Video: Introduction to Poetry

﻿Hello everyone I'm Mr Blackburn, thank you very much for joining me today. This is the introduction to romanticism, where we're going to start to understand the romantic poets and what inspired them when they were writing. In this lesson we're going to look at the big six of poetry. And what we might need to know before we start analysing some poetry in detail. To take part in the lesson, you'll need a pen and paper, you'll need to turn off any notifications or devices that might distract you. You need to make sure there aren't too many distractions around you. And if you can you'll need to try and find a quiet place to work. Right let's begin. So let's start by looking at what we're going to be doing today. We're going to start with a short little quiz so that you can show me what you already know about poetry. Then we're going to look at form, structure and language in poetry, why poets might have laid their poems out in the way they have or chosen particular words at particular points. And then finally we're going to end with another quiz, so that you can show me and yourself how much your knowledge of poetry has grown in the short space of time that you've been studying it today. Your first question before we go any further might be, why should we study poetry at all? And I'm almost certain that every student at some point at school has asked this before. Poetry is a way of expressing ourselves in ways that we wouldn't normally, it's a type of language and communication that we wouldn't use in everyday situations, but which allow us to express our feelings. And I'm almost certain that poetry has been around for as long as humankind have been able to talk. So firstly, they're a way of telling a story. And you might have come across stories like Beowulf or The Canterbury Tales. They're written as poems, but they tell a very clear story. Poems also allow us to express our emotions. So you may have read some of Shakespeare's sonnets, where he expresses his love and his desires. He's not using everyday language, he's not doing it in a way that he would talking to another person, but he's expressing his emotions and it's a really clear and really thoughtful way of doing it. Poems can also serve as criticisms or protests. So again communicating those messages in a way that we wouldn't normally, in a way that isn't the kind of language that we would talk to someone with. In an everyday situation, criticising things like racism or sexism or perhaps even wars that are going on. And again you may have come across some protest poetry already in your studies. As promised, a little quiz to start us off with about what you already know about poetry. On your screen there are four statements, poems always have to rhyme, poems can use figurative language to create imagery or evoke emotions, poetry allows a poet to express their feelings about a subject and poetry has to be about love. Only two of those statements are true. I'm going to give you 10 seconds and I want you to decide which of those statements are true. And I want you to write the option number down on your piece of paper. You could also jot down a quick note as to why you think that option is true. So 10 seconds, have a quick read of those options, write down the ones you think are true. Excellent, so you should have written down two numbers, two statements which you think are true about poetry, you might have written down why as well. Let's see if you are correct. The correct options are option two and option three. So poetry can use figurative language, we'll look at that later in the lesson and poems do allow a poet to express their feelings about a subject. So why are option one and option four not true? Option one, poems always have to rhyme simply isn't true, it's a common misconception that lots of people have. But the idea that poems have to rhyme isn't true, lots of poems don't. Option four, poetry has to be about love. We've already seen that's not true, in the examples I gave you earlier, we've seen that poems can tell stories or poems can be about protest, so poetry doesn't have to be about love. Well done if you got those two correct, don't worry too much if you didn't. Let's carry on and look at form in poetry. What is form then? Simply put, the form of a poem is the type of poem which you're reading or looking at. And you can think about it in the same way that we think about music. Am I listening to a piece of classical music or am I listening to a piece of pop music? Am I reading a sonnet or am I reading a ballad? The form of poetry is the type of poem that you're reading. And no doubt you've already come across different forms of poetry. Here are some examples. A sonnet, a lyric poem, a narrative poem and an epic poem. And here are some of the ideas that those different types of poems contain. And again if you're already familiar with them that's great, if you're not, we're going to take a look at them now. I would suggest that you make some notes about the different forms of poem, because I'm going to ask you to write some sentences about them shortly. The first form of poetry we'll look at is a sonnet. Sonnets have 14 lines, they're often about love and there are two different main forms of sonnet, you may have come across them already. The first main form of sonnet is a Shakespearean sonnet, the second main form of sonnet is a Petrarchan sonnet. They have slightly different rhyme schemes and slightly different structures. The second type of poem that we'll look at is a lyric poem. In a lyric poem, there's no set amount of lines, but they're often about feelings and emotions and they're usually written in the first person, that means using words like I. The third type of poem is epic poetry. They're very long poems, which often tell stories of extraordinary heroes, they're usually set in the distant past, Beowulf is a great example of an epic poem. And the final type of poem that we'll look at, is a narrative poem. This form of poetry tells a story, it's a narrative. They usually have a narrator and characters in and they usually have a strong rhythm. Now the rhythm is important because lots of poems are told and recited by heart. I would suggest you note some of these pieces of information about different forms of poetry down, because in a second I'm going to ask you to write about. At this point, I'd like you to pause your video to complete the task. I've given you four sentences some need words filling in, others need finishing off completely, using the information you've written down or you can go back and look at my previous slide if you want to, I want you to finish these sentences on your piece of paper. Okay, let's see if you were correct. A sonnet has 14 lines. Lyric poetry is often about feelings. Epic poems tell stories of extraordinary heroes and along with a narrator, narrative poetry will contain characters. You might also have written a strong rhythm for that question. Well done if you got these right, if you didn't you might want to correct your answers in a different colour pen. And now we're going to look at the structure of a poem. The structure of a poem sounds like it might be quite difficult to talk about, but it's really not. And we're going to have a look at what we need to think about when we are considering the structure of a poem. But before we go any further, I want to see what structural terms you already know in poetry. I've given you four definitions here and there are four words at the bottom which match one of these definitions. So one means four line section of poetry, one means the correct term for a group of lines of poetry. One means the term for an eight line section of poetry. And one of those words means the turning point or change in a poem. I want you to pause just for a couple of seconds and see if you can match those words up to those definitions. Don't worry if you can't, I'm going to tell you the answer, but I want you to try before we go any further. And these are the answers. Did you get them right? A quatrain is a four line section of poetry. The correct term for a verse or group of lines in a poem is a stanza. An octave means eight lines of poetry together, like octopus means eight. And the volta is the turning point or the change in a poem. If you haven't come across those terms before, it's probably worth noting them down. If you have come across those terms before, I hope you got them all right. This is what I mean when I say that writing about structure isn't as scary as it first seems. All it means is how is that poem laid out on the page? When someone asks us to think about structure, there are three things that I think are really important to consider. And one thing, which I think lots of people might not look for, the three most important things to start with are what happens at the beginning. The first few lines tell us what the poem is about. The poet has done that on purpose. So what are they writing about at the beginning? Then what happens at the end? The ending is just as important as the beginning, isn't it? The third most important thing I think we need to look for is where does something change in the poem? What changes and why? And then the structural feature that lots of people might not look out for, but I think we should is whether lines and stanzas are the same length. And if they are, they're called regular lines or regular stanzas, or whether they're different lengths. And if they're different lengths, they're called irregular lines or irregular stanzas. Again the poet has done that on purpose. So why? Now if all of these terms seem a little bit confusing, that's okay. What I'd like you to do is note these down and we can practise on some poems another time. And now we're going to look at language. And this I hope is part of poetry, which you're most familiar with. Poets use figurative language to express their ideas and you've probably come across figurative language before. Common examples include things like metaphor or simile or imagery. And you'll see in the blue box on your screen I've given you a definition of figurative language. The language a poet uses to express their emotions and ideas but which isn't everyday language. I thought it would be useful to give you a definition and an example of each of those types of figurative language. You might want to make your own table on your piece of paper, so that you can write these down as a reminder for yourself as well. A metaphor is where a poet says something is something else. So the example I've given you is a blanket of snow. The snow isn't literally a blanket, but the way it lays on the ground makes it look as if it is. A simile is saying something is like something else. And my example here is the clouds were like candy floss. And I hope that means that they were light and fluffy and not that they were pink, because something would be very wrong if they were pink. The third type of figurative language is imagery. Language which describes what we might be able to see. And the example I've given you is the snowy peaks of the mountains scraped the sky. And as I say that sentence, I hope that you're imagining these really tall mountains with white peaks stretching up above the horizon. If you're writing them down, feel free to pause the video for just a second. Because I'm going to test to see if you can tell me what types of language feature, what types of figurative language are used in some examples. Here's our first one, the dress fitted like a glove. Is that an example of imagery or is it an example of a simile. You can either write it down, or you can shout it at your screen, if you want. I'm going to guess most of you wrote that down 'cause I didn't hear a lot of shouting. That's an example of a simile, the dress fitted like a glove. Here's another example, Alex is a couch potato. Is that an example of a metaphor or a simile? That is a metaphor. Alex isn't literally a couch potato, but maybe he doesn't do as much exercise as he should, so there's a metaphor there. Slightly more difficult this time 'cause I'm giving you four options to choose from. The sunset was gorgeous. What's that an example of? If you have said imagery, you're correct. We're talking about a sunset, we're trying to make the reader think about how beautiful this sunset is to look at. Alright what about this one? All the world's a stage, what's that's an example of? I hope that you've written that it's a metaphor. The whole world isn't literally a stage, but to the character, he said this quotation and bonus points if you know which character it is. And to that character it seems like the world is a stage for him to be acting on. Our next example. His tears were a river. What's that an example of? If you said it's a metaphor, you're correct. His tears can't literally be a river, no one could cry that much. But metaphorically, we understand that he is crying a lot. Another one, the stars were shining bright in the sky. What type of figurative language might that be an example of? If you said imagery, you've got it right. Because when we read that sentence, we imagine stars, we imagine a night sky. My hands were cold as ice when I came back inside. This is an example of what type of figurative language? If you said it's a simile, you're right. As cold as ice. You're hands won't literally be ice when you come back inside, they are as cold as ice, it's a simile it's comparing your hands to ice. Excellent work so far. Now as promised you're going to write some sentences to show me how much you've learned, since the beginning of the lesson. So let's see what you know now. Here are five questions about poetry. What is form in poetry? What is structure in poetry? What type of language do poets often use? What is cold as ice an example of and how do you know? And why should people study poetry? I'm going to give you some sentence starters just to get you going. They're the bits highlighted in pink. And these are how I think you should start your answers off as you're writing. Question number five, is really your opinion, but you can think back to what I've said about why people should study poetry. If you don't have notes for some of these answers you can always refer back to previous parts of the lesson. Now I'd like you to pause your video, answer these questions in full sentences on your piece of paper and once you have restart the video and we'll check your answers. Excellent work everyone. The first question I asked you what is form in poetry? My suggested answer is, the form of a poem is the type of poem we are reading, for example the sonnet or an epic poem. That's a good answer because I've given examples of different forms. What is structure in poetry as the second question? In poetry structure is the way that the poem unfolds. We could think about the beginning, end and the point of change. What I think is really important about that answer, is that I've reminded myself of which bits of the poem we should be looking at. You might want to add those in if you haven't already, the beginning, the end and the point of change. The third question said, what type of language do poets often use? Poets often use figurative language like metaphors, similes or imagery in their writing. If you put figurative language excellent, if you put examples even better, because you're less likely to forget what figurative language is. So if you haven't included those examples in your answer, you can add them in now. The fourth question asked you, what is cold as ice an example of and how do you know? As cold as ice is an example of a simile, I know this because it's comparing how cold something is to ice, not saying that something is ice. So because there's that comparison, because it's saying one thing is similar to another, it's a simile. And the fifth question, why should people study poetry? I think people should study poetry because it allows us to explore and express ourselves in ways we wouldn't be able to otherwise. Your answer might be slightly different, but I really think that's the important underlying theme of studying poetry. We're learning how to express ourselves and we're learning how other people express ourselves. Fantastic work today everyone, well done. You've learned some of the basics of poetry. We've thought about different types of figurative language. And I hope that you can see that at the end of that lesson, you felt more confident than you did at the beginning, when we're talking about things like form, structure and language in poetry. There are two things I'd like you to do before we finish. The first is I want you to pick out the three best things you've learned in this lesson, you could highlight them or draw a circle around them or put a star next to them. If you were going to teach someone else about the basics of poetry, what three things would you teach them? The second thing I want you to do is complete the quiz, so that you can test your knowledge once again of how much you've learned in this lesson. You've all worked really hard, well done. That's it from me, bye.

Exit Quiz: Introduction to Poetry

Completed: Introduction to Poetry

In this lesson, we'll think about why it's important to study poetry. We will also examine some of the basics of language, form and structure which will be useful in poetry analysis.

English

Introduction to Poetry

Video

Final Quiz

Lesson Complete