Hi there.

Welcome to today's lesson.

Really glad you could join me today.

My name is Mr. Barnsley and today we're gonna be continuing to explore poetry from the Eduqas anthology.

In particular, we're gonna be focusing on Emily Dickinson's "As Imperceptibly as Grief." Now, you should have already looked at this poem.

Make sure you understand some of the main themes of this poem before you start today's lesson.

So if you haven't already done that, you should probably do that first.

Okay, make sure you've got a copy of the poem or your copy of the anthology in front of you, and let's get ready to go.

So, let's have a look at the outcome of today's lesson.

By the end of the lesson, you are gonna be able to explain how Dickinson uses language and poetic structure to express her viewpoint.

There are five key words today.

They are cyclical, the verb to lapse, harrowing, liminal, and metre.

Let's have a look at what they mean.

So if something is cyclical, it means it's repeating in a predictable pattern or cycle.

The verb to lapse, this comes directly from the poem, means to temporarily fall into a state of inactivity or failure.

Harrowing, again, this is an adjective we see in the poem, is something that's extremely distressing or traumatic, causing intense emotional pain.

Now, the word liminal, you might recognise if you've covered any gothic poetry.

It's a trope we expect to see in gothic poetry or gothic fiction, and it describes a transitional phase.

So for example, being a teenager is a liminal state, is a liminal stage between being a child and being an adult, so one to keep an eye out for.

And then finally, metre is a rhythmic pattern or arrangement of syllables in poetry.

So when we start to think about the poetic structure, we might be thinking about metre there.

So these five words are things to look out for, things to use in your own discussions and your own writing.

So, if you need to take some a moment to note them down, now is the time to do that.

Otherwise, let's get started.

So you should have already read Emily Dickinson's poem, "As Imperceptibly as Grief." Today, we're gonna be diving in and looking at it in more detail.

So, in our first learning cycle we're gonna explore Dickinson's use of light imagery.

And then in the second learning cycle, we're gonna look at her use of rhythm and rhyme.

So, let's start by thinking about the use of light imagery.

So, first of all, just to make sure we all remember the poem, I want you to look at the Oak pupils' summaries of the poem and think about who you most agree with and why.

So Sofia said or Sofia summarised the poem as it being about a speaker comparing the transition from summer to autumn to the grieving process.

Lucas said it was about a speaker who uses the metaphor of a fading summer to represent the fleeting nature of time.

And Aisha said it was a speaker who was grieving the passing of summer.

Pause the video.

If you've got a partner you can discuss with them who do you agree with most? And if you're working by yourself, you can just think through this independently.

All right, pause the video, have a think, and press play when you are ready to move on.

All right, welcome back.

I wonder who you agreed with.

I think we could say that all three pupils certainly are not wrong.

They've all done a good job at summarising different interpretations.

Arguably, Aisha's summary is the least useful for us because whilst yes on the surface that is what appears to be happening in the poem, if we just look at it in that literal sense, I think we'll be missing some really interesting analysis.

So I think Sofia and Lucas's ideas about it being about the passing of time or the grieving process are both really interesting ideas that we might want to explore in more detail in today's lesson.

All right, so let's have a think then.

What could daylight symbolise? Lovely image on the screen there of the sun shining brightly.

What does daylight symbolise to you? Why don't you pause the video.

If you've got a partner, you can share some ideas.

If you're working independently, you can just think through this by yourself.

All right, pause the video, have a think, press play when you are ready to share some of your ideas.

Yes, some really lovely ideas that I wonder if you said something like new beginnings, the sun rising each day could represent a new beginning.

You could have talked about life.

We know that how many things on earth could not live without the sun.

Most things would not be able to live without the light from the sun.

Happiness, a lot of people feel joyful and happy when the sun is shining outside.

And hope, a lot of people often associate kind of the daylight with hope of being really hopeful.

I'd be surprised, but maybe I'm wrong, but I think most of us would've been saying some really positive ideas, some really positive connotations when we think of the word daylight and light.

What I'd like you to do now, making sure you've got a copy of the poem or your copy of anthology open.

Can you find all the references to light in Dickinson's poem? Why don't you pause the video and just reread the poem.

And as you're doing, as you're rereading, keep an eye out and see if you can find any references to light in that poem.

All right, pause video over to you and press play when you think you found them all.

Welcome back.

It's always useful to read a poem for a second and third and fourth time.

We should never just read that poem once.

So that was a really useful task for us.

Let's have a look if we found all the quotations.

Well, you might have found, "As twilight long begun." You might have also thought about this phrase, "The dusk drew in earlier." So, dusk is the time just before the sun rises, so that we can might make the link there to sunlight and sunrise.

"The morning foreign shone." So this is talking about the morning sun shining.

And, "Our summer made her light escape," so the light of the summer escapes at the end of the poem.

Did you notice anything about the light imagery in this poem? Did it feel hopeful and positive like the connotations that we discussed in the activity just before? Why don't you pause the video and reflect about what you might be noticing about Dickinson's use of light imagery? Pause the video, have a little reflect, and press play when you think you have an answer.

I wonder what you thought there.

I wonder if you said anything similar to the Oak pupils who were also doing some similar thinking.

Lucas said, "Well words such as twilight and dusk are times when the sunlight is actually quite limited.

This, coupled with the summer light escaping at the end of the poem, makes it seem actually not that hopeful and quite melancholic." That's really interesting because I think on a lot of our first readings we might not have said this poem was less melancholic than we thought a poem about grief might be.

And it seemed quite reflective and hopeful.

Yet when we look at the light imagery, it's maybe not as positive and hopeful as we would assume light imagery might be.

Sofia said, but this is important.

"The sun does rise again." Yes, there are moments when there is less light, there's moments of darkness, but the sun rises again, specifically through that quotation, "The morning foreign shone." It really illustrates that light will appear again.

I wonder if you said that it might not have felt as overwhelmingly positive as we expected and in some places, it might have even felt slightly negative.

However, it might be wrong to say that there is no hope or this is a hopelessness comes from the use of light imagery.

All right, let's track the light imagery through the poem then.

So we start with summer, and even though doesn't explicitly say light, when we think of summer, we think of those long light days, but we know it's lapsing away.

We then have that as twilight long begun before moving into the dusk, before looking at that morning sunshine and then summer making her light escape as autumn arrives.

What I'd like you to do is look at the light in each of those images.

Okay, so we've thought about the quotations, but let's look at these specific images that these quotations should be bringing to our mind.

How could you link the journey through those images, the light, the journey of the light through those imageries to this idea of grief? Why don't you pause the video.

I think this would be a nice time to discuss with a partner if you have one.

But don't worry if you're working by yourself, you can just think through this independently.

Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to share some reflections.

Welcome back.

Well done for having those discussions so sensitively here, I really liked when people were talking about how within these images there isn't always this beautiful bright light.

And just like the grieving process, there are gonna be times of darkness, there are gonna be times of sadness, there are gonna be times when it feels like the light is really struggling to break through, but breakthrough it does.

And particularly in that image of "The morning foreign shone," the morning, the new beginning, the new day suggests that there is some hope, there is some light after the darkness.

Now, I wonder if anyone started to think about the fact that even though autumn arrives, that one day summer will return again.

So, actually whilst the poem only tracks the journey from summer to autumn, we could almost see this journey as cyclical because one day summer will reappear.

How can we take that idea about this journey being cyclical? It's a cycle.

What might that tell us about grief? Why don't you pause the video, have a little bit of a think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

I heard people using this word hopeful, this word saying that some of the good times will return.

And I don't think that's saying that you will ever completely forget about grief, but it does give this kind of reassurance and this acceptance and this hope that grief will not always be this all consuming, overwhelming emotion.

And that one day almost imperceptively, you might notice that it's not always weighing you down.

It's not always there.

All right, some really, really, really nice discussions there.

Really well done if you said anything similar.

All right, let's check how we're getting on then, shall we? True or false, the cyclical nature of Dickinson's use of light imagery could offer hope to a reader.

Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you think you have the answer.

Yeah, really well done if you said that was true.

Now, let's justify that.

Is it the fact that the summer will again return implies that happiness can also return after grief? Or is it that it suggests that death is a natural part of life and is something that all readers should find reassuring? Pause the video, have a little bit of a think.

Which of these best justifies the fact that that statement is true? And press play when you think you have the answer.

Well done if you said A.

I think Dickinson's poem does ask us to lean into to this and accept this idea that death is a natural part of life.

However, I think the light imagery itself offers hope because it's saying, look, things can get better, there can be light after the darkness and summer will return.

So, I think A is a much better justification for that statement being true.

Well done if you've got that correct.

Okay, it's over to you now for the first task and we are gonna do some annotating.

For each of these quotations that we've looked at, for each of these five quotations that link to the idea about light imagery, I've got you some questions that I want you to work through and I want you to use these questions to help you annotate your copies of the poem, whether that's in your anthology or if you've just got a separate copy of the poem.

So let's start with that first quotation from the beginning of the poem.

And I want you to think about what tone is immediately created when we learn that grief can lapse away like summer.

Okay, so the summer is lapsing away, but we're comparing this lapsing summer to grief.

So let's think about what tone is created when we learn that.

Focusing on that quotation that looks at the twilight, where is beauty in twilight? What does it tell us about, do you think, Dickens intentions behind writing this poem? When we're focusing on that quotation about the dusk, I want you to think about what could the absence of light symbolise? By the morning sun rising.

It's a really beautiful quote, but it also is paired with it.

Well, the morning sun brings a courteous yet harrowing grace on the next line.

Why does this line feel so unexpected, particularly at this moment of the poem? Think about what that word harrowing means.

That key word meaning something deeply upsetting.

And finally, by the end of the poem, we know that the light escapes into the beautiful.

Does Dickinson seem upset about that? What might that tell us again about her intentions behind writing this poem? So five questions to look at, five quotations, pause the video and use each of these questions to really develop your annotations of each of these quotations.

All right, pause the video, give this a go, and press play when you're ready to continue.

All right, really great work there.

Let's have a look at some of the things that you might have said.

So, you might have said that whilst the summer lapsing away could create this melancholic tone, the days are getting shorter, the nights are getting longer.

The fact that grief is being compared to something that is so gradual, it's not an overwhelming thing, could suggest that, actually, there's almost a reassuring tone here rather than melancholic.

And when we look at that quote involving "twilight," what we know, it's a liminal time of day.

It's a transitional moment between day and night.

Yet it's really important to remember that light still exists here.

Even as the darkness is attempting to creep in, there is still some light.

And this light could represent the hope amongst all the sadness that we know grief does bring.

Now, by the time we're looking at the dusk, however, we know there is an absence of light.

And I think this is implying, this is Dickinson acknowledging that grief is undoubtedly a really, really difficult time.

And at times it may feel overwhelming and it may feel hopeless.

However, we know that the dusk happens the moment before sunrise, the moment before the sun shines again, the moment before the light returns.

However, that morning sun, when it does arrive and however hopeful it feels, there is a juxtaposition of the harrowing grace that it brings with it.

And I guess this could imply that actually Dickinson might not have completely or be completely ready to lose the feeling of grief.

So, that morning sun really reflects that grief is leaving, grief is moving away, grief is becoming easier to deal with.

The fact that she finds that grace that it brings quite harrowing, quite distressing suggests maybe she's not ready.

She's not ready to lose that feeling of grief because grief is a reminder that you have loved someone.

Grief is a reminder that you've lost them as someone you intensely loved them.

And perhaps Dickinson is almost arguing here that yes, it's great that there's something really hopeful about knowing that grief will not consume you forever.

But there's also something really reassuring about it existing because it means that you've really loved someone and so intensely.

And finally, we know that the light escapes into the beautiful.

And I think that can really act as a reminder that we cannot or should not be upset by the passing of time.

It's such a beautiful part of the cycle of life.

And, actually, so is grief because grief exists because we have loved, grief exists because we have cared.

So, for grief to exist, it must mean there has been some real special relationship or something really special to us and, actually, that should be celebrated to however difficult it feels.

Some really, really nice ideas.

Well done if you've got anything similar.

Now's the time to make sure that your annotations on your poem really reflect all the brilliant discussions that we've had.

Okay, so let's move on to our second learning cycle.

We're gonna look at rhyme and rhythm.

So, the poem has a fairly regular iambic metre.

Remember this is the pattern of the syllables, and iambic means it goes unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed.

So a shorter, a longer, shorter, longer syllable.

Each line in the poem is either six or eight syllables long.

So there's a relatively regular rhythm, okay? When we read it, it creates this regular rhythm.

In fact, actually from line five onwards to the end of the poem, the syllable structure repeats itself every four lines.

So line four, five, six, and.

Sorry, line five, six, seven, and eight have exactly the same syllable structure as lines nine, 10, 11, and 12.

And that can be represented by this image.

So six syllables, six syllables, eight syllables, six syllables, with the shorter one being the unstressed syllable and the longer block representing a stress syllable, so you can see this is a really regular rhythm.

And a regular rhythm can represent actually many things in a poem.

It could represent consistency, it could represent the need to conform to an idea, it could represent joyfulness.

It sounds almost melodic, it could represent harmony, everything working well together.

So it can represent lots of different things.

However, we always want to make a connection between the ideas that it could represent and the poet's actual purpose.

So I don't want to make a generic comment that all regular rhythms represent harmony because if this isn't a poem about harmony, that's not gonna make sense.

So over to you to do a bit of thinking, what could a regular rhythm represent in Emily Dickinson's poem? If you've got a partner, you might want to share some ideas with them.

Otherwise, you can just work through this and think through this independently.

All right, pause the video, have a think and press play when you are ready to reflect on your discussions.

Some really interesting ideas there, and remember, you always want to make sure any of your inferences are logical and can be supported with from the text.

So Sofia said, "Perhaps this regular rhythm represents the consistency with which time passes." We know time is always going to pass and this consistency can be really reassuringly predictable.

So, well done if you said something similar, however, you may notice that the rhythm at the start of the poem is ever so slightly different.

So the change between those first four lines and then that regular rhythm of the rest of the poem can be represented by the diagram below.

So you can see those first four lines has an extra line where there is eight syllables, the opening line.

I want you to think about then why might Dickinson have included this very subtle shift in rhythm between the first four lines of the poem and the rest of the poem.

All right, very, very subtle.

It's one line that's slightly different.

What might that represent? Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you think you might have an idea.

I wonder if you said something similar to Lucas.

Lucas said that, "Arguably, the change shortly after the summer lapses away can represent the imperceptible changes that happen as time passes.

So, this imperceptibility is being reflected in the rhythm that Dickinson uses.

Really nice idea from Lucas and well done if you've got something similar.

All right, let's check our understanding then.

So Lucas and Sofia have both made some comments about the use of rhythm in the poem.

I want to think about whose response is the most relevant.

Is it Lucas who says, "Perhaps Dickinson's subtle shift in rhythm from the first four lines to the rest of the poem could represent the imperceptible changes that happen as time passes and grief comes and goes?" Or is it Sofia who says, "Arguably Dickinson uses a regular rhythm to represent the uncertainty that grief brings.

Time can pass unpredictably when consumed with overwhelming grief." Pause the video and have a think about who you most agree with.

Press play when you think you have an answer.

Really well done if you said Lucas who I think has got a really great idea here.

I'm not sure Sofia's idea is that logical, because actually regular rhythm, I don't think really reflects this idea of uncertainty.

It seems to be represent predictability rather than unpredictability.

So yeah, I'm not sure Sofia's answer quite worked there.

Okay, now let's start thinking about rhyme.

So Dickinson employs a traditional ballad rhyme scheme.

That's why the lines, the end, the final word in each line has this rhyming pattern, A, B, C, B, so this means only the second and fourth lines.

If we kind of group each group of lines into four, only the second and fourth lines are gonna rhyme.

So we know there are 16 lines in this poem.

So that means there should be four lots of pairs of rhymes.

I want to think about what you notice about them.

I put them all on the screen.

I'm not gonna say them out loud.

I want you to read them and maybe say them out loud yourself.

What do you notice about the rhymes that Dickinson uses? Pause the video, have a little think.

Say these words out loud if you need to and tell me what you notice about the rhymes that are being used.

All right, pause the video over to you, press play when you're ready to continue.

Really well done.

If you notice these were near rhymes as in for most of them they have kind of some syllables and some sounds in common, but they're not quite perfect rhymes apart from one.

So I want you to think about what is the significance of using near rhymes rather than full rhymes.

And why does Dickinson only use one full rhyme shone and gone? Really look at that specific moment in the poem and think about why use that full rhyme at that moment there.

All right, pause the video, work through these two questions and then press play when you think you might have some ideas.

All right, welcome back.

I had some really interesting discussion there.

It can sometimes feel quite difficult to talk about rhyme, but remember you always want to tie things back to the writer's intention.

So let's have a look at things that you might have said.

So you might have said something along the lines of that.

Actually, there is a real subtlety in Dickinson's rhyme scheme.

Those near rhymes are really subtle and that again can represent the imperceptibility that runs throughout the her poem.

And we know that imperceptibility, this gradual process, this gradual process of time is a really important idea in her poetry.

We could also say that interestingly she uses full rhyme when describing the morning sun with its harrowing grace.

So, earlier in the lesson, we talked about how that felt like a real juxtaposition and almost created this idea that perhaps she missed grief.

So, perhaps by adding this full rhyme, it slightly softens this juxtaposing image and it suggests that yes, Dickinson will miss grief, but there is also a moment in hope in grief kind of leaving.

So, like, really nice idea there.

I hope you managed to get some similar ideas to that.

And of course you might have slightly different ideas and that's fine as long as they're logical and you can justify them using the text.

All right, let's check that we've understood everything that we've been thinking about with rhyme.

Dickinson's use of near rhyme creates an unnerving tone to the poem.

Is that true or false? Pause video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Yeah, you should have said false there.

Now, it's time for you to justify your answer.

Is it because the near rhymes highlight the imperceptibility, which runs throughout the poem emphasising how grief can creep upon you without you realising? Or is it B, the near rhymes highlight the imperceptibility, which runs throughout the poem emphasising how grief will eventually fade perhaps without you noticing? Why don't you pause video, have a think, and press play when you are ready, when you think you've got the correct justification.

Yes, both answers talk about imperceptibility, but I think it's saying that actually grief will eventually fade and that means you might not even notice.

So it doesn't create an unnerving tone.

If anything, it creates quite a hopeful, reassuring tone.

All right, over to you then.

For our final task of today's lesson, you are going to write a paragraph answering this question.

How does Dickinson present the power of time in her poem? I've given you a single paragraph outline.

I've given you a plan.

You now need to turn this into a fully fledged written response.

So I've given you my topic sentence, which is, "Throughout her melancholic yet reassuring poem, Dickinson presents the imperceptibility of time as a great healer in the grieving process." So, the fact that time means so imperceptively means that we heal from a grieving process without not always knowing about it.

Supporting details, I'm gonna suggest you use the light imagery, twilight, the morning light, the fact that the sun will rise again.

Tracking that light imagery across the poem and saying what that we learn about the grieving process.

But I'd also like you to talk about the metre.

Think about the subtle shifts in the rhythm and how that can represent imperceptibility of time.

How can that represent predictability? And also that near rhyme.

Also representing this idea of intercept imperceptibility is a real reassurance that things will change slowly over time.

Lots of ideas for you to include in the body of your paragraph.

And then it will be over to you to write your own concluding sentence.

Remember concluding sentence should always link back to the topic sentence, but have a really clear focus on the writer's intention.

So really think about what we've discussed in today's lesson about what Dickinson might have been trying to suggest, portray, what messages might she want to share with us through her poetry? All right, best of luck with this.

I know you can write a really great response.

Pause the video, give this a go, and press play when you're ready to do some reflecting.

All right, welcome back, some fantastic work there and a really, really well done to all of you.

Check your spelling, punctuation, grammar before you put your pen down.

That was great to see.

All right, before we finish today's lesson, I want a moment of reflecting.

So I'm gonna give you some coaching questions that you can have in your mind as you go back and review your work.

Using those coaching questions, I'd also like you to give yourself a what went well, really identify something that you've done well, and an even better if something that you might try and do better next time.

So here are the coaching questions.

I want you to think about where have you shown you understand how Dickinson uses light imagery in her poem? Where have you shown that you can track an image across the poem and explain its effect? Where have you shown that you can explain the effect of metre and rhythm in the poem? Where have you shown that you can explain the effect of rhyme schemes? And where have you shown, where have you linked Dickinson's use of a variety of poetic methods back to her intentions? Okay, over to you.

Pause the video, do some reflecting, and press play when you think you are done.

Okay, really well done today.

I've been really impressed with how you've tackled this poem.

It's not an easy poem.

So, the level of discussion, the level of analysis you've done on it has been fantastic to see.

Super job.

Before we say goodbye, let's do a quick summary of what we've learned today.

I want you to feel really confident about all these things before you move on to your next lesson.

So we've learned that perhaps Dickinson uses light imagery in her poem to represent hope within the darkness of grief.

We talked about how the cyclical nature of the her poem could illustrate that life and grief come and go.

It's a very natural process.

We thought about the idea that Dickinson uses a regular rhythm to represent the predictability of the passing of time.

And we also thought about how subtle shifts in rhythm and near rhyme could represent the imperceptibility of both time passing and healing from grieving.

All right, really great job today.

I hope you're really proud of yourself.

I certainly am really proud of you.

I hope to see you one of our lessons in the future.

Have a great day, however you choose to spend the rest of your day.

And yeah, I hope to see you all soon.

Goodbye.