Exploring themes of sadness in 'The Land of Blue'
I can reflect on poetry with themes of sadness, writing a personal response to a poem.
Exploring themes of sadness in 'The Land of Blue'
I can reflect on poetry with themes of sadness, writing a personal response to a poem.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- ‘The Land of Blue’ is written by Laura Mucha and illustrated by Victoria Jane Wheeler.
- The poem uses symbolism - symbols that represent ideas beyond their literal meaning.
- The poem references colours; these can symbolise a range of feelings and emotions.
- We can respond to a poem by writing a personal response to it.
- Personal responses are reflections that we make about a poem after reading or listening to it.
Keywords
Symbolism - the use of objects, actions or ideas to represent deeper meanings or concepts
Imagery - the use of language to create a mental picture or sensory experience for the reader or listener
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
Pupils may not have much experiencing associating colours with feelings and emotions.
To support pupils, adults could discuss feelings and emotions and their associations to colour prior to the lesson. The Disney Pixar film 'Inside Out' would be a suitable starting point for this.
To help you plan your year 5 english lesson on: Exploring themes of sadness in 'The Land of Blue', 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 sadness in 'The Land of Blue', 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 ‘Being Me’ written by Liz Brownlee, Matt Goodfellow and Laura Mucha, illustrated by Victoria Jane Wheeler 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 meanings
the use of language to create a mental picture or sensory experience
the process of understanding and assigning meaning to a poem
happiness, positivity
jealousy, good luck
sadness, calmness
fear, anxiety
provides context about the poem, such as its title and poet
how the poem made you feel and the atmosphere it created
a particular line or phrase or a poetic device used
a key theme in the poem or your take-away idea
end with a final reflection or insight