Hello, it's great to see you today.

Welcome to your lesson on analysing the poem "Search for My Tongue" by Sujata Bhatt.

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

I can't wait to read this amazing poem with you.

Our learning outcome for today is to analyse the imagery in "Search for My Tongue" and link this with the theme of pride.

We have three keywords today.

Let's talk about them a little bit.

The first keyword is belonging.

Belonging means feeling happy or comfortable as part of a group, so you might feel a sense of belonging with your friends or your family.

Our next keyword is immigrant.

An immigrant is a person who has come to a different country to live there permanently.

People might immigrate for different reasons.

One reason might be to seek new opportunities, another reason might be for a change of lifestyle.

And lastly, pride.

Pride is a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction because of something you have achieved, possess or are part of.

Someone might feel a great sense of pride after passing an exam, or someone might feel pride when their sibling speaks their first word.

I'll give you a moment to reflect upon those keywords now.

Excellent, let's go through our learning cycles for today.

In our first learning cycle, we'll be reading the poem "Search for My Tongue" by Sujata Bhatt, and I'm really excited to read that poem with you because it's one of my favourites.

In our second learning cycle, we'll be analysing the imagery in "Search for My Tongue." This poem is full of rich imagery that we can really dissect, so we'll spend some time looking at that.

But for now, let's start with reading and enjoying "Search for My Tongue." Before we read, I want you to discuss what are the different things that make you feel a sense of belonging in a certain place.

Pause the video and discuss that question.

Perhaps you said clothes, food, celebrations, language, dialect, people, animals, and nature.

They can all contribute to you feeling like you belong in a certain place.

Today's poem "Search for My Tongue" will focus on how language influences our belonging to a certain place.

You may feel like you belong in some places more than others due to language, and we'll explore how that is a theme in Sujata Bhatt's poem.

Let's make some predictions.

What do you think the poem "Search for My Tongue" could be about? Make sure you're really unpicking each word in the title to help you make your predictions.

Pause the video and discuss.

Perhaps you noticed the words "search" and "my" and reflected upon the fact that this poem could be about a personal journey, because the writer may be looking for something that is important to them.

You may have also said that this poem could reflect on language because we know that sometimes the word tongue is used in the place of the word language.

You may have also reflected on the fact that if someone's searching for something, they may have lost something and they want to find it.

And lastly, perhaps then, adding those things together, this poem could be about looking for one's voice.

Well done if you said any of that and well done even if you've got your own unique interpretations too.

Now let's read the poem "Search for My Tongue" by Sujata Bhatt.

I hope you enjoy the poem.

Pause the video and have a read.

Now, I hope you enjoyed that.

It's time for some discussion questions to reflect upon what you've read.

The first question is, what does Bhatt mean when she refers to her tongue? Or what do you think she means? The second question is, what is unique about this poem? What does this poem do differently to other poems that you might have read? And number three, what do you think Bhatt's story is? What is she telling us about herself in this poem? Pause the video and discuss those three questions now.

Let's go through some possible ideas.

So, when Bhatt talks about her tongue, we can assume that she's talking about language and we come to that conclusion from looking at all the other words and phrases that she talks about in the poem.

Number two, what is unique about this poem? For me, this was one of the first poems I read that had a section in another language other than English.

So for me, that's what made the poem unique, the use of Gujarati made the poem unique and different when I was reading it.

And lastly, what do you think that story is? We seem to hear Bhatt tell us her story about immigration.

We hear how she came to a new country and couldn't speak her native tongue anymore, couldn't speak the language she grew up with, and we learn about the hardship of that.

Well done if you said any of that.

Now let's check your understanding of what we've discussed.

The second stanza of "Search for My Tongue" is particularly interesting because.

Pause the video and complete that sentence, off you go.

The second stanza of "Search for My Tongue" is particularly interesting because Bhatt writes in her mother tongue, Gujarati.

As we've said, the rest of the poem is written in English, so that section really does stand out.

Remember, Gujarati is a language that originates in India, so by Bhatt's use of Gujarati we learn that Bhatt has origins in India.

So, let's learn a little bit more about Sujata Bhatt now.

Sujata Bhatt is an Indian poet who immigrated to America in 1968.

She said she feels as if certain parts of her are Indian whilst others are Western.

She now lives in Germany and she describes her identity as always changing.

I now want you to discuss how does the information about Sujata Bhatt that we've just read help you to understand the poem "Search for My Tongue" a little bit better? Pause the video and discuss.

Perhaps you mentioned that learning about Sujata Bhatt's journey, learning that she grew up in India and moved to America and then moved to Germany, that tells us about some of her unique life experiences and how she may have struggled through some of those experiences, which is reflected in the poem because we see her losing a part of herself when she does immigrate.

Now let's check your understanding of what we've discussed.

Sujata Bhatt describes her identity as stagnant, one-dimensional or changing? Pause the video and complete the sentence.

Sujata Bhatt describes her identity as changing.

Maybe that's because she grew up in India, moved to America, and then moved to Germany.

Perhaps being in different places impacted on Sujata Bhatt's identity.

Perhaps each of those places she lived contributed something to her identity, meaning it was never fixed.

Now I want you to complete the table here to track the emotion in the poem "Search for My Tongue." This is going to give us a really good understanding of the poem.

What you need to do is give each stanza a summary, so tell exactly what's happening in each stanza, and then I want you for each stanza to write about the feelings Sujata Bhatt shows, because each stanza in this poem seems to have a slightly different tone or emotion.

Pause the video now and complete your table, off you go.

Great focus there, let's look at what you may have written.

So, for stanza one, we could summarise it by saying, in this stanza, Bhatt talks of the difficulties of not being able to speak Gujarati after immigrating.

Let's reflect now upon the feelings she shows in that stanza.

In that stanza, she seems to express fear that she's lost her mother tongue.

She feels like she doesn't know it anymore because she doesn't use it often.

She feels like it's potentially not part of her anymore and she wouldn't be able to have a conversation in Gujarati anymore.

In stanza two, Bhatt dreams in Gujarati, proving she has not lost her mother tongue after all.

In this stanza, we see Sujata Bhatt's pride because she writes in her mother tongue and she allows us to see the beauty of her language.

We could also say that there's a sense of relief communicated in that stanza because of course Sujata Bhatt has not lost her mother tongue, she still very much has a good grip of her language.

And in stanza three, Bhatt celebrates her ability to still speak her mother tongue.

She talks about how her mother tongue grows back like a flower.

And in this stanza I felt the sense of triumph from Bhatt and how she found strength in the presence of her mother tongue.

It seems like she grew strong and powerful like the flower the more and more she reconnected with her mother tongue.

Well done on completing your table, I hope that's given you an excellent understanding of the poem.

So we're now going to analyse the wonderful imagery in the poem "Search for My Tongue." Firstly, what imagery does Bhatt use in the poem and what do you think it represents? Pause the video and discuss.

In the poem "Search for My Tongue," Bhatt uses imagery referencing rotting, and she also uses plants imagery such as a seed growing into a flower and blossoming.

Let's now reflect upon this question.

How does the imagery help us to understand the feelings Bhatt went through as an immigrant? Pause the video and discuss.

Bhatt uses the imagery of rotting in the beginning of the poem when she feels like she's lost her mother tongue, and that probably represents the time she was an immigrant in a new country and was still adjusting to it and was still finding a way to be herself.

So I think the imagery of rotting there would reflect her fear and maybe her shame in losing parts of her identity she thought were really, really important and in being out of touch with her culture, potentially.

The imagery towards the end of the poem where Bhatt starts talking about language as a plant that grows into something beautiful can help us perhaps reflect on the fact that as an immigrant Bhatt learned to express herself fully and she learned to reconnect with her identity despite being in a country that was foreign to her.

Here are some more ideas on the screen now.

I'll give you a moment to read through them.

Now, I want you to consider each example of imagery that we've just discussed and match each image to the possible meaning.

Pause the video and match up each image to the possible meaning, off you go.

For picture A of rotting, that could represent Bhatt's shame in neglecting her mother tongue and her fear of losing it.

We associate negative feelings with something rotting and we associate rotting with not being useful anymore, so perhaps that's how Bhatt felt about losing her mother tongue.

Picture B could represent the long journey of self-discovery Bhatt went on and how she found a way to let her identity and heritage finally thrive.

And lastly, the blossoming, that could represent Bhatt's pride in reconnecting with her mother tongue and finding parts of her identity she thought was lost.

Much like we see a flower blossoming as beautiful, Bhatt suggests that finding her mother tongue again was indeed a beautiful experience.

Let's answer this question to check our understanding.

Which imagery permeates "Search for My Tongue"? Permeates means something that is spread throughout, so which imagery is spread throughout the poem "Search for My Tongue"? Pause the video and answer that question.

Well done if you said plant imagery permeates "Search for My Tongue." We see Bhatt to talk of her language as a plant that grows and grows and grows until it becomes a beautiful flower.

Now for our practise task, you are going to write a paragraph answering the question, how does Bhatt show pride in her identity and heritage in "Search for My Tongue"? In short, you use evidence from the poem in your response.

So you could write about how Bhatt talks of her mother tongue in the first stanza, how Bhatt chooses to write the second stanza, the use of plant imagery in the final stanza, and the final image in the poem.

Pause the video and complete your paragraph, off you go.

Excellent focus there.

Let's go through some ideas then.

This is an idea.

"Bhatt shows pride in her identity as she talks of her mother tongue, Gujarati, flourishing like a flower at the end of the poem.

A flower is beautiful, so it means she finds her native language also beautiful." How can we improve this response? Pause the video and discuss.

This response could be improved by the inclusion of quotes from the poem and potentially extending the analysis of the plant imagery.

Let's look at how that can be done.

"Bhatt shows pride in her identity as she talks of her mother tongue Gujarati becoming 'strong' at the end of the poem.

This image suggests Bhatt feels empowered to remember her roots and feel reconnected with her native identity.

The final image of the mother tongue 'blossoming' at the end of the poem evokes ideas of spring and renewal.

It suggests that finding her mother tongue again brings hope to Bhatt and is almost like a rebirth where Bhatt proclaims her identity." See there how we've added quotes in and we've talked about the idea of blossoming not only representing something beautiful but also symbolising spring and rebirth.

I want you now to reread your own work.

Ensure you have used quotes and considered what the plant imagery might mean.

Pause the video and reflect on your own work now.

Brilliant attempts to improve your work there.

Here's what we've learned today.

"Search for My Tongue" shows the importance of language in shaping our identity.

Initially, Bhatt fears she has lost her mother tongue, Gujarati, after immigrating to America.

Bhatt then finds her mother tongue again, writing the second stanza in Gujarati.

Bhatt ends the poem showing pride in her ability to still speak her mother tongue.

And lastly, Bhatt uses plant imagery in the poem to reflect the power of one's native language.

Thank you so much for joining me in today's lesson.

I hope you've enjoyed that poem as much as I did.

I'll see you soon for another lesson.