaker vividly describing her home country, which shows the power of place.

We also see the power of place on line 21, where the speaker has an intimate moment with her home country and the speaker personifies her home country.

That's how we know that place is so powerful to the speaker because it comes alive and it interacts with her.

On line 10, we see the theme of memory because the speaker mentions that even as time goes on, her memory does not diminish of her home country.

And again, we see the theme of identity on line 17 and 24.

You should now, from that task, be able to say which themes permeate the poem "The Emigree".

The themes that you have the most quotes for definitely permeate this poem.

So, I want you to write a sentence or two about which big ideas permeate "The Emigree" and how you know.

Pause the video and write the sentence.

Here's my sentence.

The power of place permeates "The Emigree" as the speaker's childhood memories of her home country are clear as sunlight.

This suggests that she has vivid memories of her country and so it never fades in her mind.

And that's how we know the speaker's memory is powerful, but also the power of that home country is very, very powerful indeed.

Well done on that task.

I hope you feel more confident with the big ideas in this poem.

Here's what we've learned today.

The title of the poem allows the poem to relate to a general experience of all that emigrate.

There are feelings of nostalgia, regret, and fear within the poem.

Rumens explores the displaced feelings of people driven from their home country, and the enduring impact of tyranny.

The speaker may have an idealised version of the past, reflecting the power of memory.

The poem explores the big ideas of identity, memory, and power of place.

Thank you so much for joining me in today's lesson on understanding the poem "The Emigree".

I hope to see you in another lesson soon.