Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to today's English lesson.

Where you are going to be focusing on the Romantic era of literature and its key themes.

But before we begin, you need to make sure that you've got something to write with and something to write on and that you've moved any potential distractions out of the way.

You're more than welcome to pause the video here and go and grab anything that you need.

And when you're done, come back to me and resume the video.

Let's begin today's lesson by considering our agenda.

We're going to begin by looking at what is a Romantic poet.

Then we're going to move on to some key vocabulary, specifically the word oppression.

Then we're going to look at the key themes in Romantic poetry before we finish by applying our knowledge of those key themes.

So let's move forward with today's lesson.

The first thing we're to consider, is what is a Romantic poet? Using your knowledge of the word Romantic, I want you to consider in your own head, what do you think a poem from the Romantic era might be about? I'm going to leave that with you for a few seconds while you think about it.

Hopefully, you've got some ideas and I want to hear them.

So after three; one, two, three.

Thank you for that.

Let's see whether you were correct.

Many people would probably respond with something to do with love or relationships, because of the word romantic.

And that makes complete sense.

But notice that the word Romantic has a capital R at the beginning.

Romantic poem with a capital R.

This means that the poem actually comes from a time known as the Romantic era.

So the capital R signifies the fact the poem comes from the Romantic era.

And similarly, if a poet is a Romantic poet, that means that they were writing during the Romantic era.

So, what is a Romantic poet? While Romantics didn't necessarily write about what we may associate with the word romantic today.

Their poems often explored a love and respect for nature and the natural world.

The Romantic period was at its peak in the 19th Century.

So as we've discussed, the poems might not centre around what we know as the word romantic today, but they explore a love and respect for nature and the natural world.

And this key idea, is the foundation to many Romantic works.

So let's test your knowledge.

I want you to consider, what is a Romantic poet? From what you've learned so far today, is it option one.

A Romantic poet only writes about relationships.

Option two, a Romantic poet only writes about love.

Option three, a Romantic poet only explores their love of nature and the natural world or option four, a Romantic poet will often write about their love of nature and the natural world.

I'll give you a moment to consider your answer.

You're more than welcome to pause the video now, if you want to read the options again.

Now you've had some time to consider your answer.

Let's see whether you were correct.

So after three; I want to hear your answer to the question, what is a Romantic poet? After three; one, two three.

Thank you, let's see whether you were correct.

The answer is, option four.

A Romantic poet, will often write about their love of nature and the natural world.

Now, if you picked option three, a Romantic poet only explores their love of nature and the natural world.

I see your thought processes there.

But they don't only explore their love of nature.

Their love and respect for nature is the foundation and the basis for much of their work.

Let's move forward.

So, now we've got a general understanding about what a Romantic poets is.

Let's look at some of the key themes in Romantic poetry.

So we start to get a deeper understanding of their purposes for writing.

Now, before we look at the key themes, we need to consider, what is a theme? As this may be a word that some of you are unfamiliar with.

A theme is simply a big idea in a piece of literature that runs throughout the whole text.

Sometimes, it might be a message that's an author wants to make the reader think about.

For example, one of the key themes of the play Macbeth is that of violence.

So let's just review that again briefly.

A theme is a big idea in a piece of literature that runs throughout the whole text.

And often it's a big idea that the writer really wants you to consider.

There's often a message behind it.

So, we need to consider, what themes did the Romantic poets write about? Well, the Romantic poets wrote about the world around them and their feelings towards it.

Their writing can be broken down into five key themes.

But before we look at those key themes, I need to introduce you to an important word.

And that word is, oppression.

Oppression means, the cruel or unfair treatment of people by those in power.

Let's read that again.

And this time I want you to read it aloud with me.

After three; one, two, three.

Oppression means, the cruel or unfair treatment of people by those in power.

Excellent, let's see how this word can be used in a sentence.

Unfortunately, oppression still exists in the 21st Century.

Oppression is often caused by having the wrong people in power.

Number three, after years of oppression, they finally stood up to their leaders.

Let's look at these sentences individually.

Number one, unfortunately, oppression still exists in the 21st Century.

So this sentence is suggesting that there is still in our modern world, cruel and unfair treatment of people by those in power.

The second sentence states, oppression is often caused by having the wrong people in power.

So this sentence suggests that the cruel and unfair treatment of people is a consequence of having the wrong people in power.

Their concern might not be for society, but instead, to themselves and their own personal gain.

And finally, sentence three.

After years of oppression, they finally stood up to their leaders.

Here, people have suffered from oppression and as a consequence of that, they have stood up to those people around them.

The people in power that cause the oppression, they find themselves in.

Now, let's test your knowledge of that key term, oppression.

I would like you to pause the video here and fill in the gaps for the definition of the word oppression.

When you're done, you can resume the video.

Excellent, let's see what you got.

After three, I want you to read to me your definition of oppression.

One, two, and three.

Thanks for that.

Let's see whether you were correct.

Oppression means, the cruel or unfair treatment of people by those in power.

Let's read that one more time.

Oppression, means the cruel or unfair treatment of people by those in power.

I now want you to consider your understanding of the term oppression by looking at the picture below.

And I want you to answer this question.

How does this picture symbolise oppression? That very simply means, how is this picture an example of oppression.

I would like you to pause the video here and take a moment to make one or two bullet points to answer this question.

When you're done, you can press play and resume.

Now you've had some time to consider your answer.

I would like to hear it.

So after three, I would like you to answer me.

How does this picture symbolise oppression? One, two, three.

Thank you, I'm really hoping that you had an answer that linked to the use of the chain and weight around this person's leg.

It's suggesting that they are being forced into work by a power or authority that is higher than them.

If we also look, this person looks like they are doing manual hard physical labour.

And that is not something that they have chosen to do.

Therefore, this picture suggests that this person is a victim of oppression.

Now we've got a rather good understanding of the term oppression.

I want you to test that.

You're going to apply the key term oppression by writing a sentence that uses the word accurately.

So what I would now like you to do is to pause the video here and write me a sentence that uses the word oppression accurately.

And as always, you can resume the video when you're done.

Thank you for taking the time to apply your key vocabulary.

I would like to hear your sentence.

So after three, please read me your sentence that uses the word oppression accurately.

One, two, three.

Great, now we can move on.

As promised earlier in the lesson, we're going to look at the five key themes that are apparent in Romantic literature, specifically Romantic poetry.

Number one, the power of imagination and the importance of self.

Number two.

Revolution, creating a change in the world.

Number three, and this should be a symbol you're familiar with.

Criticism of oppression.

Number four.

Nature and the natural world, both its beauty and its power.

And number five, children, youth and innocence.

So, let's take a moment now and see whether you can remember the five key themes in Romantic works using the symbols below.

Don't worry if you can't remember a couple of them.

You're more than welcome to rewind the video briefly and remind yourself of those five key themes and the symbols that linked to those five key themes.

I would like you to pause the video now and have a go at writing down the five key themes in works of Romantic poetry.

When you're done, resume the video and we will check our answers.

Okay, let's check our answers.

We will go from the left to the right.

So the leaf symbol represents what? After three; one, two, three.

Let's see, nature and the natural world.

Well done if you've got that correct, you can always change your work if you need to edit it.

Let's look at what the head symbol with the light bulb symbolises.

What was your answer? After three; one, two, three.

Let's check that.

Imagination and the importance of self.

Now, let's look at our next symbol.

The hand that is rising.

What did you get for this symbol? After three; one, two, three.

Let's see if you were correct.

Revolution, so evoking change in society.

Now let's look at the bottom left hand symbol.

I want you to tell me what you got after three; one, two, three.

Let's see.

Children, youth, and innocence.

Great stuff.

Now let's move on to that final symbol.

What did you get.

After three; one, two and three.

Excellent, let's see.

It is of course, oppression.

Now, test yourself on that key terminology.

Can you tell me the definition of that word oppression? After three; one, two, three.

Let's see, oppression is the cruel or unfair treatment of people by those in power.

The cruel or unfair treatment of people, by those in power.

Hopefully you got all those correct.

But don't worry if you've got a couple of them muddled up or a couple of them missing, you can pause the video now and add the five key Romantic themes to your notes.

So now that you're familiar with the five key themes, the five key big ideas that run throughout a lot of Romantic poetry.

I want you to take the opportunity to learn a little bit more about them.

You are going to be making some notes on each of the key themes.

Along with this video, there should be a worksheet and downloadable resource.

On that resource, you will see that there is information about each of the five key themes in Romantic poetry.

What you're going to do using that lesson worksheet is make some really clear key bullet-pointed notes.

Now, if you have the worksheet physically, you're more than welcome to make notes on it.

Otherwise, you can simply make notes using your pen and paper and the downloadable resource.

Now, if you need a little bit of a hand, I'm going to talk you through how to take some notes down on the next slide.

So, if we imagine we're going to look at the key theme of imagination and importance of self in a little bit more detail.

Here is our extra information.

The Romantics thought that an active imagination, was a sign of a well-functioning mind.

The self, was important as Romantics believed that being an individual was incredibly important.

Being yourself.

And finally, Romantic fiction would often be about brave individuals facing the world alone.

Now there's a lot of information on that.

So as you can see, what I have done is I have highlighted the key ideas on this piece of text.

Now, as I say, if you have a physical copy, you're welcome to do that yourself.

Otherwise, you're more than welcome to do it on your downloadable resource.

Once you've decided the key ideas in that piece of writing, you can summarise it to an even smaller degree, as follows.

I suggest, you put the key theme as your subtitle.

So in this case, imagination and the importance of self.

Then you can see in my notes, I haven't necessarily written in full grammatically correct sentences.

And that's absolutely fine.

Because these notes are for me personally.

I'm deciding what I think are the key ideas.

So that's what I've done.

Bullet point number one, simply says, imagination, the key theme, equals a well-functioning mind, a well running mind.

Then the second bullet point simply says, being an individual equals extremely important.

The Romantics believed, that it was important to be yourself.

And finally, I've written a whole sentence that says, Romantic writing was often about brave people facing the world alone.

So hopefully you can see here how I've taken the full amount of information from my worksheet and I've reduced it down to three key bullet points.

And that is exactly what I would like you to do.

For not one, two, three, four but five of the key themes of Romantic writing.

So I will take you back to your pause point slide now.

So now I would like you to pause the video and using the worksheet and downloadable resource, make some key bullet points on the five key themes found in Romantic literature.

When you're done, resume the video and we will continue with today's lesson.

Great, well done.

Let's move forward to the final section of today's lesson.

Where we are going to be applying our knowledge of key Romantic themes.

Using the information that I have presented you.

So I'm going to read you a series of statements so you can test your knowledge of the five key themes of Romantic poetry.

You're going to tell me which of the key themes each of the statement relates to.

Now, I've made it a little bit more difficult for you by giving you only the symbols.

You are going to have to use these symbols to recall your knowledge of the five key themes.

And when you think you know, which statement the symbol relates to, you're going to shout it at me or your computer on my command.

Let's have a go with our first statement.

The Romantics thought that this was a sign of a well-functioning mind.

Which key theme does this relate to? After three, I want you to shout it out at me.

One, two, three.

Excellent, it is of course imagination and the importance of self.

Romantic poets often wrote about it as a powerful force and the way that it can be terrifying yet inspirational.

Which of the five key Romantic themes does this statement relate to? I want you to shout your answer to me after three.

One, two, three.

Great, hopefully you got this one.

Nature and the natural world.

Many Romantic poets were inspired by it.

They thought that nature was actually more powerful and entity than man.

Some things which Romantic writers criticised include slavery, poverty and unfair working conditions in newly built factories.

What are all of these things an example of? which of the key themes does this relate to? I want you to shout your answer at me after three.

One, two, three.

Great, I'm hoping you've got oppression.

Slavery, poverty and unfair working conditions are all examples of oppression.

The Romantics believed they were naturally good, innocent and honest.

Who did the Romantics believe this to relate to? I want you to tell me the key theme after three.

One, two, three.

It is of course children, youth and innocence.

I'm sure you'll agree, children are of course naturally good, innocent and honest.

The Romantics were writing during a time when lots of change was happening across the world.

Which of the key themes does this idea of change relate to? I want you to tell me after three.

One, two, three.

Excellent, It is of course, revolution.

The purpose and the consequences of a successful revolution is of course to promote change.

So, we're going to finish our lesson with a pause point.

You're going to be considering the key themes in Romantic writing.

And you're going to answer five questions for me.

Let's look at these questions and some of the sentence starters you can use to help you.

Number one, name five key themes in Romantic writing.

You can use the sentence starter, the following are key themes in Romantic poetry, followed by a colon.

You can then list the five key themes after that colon.

Number two, what revolution inspired many Romantic works? You need to think back to the notes that you made from your downloadable worksheet earlier.

And you can begin your answer.

Many Romantic works and then you need to finish that for me.

I want you to make sure that you use the word inspired or inspirational in your sentence.

Number three, give three forms of oppression criticised by the Romantics.

Now remember, oppression was cruel and unfair treatment of people by those in power.

And you need to give me an example of three forms of oppression.

Three types of oppression.

You can begin your answer, oppression was commonly criticised by Romantic writers.

And then you need to finish the sentence by telling me three examples of oppression.

Number four, why was imagination important to the Romantics? You can begin your answer.

Imagination was important.

And you're probably going to continue with, because.

And finally, question five.

How did the Romantics view children? You can begin your answer, the Romantics believed children to be, and finish that off with the relevant details.

You've learned so much today in this lesson.

So let's make sure that we apply it to the page.

So pick up your pen or pencil and get writing your answers to the five questions in full sentences.

And as always, don't forget our capital letters and full stops.

They are always really important.

When you're done, you can resume the video.

So that brings us to the end of today's English lesson.

A big well done for all of your hard work and engagement during the lesson.

I suggest that you review your notes and your work from today's lesson and perhaps take down three key ideas that you have learned.

And please don't forget to complete the end of lesson quiz.

Thanks for your hard work, bye.