Hello, my name's Miss Keller and welcome to today's lesson.

I'm so glad that you could join me.

In this session, we are going to be analysing how Zaffar Kunial uses language and structure in his poem "Us".

So grab your copy of the text and let's get started.

So as I just mentioned today we are going to be focusing on how Kunial uses language, form and structure to express his viewpoint.

And that's really important because we're going to be linking Kunial's creative choices to the big ideas in the poem.

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

We have: foreground, ideals, abstract, aspirational language, and assonance.

So I'd just like to draw your attention to that first word because it's a really, really fantastic word to have in your toolkit when you are writing analysis paragraphs, because the word "foreground" means to emphasise or draw attention to something, making it prominent or central in focus.

And a really great way to think about the word "foreground" is as the opposite, the antonym of the word "background".

So if something's in the background, we perhaps can't see it as well.

It's further away.

We think of it as perhaps less important.

So therefore if something is in the foreground, it's more important, it's easier to see.

It's emphasised.

So this is a really fantastic word, particularly if, like me, you tend to use the word "emphasise" quite a lot in your analysis writing because this is a fantastic synonym that you can use as well.

I'd also like to draw your attention to that second word, "ideals", which means beliefs or principles that guide behaviour and reflect our desired outcomes.

And the best way to think about ideals and remember what it means, is to view it like, "In an ideal world, this is what I would like to see." So an ideal is if somebody lived in their ideal world, what might that look like? So that's just a really good way of remembering that word.

So before we move on, do pause the video here for a few moments and make sure that you are really familiar with the meanings of these words because we are going to be encountering them quite a lot in today's lesson.

So how is today's lesson going to look? Well, in order to analyse this poem, we're going to start off by exploring ideas of certainty and uncertainty.

And then when we've done that, we're going to look a bit more at how the poem has been built and constructed by exploring Kunial's use of words, sounds and meanings.

So to start off then, thinking about certainty and uncertainty.

Jacob and Alex, two of our Oak pupils, are discussing the speaker of "Us", and Jacob says, "The speaker begins fairly sure of himself and his beliefs, but becomes more uncertain as the poem progresses." Whereas Alex said, "By the end of the poem, the speaker's beliefs seem more like things he wants to happen than things he's observed or believes should be happening.

He uses aspirational language such as 'hope', and 'I'd love to', which suggests an element of uncertainty." So my first question to you is this.

Whose interpretation do you think is most convincing and why? And I've used the word "convincing" here because actually, both of these interpretations are valid.

So it's up to you to decide who you think has articulated their ideas in the most convincing way, the most believable way.

So pause the video here while you take some time to think and make some notes if you're working on your own, or if you're working in a group, take a few moments to discuss this with the people around you.

So pause the video here and click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back.

So I would argue, and I think I overheard most of you are in agreement with me there, that although both responses are valid interpretations, as we just said, Alex's is arguably more convincing because he analyses supporting evidence.

So although both ideas are good ideas, are valid interpretations of the text, Alex goes just that step further by backing up his ideas with evidence.

He's able to prove what is saying is correct or is valid.

So my next question then is how can we help Jacob to make his response more convincing? So take another look at Jacob's interpretation and grab your copy of the poem if you haven't already and see if you can identify some supporting evidence that could help to prove Jacob's point to help show that his interpretation is convincing as well.

So pause the video here and take some time to read it through the poem and select your evidence, and perhaps if you are working in a group, share your evidence with the people around you and when you are ready for us to continue and discuss it together, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back.

Really interesting there is that I overheard lots of people choosing different examples of evidence from the poem.

And this actually proves a really great point about literary text, as usually, there is never one correct way to analyse a certain text, and there's usually no one piece of evidence that could support your point.

And this is often because if you are focusing your interpretation around key ideas or emotions in that text, it is likely that we're gonna see these key ideas woven throughout the entire poem.

So quite often you will find more than one piece of valid supporting evidence.

So do bear that in mind if you might be struggling to find some evidence.

There will usually be multiple examples for you to choose from.

So here is an example of what you might have said.

"The speaker of the poem begins fairly sure of himself and his beliefs, but becomes more uncertain as it progresses.

The opening line, 'If you ask me' indicates that the speaker is willing to offer his opinion and gives the impression this is something he's considered deeply and feels sure about.

However, by the end of the poem, Kunial's use of aspirational language implies that perhaps the speaker isn't as certain as he seemed at the beginning." So here we've got a link, actually, between Jacob's response and between Alex's response, 'cause they're both now drawing on this idea of aspirational language.

So let's explore these ideas of certainty and uncertainty in a bit more detail, in particular, thinking about this use of aspirational language.

So what I would like you to do is have a look at the poem, take a few minutes on your own, independently read through, even better, grab yourselves a highlighter or a different colour pen so you can perhaps annotate or circle some examples of certainty and/or uncertainty in each stanza.

Because what I would like to you do, is actually track how certain or uncertain the speaker seems at different points in the poem.

So as you're going through and thinking about these examples, do think to yourself, "Does this stanza seem particularly certain?", or "Does this stanza seem uncertain?" And why do you think that might be? So here is a list of things you might want to consider when you're having a look through the poem.

So thinking about keywords and phrases in each stanza.

Also thinking about how ideas are progressing or connected between different stanzas.

So tracking particular key ideas or emotions and also the words or phrases Kunial seems to be emphasising, so things he's placed in the foreground.

Remember, things he perhaps wants the reader to see as important and how he is doing that.

So pause the video here while you take some time to have a look over the poem and when you've selected your evidence or your examples, click play and we'll go through it together.

Okay, welcome back.

So let's have a look at some examples that you may have selected.

So I have put them into a table so that we can track perhaps how these ideas of certainty and uncertainty progress across the course of the poem.

So we've got different examples, we've got that first line, "If you ask me".

Then I would argue in stanza two, we've actually got a bit of both, a bit of uncertainty and certainty.

We've got in stanza three, this discussion of the speakers linked to being a football fan.

Stanza four, we have phrases such as "God knows" and they seem to continue in stanza five with lots of uncertainty, words such as "unsure" and "something" which both are fairly ambiguous.

They show that the speaker is not certain about their ideas here.

And then as we noticed in the stanza five and six, we've got some aspirational language there.

"I'd love" and "I hope".

We've got that word "hope" again, there at the end of the poem.

So lots of different examples.

So have a look at the phrases that we've identified here in this table.

And I'd like you to think about whether or not you notice any patterns or progression here.

So thinking really carefully about how certainty and uncertainty progress across the poem.

So pause the video here and take some time to make some notes or discuss it with the people around you.

And when you're ready for us to discuss it together, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back.

Some really, really interesting ideas that I overheard in the discussions there.

So let's just pick up on a few great responses that I overheard.

So things we might have considered then.

First of all, the speaker arguably seems more certain of his ideas in the beginning.

So linking back to those initial interpretations from our Oak pupils there.

And actually we can get this impression because he seems to apply them to many different situations and examples.

So arguably all of these abstract examples that the speaker is giving at the beginning of the poem almost act like perhaps evidence or examples that support his ideas, giving this impression that he is perhaps more certain.

However, later on in the poem, we did see that shift towards uncertain language, and Kunial cleverly built up the number of references to this uncertain language as the poem progressed giving the impression that the speaker is perhaps becoming less sure of himself, particularly when he starts to think about maybe a personal relationship.

And we get this impression because of that shift to using aspirational language or this vague, ambiguous language that we were talking about before.

So now we've thought about how the ideas progress across the poem, it's time for us to consider why you think that might be.

What is the speaker focusing on at the beginning of the poem and then what are they focusing on at the end of the poem? So thinking really carefully about perhaps which ideas Kunial is foregrounding at each point in the poem.

So pause the video here while you take the time to have a think and perhaps discuss it with the people around you.

And when you're ready for us to go through it together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, so welcome back.

Again, I heard lots of fantastic responses there.

So let's just pick up on a few key ideas.

So when we're thinking about the beginning of the poem then, the speaker focuses on his abstract ideas about togetherness, giving all of these different examples and situations where ideas of togetherness are important, and also thinking about how people are both individuals and part of different communities.

So we have this constant back and forth between the individuals and then the larger communities that they perhaps belong to.

So these might be regional communities like the Midlands or this idea of the football fans in the stadium doing the Mexican wave.

However, later on, the speaker seems more uncertain when the focus shifts to his relationship with the "you" figure.

So when perhaps the speaker moves from the abstract into maybe a more concrete personal relationship, this is where the uncertainty comes about.

So maybe his ideals, his idealistic views about togetherness and maybe what he hopes or thinks he would like to see in society aren't as easy to apply in his reality.

So let's pause here and check our understanding.

True or false? Kunial implies the speaker is less certain as the poem progresses, using motivational language such as "hope" to suggest what they would like to happen.

So pause the video here while you have a think.

Is this true or false? And when you've decided, click play and I'll reveal the correct answer.

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

So why was it false? Well actually the statement itself was valid.

The speaker is less certain as the poem progresses and they do use language such as "hope" to suggest what they would like to happen.

However, it did trick you slightly there because Kunial uses aspirational language and not motivational language.

Aspirational language is words linked to wishes, desires and hopes, what we aspire perhaps to see, to imply that the speaker is uncertain about his ability to be united with "you" but is somewhat still optimistic since he hopes.

So aspirational language is that keyword that you wanted there.

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

And I would like you to have a go at completing a single paragraph outline planning a response to the following question: How does Kunial convey the speaker's uncertainty in the poem "Us"? And I've just put a few reminders there about what we'd like to see in each part of this single paragraph outline.

So in your topic sentence, this is where you are clearly introducing that argument and answering that question focus directly.

So we really do want to see that keyword "uncertainty" somewhere in that box.

And then for your supporting detail, we're looking for one to two examples or quotations which directly support what you've said above in that topic sentence.

And then some notes about Kunial's use of methods, perhaps highlighting keywords and crucially, the effect of those methods.

And then finally, for the concluding sentence, this is where we're going to be thinking about the writer's intentions.

So thinking about why we think Kunial made the choices that he did and also any relevant links to wider context.

But it's really important that we only add in the wider context here if it's relevant to what we've said in our topic sentence or in that supporting detail box.

So we need those important links.

So pause the video here while we give this a really good go and click play when you're ready for us to go through it together.

Okay, welcome back and well done for giving that a really good go.

A single paragraph outline is such a useful tool to have in your toolkit when it comes to writing analysis paragraphs, so it's really good to practise using them.

So let's use these questions below then, to review your single paragraph outline and see if perhaps you've included everything that you needed to.

So with your topic sentence, we need to be asking yourself is your topic sentence linked to that question focus? So a great way to answer that question.

Are you using the word "uncertainty" or a synonym, a word of a similar meaning to directly answer that question? Supporting detail then.

Have you included evidence from the text? And then importantly, have you zoomed in on keywords or phrases or methods and commented on their effects or the meanings perhaps that they create? And then finally for that concluding sentence, have you considered why you think Kunial made these creative choices and/or how it could link to the wider context? So thinking really carefully about perhaps Kunial's messages in the poem or what attitudes you think he might have to certainty or uncertainty or togetherness or individuality.

So take some time to review your single paragraph outline using these questions to help you, and considering whether you've thoroughly planned each section.

So do take a moment if you think there's something that you've missed, use this as an opportunity to add it in.

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

So in this section we are going to be exploring how Kunial uses words, sounds and meanings for effect.

So Kunial's poetry is often described as both "playful" and "musical".

So I'd like to hand over to you for a quickfire discussion here or for a moment for you to think about your response to this idea, but how could we interpret "Us" as playful and/or musical? So pause the video here and when you are ready for us to discuss it together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

Lots of really creative discussions that I overheard there.

So let's see what some of our Oak pupils thought about the idea.

So Lucas said, "Kunial playfully explores different words and phrases that sound like or link to "us", this idea of us.

And Laura says, "The sounds of the poem are important.

There are many partial rhymes or examples of assonance and alliteration." And Sam says, "Punctuation and pauses help to create rhythm and emphasise certain ideas." So lots of different ways here that we might be able to interpret this poem as either playful or musical.

So let's explore each of these ideas in a bit more detail, starting with Lucas's idea.

So Lucas is talking about how Kunial is playing on different words and phrases that sound like "us", which we know is the essential idea of this poem because it is in the title.

So over to you then.

Can you identify any words in the poem with similar sounds or meanings to the word "us"? So pause the video here and click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back.

So lots of people discovering there, that there were quite a few.

So when we are thinking about similar sounds and spellings, we've got lots of different words both playing on that "uh" sound, "undulations", "universe", and also playing on that S sound as well, "compressed" "no less".

And then interestingly there we've got "unsure", which if we notice in the middle has actually got that S and the U the other way around.

And that's quite interesting because obviously the word "unsure" is the point where Kunial starts to flip this idea of certainty on its head and flip the idea of what "us" means perhaps on its head.

And then we've also got this idea of similar meanings.

So "us", "we", they both group things together.

And that idea continues.

We've got two places at once.

So things being together again.

And "I hope you're with me", and if that was a literal description, "you are with me," you might be able to describe those two people as we or us.

So why do you think Kunial does this then? What effect does it create? So over to you again for a quick think and time for you to discuss it and then click play when you're ready for us to discuss it together.

Okay, welcome back.

So let's see what we could have said.

So you might have said that it foregrounds the word "us" as a central idea, having all these words that in some way link to it, make sure that that idea really stays foregrounded in the reader's mind.

It subtly introduces deeper meaning.

So this idea that we were just talking about there with "us" and being in the middle of that word "unsure", and it also arguably encourages the reader to think about togetherness and separation throughout the poem.

So they're continually considering this important central idea.

So it's actually quite clever that Kunial is foregrounding that all the way through.

So onto Laura's idea and we're gonna be thinking now about the sounds.

So we're thinking about partial rhymes, we are thinking about assonance and alliteration.

So alliteration is the repetition of those consonant sounds, whereas assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds within a word.

So alliteration perhaps being "six sizzling sausages" and assonance being "how now brown cow", maybe, because it's got that "ow" sound in the middle.

So can you identify any words in the poem with similar sounds or meanings to the word "us"? So over to you again then, pause the video while you have a think and click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back.

So again, lots of examples.

So these U sounds we were just talking about in the previous section.

So "us", "undulation", "young", all of those repeated that idea of assonance there in stanza one.

In stanza six, we've got lots of alliteration, "waves", "wide", "words", and we've also got lots of half rhymes, "loss", "universe", "stress", "us", they keep bringing us back to that end S sound at the ends of the lines.

So what is the effect then of this use of sound? Why do you think Kunial does it so frequently? Because as you can see here, we've got lots of examples.

So pause the video again while you take some time to discuss it or make some notes and click play when you are ready for us to feed back together.

Okay, welcome back.

So again, here are some of the great ideas that you might have covered in your discussions or in your notes.

So perhaps Kunial is using sound in this way, again, to keep drawing reader's attention back to this idea of "us".

He's really foregrounding that as an essential idea in the poem.

Arguably alliteration and assonance speed up or slow down the pace of the poem and encourage the reader to emphasise certain phrases, so that "too wide for words", for example, slows down the pace of the poem, and perhaps emphasises the message of that particular line that makes it stand out against other lines in the poem.

And also these unusual links between words focus perhaps on sounds rather than meanings, perhaps encourage different ways of thinking about togetherness because that's one thing I find quite interesting with rhyme in general, is it sometimes encourages us to link or connect words that we might not usually link or connect because they don't mean similar things or they don't link to similar subjects, but they are just linked by sounds.

So here, it perhaps encourages Kunial to draw on a wider range of examples, which allows for a much more abstract way of thinking about this idea of togetherness.

So on to Sam's idea finally then.

So we have discussed words and their meanings.

We have also discussed sounds and now we're going to think about punctuation and pauses and how they help to create rhythm and emphasise certain ideas.

So here is stanza one with no punctuation or line breaks, and here is stanza one with the punctuation and line breaks.

So what I would like you to do is take a moment to just read both versions aloud.

Now you can do this on your own if you're working on your own, or you can do this with the people around you, perhaps taking it in turns to read a version each in pairs, for example.

But I'd like you to think really carefully about how the punctuation and line breaks affect how you read the poem.

So think really carefully perhaps about what you do each time you encounter a line break or you encounter a piece of punctuation.

So pause the video here while you take some time to read this text aloud.

Perhaps do it a couple of times.

You can really hear those differences, and think about why you think these differences might be there and what effects they have, and when you're ready for us to discuss it together, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back.

I could hear lots of you reading the poem aloud and definitely hear those different versions.

So I wonder what you guys came up with, in terms of what you thought these differences were and how you would summarise them.

So this is what Sam noticed when she read both versions aloud.

The commas then, and that first line that separates "you" and "me" from "us" really emphasises the boundary between division and unity, because on one side we've got "you" and "me".

And then on the other side we have got "us".

So we've got that real physical division there between two individuals and then that idea of togetherness, of people coming together.

And then also in that last line there, the short clauses on that third line, "as if from one coast you could reach out to." They help to speed up the pace because we've got those short chunks, and they actually emphasise the division and togetherness, since there are lots of little chunks which need other chunks to make sense.

We've got this idea that each of those parts of that line require the next bit and the next bit to make sense as a whole.

And we could actually argue that the idea continues because the rest of this idea you could "reach out to the next", which are the first two words of stanza two.

So it continues that idea that each of these bits requires the next bit, because not only do these clauses connect the parts of this line, but they also connect this line with the next line, and this stanza with the next stanza.

So did you notice any of these differences or did you notice any others? Make a note perhaps of some of these that you noticed and maybe take a moment to share with the people around you or go back over stanza one and see if you can pull out any extra ideas about the rhythm and the punctuation and the line breaks.

So pause the video here one last time and click play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, so let's pause here and check our understanding.

How can assonance or partial rhymes affect our interpretation of a poem? So take a look at these four options and decide which one you think best answers the question.

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 and D, a tricky one there 'cause there were two reasons.

It can draw attention to, or emphasise certain words or phrases, but it can also speed up or slow down the pace of a poem.

So really worth remembering those effects there.

So onto the final task of today's lesson then.

So I would like you to have a go at annotating stanzas five, six, and seven of the poem.

So we're looking at the end of the poem and we've got it there on the screen, exploring how Kunial uses punctuation and line breaks for effect.

So important questions to ask yourself then, where are the pauses and the breaks? You might want to circle them or underline or highlight them.

How long or dramatic do you think each one is? What ideas do you think that they're aiming to emphasise and how do they affect the pace of the poem? Do they speed it up? Do they slow it down? Why do you think that might be? So take as long as you need to to annotate these stanzas in as much detail as you can.

And when you're ready for us to feed back together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope you had long enough there to really get to grips with these stanzas.

So here are just some of the annotations you could have made.

So feel free if you didn't manage to get any of these, to add to your notes as we go along.

So we've got that first line then, "When it comes to us, colour me unsure." We've got this idea again of those short phrases separated by that comma.

So they perhaps add drama to the speaker's bombshell revelation.

"When it comes to us," pause, "colour me unsure." It adds that dramatic pause between the speaker's revelation that perhaps they are quite uncertain about the "you" figure.

On that third line there then, we've got this play on the word "stretch", because if you notice, the use of those two dashes actually stretches that phrase out a bit more.

So we're getting that idea again of that playful nature of the poem.

And then in that next stanza, we've got a similar idea to what we were talking about before.

The commas separate where "you" and "I" are.

So it actually further divides them.

"You get here where I'm coming from." So we've got this idea that there's something there in the middle that is dividing these two figures.

And then we've also got this separated phrase there, this "between love and loss", and again, the use of those two dashes.

And we could argue that this separated phrase implies the speaker sees love as agreeing with him.

So agreeing with his ideas about togetherness and perhaps about this relationship, and loss as giving up his individuality.

So, "I hope you're with me on this, between love", which might be this idea of the "you" figure being with them on this and then loss where they feel they would have to give themselves away.

So perhaps this suggests a little bit about the speaker and their personality and perhaps their views on their identity.

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

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

The speaker of the poem begins fairly sure of his views on divisions and togetherness, but becomes more uncertain later on.

Kunial uses aspirational language to show the speaker's uncertainty towards the end of the poem.

Kunial playfully explores sounds and words which link to "us" and emphasises this as a central idea of the poem.

There are many examples of partial rhymes, alliteration and assonance throughout the poem.

And finally, punctuation and line breaks are used creatively to draw attention to particular phrases or ideas.

So thank you for joining me in today's lesson.

I hope you have a fantastic day and I look forward to seeing you again soon.