Exploring themes of hate and anger in 'The Wall'
I can reflect on poetry with themes of hate and anger, writing a personal response to a poem.
Exploring themes of hate and anger in 'The Wall'
I can reflect on poetry with themes of hate and anger, writing a personal response to a poem.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- 'The Wall' uses symbolism - the use of objects, images, or actions that represent ideas beyond their literal meaning.
- The wall in the poem can represent a physical isolation as well as an emotional one.
- A poem can have multiple meanings and interpretations; each person’s response can be different and unique to them.
- We can respond to a poem by writing a personal response to it.
Keywords
Symbolism - the use of objects, actions or ideas to represent deeper meanings or concepts
Interpretation - the process of understanding and assigning meaning to a poem
Personal response - reflections that we make about a poem after reading or listening to it
Common misconception
Not all pupils may be familiar with symbolism, especially common symbols.
To support pupils, adults could model the associations that could be made about the objects out loud.
To help you plan your year 5 english lesson on: Exploring themes of hate and anger in 'The Wall', download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 5 english lesson on: Exploring themes of hate and anger in 'The Wall', download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 2 english lessons from the Poetry about personal experiences unit, dive into the full secondary english curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
You need a copy of the 2021 Otter Barry edition of ‘Stars with Flaming Tails’, written by Valerie Bloom and illustrated by Ken Wilson Max for this lesson.
Licence
Lesson video
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Starter quiz
6 Questions
Exit quiz
6 Questions
the use of objects, actions or ideas to represent deeper meaning
the process of understanding and assigning meaning to a poem
reflections that we make about a poem after reading or listening to it
hope
love
growth, strength
wishes