Lesson video

Hello, my name is Miss Turner and I'm an English teacher here at Oak National Academy.

Now usually, I teach English in Norfolk, but I'm really delighted that you've joined my virtual classroom.

We're going to be studying Claude McKay's amazing poem "If We Must Die." We've got five lessons, and we're going to really dig into the poem and see why it's such a powerful piece of literature.

But before we do, let's make sure that you're set up for this lesson.

So you need a pen and some paper to jot down all your brilliant ideas.

And you need to get rid of any distractions, especially that pesky mobile phone.

Okay, are you ready? Brilliant, let's get started.

So what is poetry? I think poetry is one of those things that some people love straight away, and some people find a bit difficult.

It might surprise you to know that when I first started reading poetry, I found it a bit difficult.

I couldn't always tell what it meant.

But over the years, I've learned more about how to study it and now I really love it.

So if you already love poetry, amazing.

But if you find it a bit difficult, don't worry.

We can work on that.

I'm sure you've probably already learned quite a bit about poetry at school.

Perhaps you've read some poems or performed some poems or even written some poems of your own.

Maybe you've already completed another Oak lesson about poetry.

There are some great ones on here.

Whatever your experience of poetry, I want you to pause the video and jot down what poetry means to you.

What do you think about when someone says the word poetry? What is a poem? Pause the video now to write down your thoughts.

I'd love to know what you wrote down when you thought about poetry.

Perhaps you can shout out some to me now.

Well I couldn't quite hear that.

Well here are some things I thought about when I was wondering about that question.

Firstly, I thought about that poetry is a type of writing used to express ideas and emotions.

The thing about poetry is it often is used to express, to show really big ideas and emotions and feelings.

It might be about love or sadness or anger or about an idea of what the world should be like.

I think poems often tackle these big ideas and emotions that lots of us are thinking about and experiencing too.

And we know that poetry is different to other writing, such as novels or plays, is it contains rhythm, a beat, and sometimes rhyme, when the words at the end of lines sound the same.

And often this is organised into beautiful patterns.

This might be a rhyme scheme or a poetic metre.

We'll learn more about those in later lessons.

I also think poems often contain just absolutely beautiful language that makes you feel and think all kinds of amazing things.

So when we put all these together, plus all the things you said, doesn't it seem that poetry is actually pretty amazing, even if it can be difficult? That's because it's expressing all these big emotions and ideas in really clever ways.

But today, we're just going to focus on this first idea.

Poetry is a type of writing used to express ideas and emotions.

We'll look all the rest of the points in later lessons, but right now I want us to focus on meaning and our experience of listening to and reading a poem.

I told you before that I used to find poetry difficult, and that's because I don't think I realised that one of the most important things you need to do with poetry is listen to and experience it so that you can let the ideas and emotions start to come to life.

How do we do this? How do we start to experience these ideas and emotions? This is my suggestion for how we approach a poem to help us really understand those ideas and emotions, and I want you to have a go at remembering this approach because we're going to use this in our lessons together.

So first, we listen to the poem.

Poetry is meant to be heard.

It's why it has so many amazing sounds in it.

So listen, and don't worry if we don't understand it all.

This is the biggest mistake people made with poetry, that they need to understand every single word straight away.

Nope, just listen.

Then our second move is to think about what the sounds and languages make you think and feel.

Experience the poem.

Does it make you feel sad or happy or uncomfortable? This is your own personal response.

Our third step is to think about what the poet might be trying to tell you.

Why did they write the poem? What do they want to say? We can also call this their intent.

And finally, we explore how the poet is making you think and feel.

So this, we might call analysis.

We're looking at how the poet is using language, form, the type of poem, and structure, the layout of the poem, to make the reader think and feel ideas and emotions.

Right, let's go over these steps one more time.

I want you to remember these.

Number one, listen to the poem.

Don't worry if you don't understand it all.

Number two, think about what the sounds and language make you think and feel.

Number three, think about what the poet might be trying to tell you.

Number four, explore how the poet is making you think and feel.

Whoa, what's happened? I've lost some of those words.

Can you remember them? I want you to write out the steps for approaching a poem and fill in the missing words.

Pause the video now and complete this task.

Let's check your answers.

If you forgot one of the words, now is the time to correct it.

You can pause the video again if you need to write down the correct answers.

Number one, listen to the poem.

Don't worry if you don't understand it all.

Number two, think about what the sounds and language make you think and feel.

Number three, think about what the poet might be trying to tell you.

Number four, explore how the poet is making you think and feel.

Now it's time to actually start to meet the poem we're going to study.

We're going to start off with some small extracts from the poem, which you're going to listen to, and then you're going to jot down your first thoughts.

So we're starting with steps one and two of our approach to poetry with some small sections, and then we'll listen to the whole poem.

This is the first line of the poem.

"If we must die, let it not be like hogs.

"If we must die, let it not be like hogs." I want you to think about this line.

Read it again and pause the video to write down what it makes you think and/or feel.

You can start the video again once you've written down your first thoughts.

This is the second line of the poem.

Again, let's listen to it and think about it.

"While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs.

"While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs." Okay, so think about this line.

Read it again and pause the video to write down what it makes you think and/or feel.

Let's check in to see the kinds of things you might've thought or felt while listening to those two lines.

There's not right answer here 'cause it's your personal response.

Perhaps you might've thought some of these things.

With that first line, "If we must die, let it not be like hogs." Perhaps she felt a bit sad, 'cause it mentions death.

Or perhaps a bit curious or intrigued.

Did it make you wonder what was happening? Perhaps it left you with more questions than answers.

Who is this we? Why must they die? Why are they being compared to pigs? And the second line, "While round us bark, "the mad and hungry dogs." There's a bit of energy here, thinking about those barking dogs.

So perhaps she felt nervous or scared or excited.

And you might have questioned why the dogs were barking.

If it was really dogs.

Could it be perhaps a description of people? And also, what was going to happen to that us that was mentioned? You might have left feeling a bit confused, but that's okay.

Just look at all of those interesting thoughts and feelings we've already got just from listening to the first two lines and not really knowing what the poem's about.

Let's find out some more.

But first it's time to have some vocabulary adventures.

We're going to learn some new words or remind ourselves of some we already know.

These words are going to help us understand the poem and talk about the poem.

Okay, so these are some words from the poem.

Alongside them or the definitions, but oops, they're all jumbled up.

We know the hogs doesn't mean enemy does it? Can you remember what it means? Did you just shout pigs at me? 'Cause if you did, you were right, hogs are pigs.

And we need to have a go at matching up the rest of these.

So write down the words on the left and then write the definition you think is correct next to it.

Pause the video now and have a go.

Here's the correct definitions.

Did you get them right? If you didn't get them right, you can pause the video and correct them now.

I said we were going to look at words which we could use to talk about the poem, and noble is going to be one of those words.

You'll no, if you're doing something nobly, you're doing it with honour.

And it's you're described as noble, it means you're a good person.

You show courage, honesty, generosity, you are honourable.

So here's some examples.

"The doctor had a noble character.

"She worked hard for others." This describes a doctor who's noble because she cares rather people, which is generous, and she's a hard worker, which makes her honourable.

Here's another example.

"He really wanted to go to the concert, "but as his sister wanted to go more, "he gave her the ticket.

"It was a noble thing to do." Well this is noble because he's being kind and generous.

He's giving the ticket away, even though he really wanted to keep it.

What a good brother.

But come on, I know you're screaming at me, "We want to get back to the poem." You're totally justified.

You're now going to listen to the whole poem for the first time.

So you'll remember from the first step of approaching poems, the first thing you need to do is listen.

I'm going to read the poem to you so you can do just that.

"If we must die, let it not be like hogs "hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, "while round us bark and mad and hungry dogs, "making their mock at our accursed lot.

"If we must die, O let us nobly die, "so that our precious blood may not be shed in vain, "then even the monsters we defy "shall be constrained to honour us though dead! "O kinsmen, we must meet the common foe! "Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, "and for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! "What though before us lies the open grave? "Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, "pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!" Now you've all heard it for the first time.

I'm going to read it again, and this time I want you to think about what you're thinking and feeling when you're listening to the poem.

You can write that down, or you can just hold it in your mind while you're listening.

Okay, here we go.

"If we must die, let it not be like hogs "hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, "while round us bark and mad and hungry dogs, "making their mock at our accursed lot.

"If we must die, O let us nobly die, "so that our precious blood may not be shed in vain, "then even the monsters we defy "shall be constrained to honour us though dead! "O kinsmen, we must meet the common foe! "Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, "and for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! "What though before us lies the open grave? "Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, "pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!" I'm going to think a bit more now about our first impressions of that poem.

So what were our first ideas when we heard the poem? When we hear or read something for the first time, we get an impression, a kind of idea of what it might be about, and we begin to think and feel things about the text.

So a first impression, here's some examples.

It could be, "Well this poem's got really beautiful sounds.

"It made me feel like it was "about something beautiful and powerful." Or perhaps something like, "This poem "has frightening language, it made me think "something dangerous was happening." So those are kind of things we might feel when you first hear a poem.

So I want you to have a go at writing some notes about your first impression of the poem "If We Must Die." What did you think and/or feel after hearing the whole poem? You can write your thoughts down in some bullet points or sentences, whichever works best for you.

Pause the video now to write down your response to this question.

So what did you write down? Perhaps you had some of these types of questions.

Who are the we and who are they in this poem? It's clearly these two groups, who are they? Why must the we die? Is this about a war? There seems to be some kind of conflict, doesn't there? And perhaps you had kind of mixed emotions.

Maybe you felt a bit sad and angry because it seemed like a group of people were going to have to die.

And perhaps you also felt a bit hopeful 'cause there used to be this group of friends, his kinsmen working together.

So we can see there's this real mixture of ideas and feelings in the poem.

And some obviously some quite negative images and quite powerful images, and perhaps some hope in there as well.

So we need to know a little bit more, don't we, to help us out? Let's have a closer look at some of these questions we've got.

Well one of the things we've asked is who are this we and they in the poem.

You've probably noticed that there were these two groups.

There's the we, who seem to be the kind of community, the group of people who the poem's addressed to.

And then they, who seemed to be the group who are on the attack.

So if we look at these words used to describe these groups, we can tell a little bit about them.

So I want you to listen carefully to what I tell you about these different groups.

We're going to need this information later in the lesson.

So the speaker's community, the person speaking with poem, is talking about we.

And the speaker says they're not going to be treated like hogs.

They're better than that.

Their blood is precious.

And speaker uses the words kinsmen and men and suggests this group of people are quite noble, so good and honourable people.

And then if we look at that word accursed, maybe they're a bit unlucky as well.

So this we group, we know, perhaps good, perhaps noble, perhaps honourable, perhaps unlucky.

That's very different to that group, the they group They're described as the foe.

If you remember that vocabulary, that means enemy.

And they're also described as dogs, as a pack of dogs.

And monsters, and the word murderous is used for them.

Which makes them seem really kind of dangerous, doesn't it, almost like animals on the attack.

So we're going to do some questions now to check what we've learned about these two groups of people.

Okay, the first is, which group out of the we group and the they group, who seems the most dangerous? I want you to shout out the answer to me now.

What do you think? Who seems the most dangerous? If you said they, you're correct.

That they group, those kind of monsters, those pack of dogs, they seem pretty dangerous, don't they? Okay, who seems the most human? Shout out again.

Yeah, I agree, I think the we group, the speaker's community.

They seemed human rather than those, the monsters.

The humans here, then they're men, the kinsmen, they seem much more human, don't they? What about who seems the most noble.

That important word noble we've looked at.

Go on, what do you think? Yeah, I think if you said we again, you're right.

That definitely more noble, their blood, remember, is even described as precious.

So our last quick question, who seems the most powerful? What do you think? Yeah, I agree that they group seem quite powerful.

They're really dangerous and there's a pack of them, which suggests there's quite a lot of them.

They've got a dangerous kind of power here, which is just quite interesting, isn't it? Well let's have you looked at the poem again.

We've learned a bit about it.

We started to gather some of our initial thoughts.

So now I'm going to read the poem again, and this time I want you to really focus on these two groups.

We've got the we, who's that noble kind of human community, and the they, who are these powerful, dangerous monsters.

I've highlighted the words that refer to the we group in blue, and then they group are highlighted in pink.

Hopefully those will help you focus as I read the poem.

"If we must die, let it not be like hogs "hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, "while round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, "making their mock at our accursed lot.

"If we must die, O let us nobly die, "so that our precious blood may not be shed in vain; "then even the monsters we defy, "shall be constrained to honour us though dead! "O kinsmen, we must meet the common foe! "Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, "And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! "What though before us lies the open grave? "Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, "pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!" Okay, you're now going to answer these two questions about the two groups in the poem.

These answers I want you to write in full sentences because you've already made some notes to help you answer them, so it should be fairly easy.

Remember, a full sentence starts with a capital letter, has a verb and a subject in it, and makes sense on its own, and it ends in a full stop, question mark, or exclamation mark.

You can download the worksheet if you want some more help answering those questions.

Let's pause of the video now and have a go.

So you wouldn't have written exactly the same as me.

Don't worry if you've written something slightly different.

Remember these are your first impressions, so they're likely to be unique to you, but you might have written something like these sentences.

So perhaps you say something like, "My first impression "is the we group in the poem "are that they seem human and noble." Or perhaps you said that they're people fighting to defend that honour, or people who are in danger.

And then in your second question, perhaps you said, "My first impression is that they grew up in the poem "are that they seem dangerous and powerful." Or perhaps you said, "They seem like monsters," or, "They're people who are causing violence." All of these answers are okay, and if you had something different, that's fine, too.

It's just good to start thinking about what we can tell about these two groups of people.

'Cause they're going to be really important for us understanding what the poem's about.

Okay, we've been thinking about this first two here, haven't we? We've been looking at how we listen to the poem and then what those sounds and language make us think and feel.

We're now going to think a little bit more about what Claude McKay, the poet, might be trying to tell us.

What is it that he is trying to say? And to do that, we're going to zoom in to a few more parts of the poem and really explore what he means.

But before we do that, let's sum up what we know so far about the poem "If We Must Die." Okay, we know it as a poem which creates strong emotions and ideas ideas.

We know there's some sort of conflict in the poem, those two groups are definitely not getting on, there's something going on there.

And there are two groups in the poem.

One group, the we group, seems good, and one group, they, seem kind of dangerous and cruel.

And the poet is writing from the viewpoint of the we group who we've been told must die.

So those are some things we know about this poem already.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to read some extracts from the poem out to you.

And this time we're going to try and think a bit about what the poet might be saying.

To help with this, I've put some images on the side which represent what's going on in each extract.

And after I've read the extract, I'm going to show you a paraphrasing, which means using some other words to explain what each extract might be about.

So listen really carefully.

"If we must die, let it not be like hogs "hunted and penned in an inglorious spot." Okay, so this might mean something like, "If we have to die, don't let us die like pigs "who've been hunted and then put in a pen "in some awful unholy place." You can see that the symbol, this kind of fence, people being fenced in, being treated like animals ready to be killed.

"While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, "making their mock at our accursed lot." So, "While around us there is a pack of angry, "hateful people who are laughing "at what awful things will happen to us." So perhaps the group were feeling like the they grew are kind of attacking them, attacking them both violently and also by laughing at them, by mocking them.

"If we must die, O let us nobly die, "so that our precious blood may not be shed in vain; "then even the monsters we defy "should be constrained to honour us though dead!" So, "If we have to die, let us die in an honourable way "so we won't have died for nothing.

"So that even those awful people we're fighting against "will have to respect us when we are dead." So there's an acceptance here of death, but only an honourable death, not dying being treated like animals.

"O kinsmen, we must meet the common foe.

"Though far outnumbered, let us just show us brave, "and for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!" The kinsmen here might be friends, it might be community.

So, "Oh friends, we have to step up to this enemy we share.

"There are not as many of us, but we must be brave "and for the thousands of hits they give, "we'll give together one big blast." So there's a sense of this community working together and fighting back, defending themselves against this awful violence.

"What though before us lies the open grave? "like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack.

"pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!" So, "What have we got ahead of us apart from an open grave?" So he's thinking about the death that's going to come.

"But even so, we're going to be brave.

"We're going to face these murders, these cowards.

"And when we die, we will be like heroes "because we're defending ourselves." So it's a very powerful end here to the poem, that accepting the fates, the death, but doing it as heroes, as people who are standing up for their rights.

So now we've looked closer at the poem, we've looked at the detail.

We can maybe start to think about what the main idea of the poem might be.

What do we think it's about? So I want you to have a look at these options and think about which one you think best describes the poem.

So option one is about fighting between hogs and dogs.

Option two is about people dying.

Option three is about standing up against violence.

Option four is about being murderous cowards.

Which one do you think? You can shout out one, two, three, or four.

Perhaps use your fingers and show me.

Do you think it's one, do you think it's two, do you think it's three, do you think it's four? If you said option three, I think you're right.

I think the main message that we've seen from this poem so far, the best answer to that question, what's it about, is this poem is about standing up against violence.

And we're going to find out more detail about what this poem's about, but for the moment, I think that's really a good starting place.

So our last task together in this lesson is going to be answering some questions about the poem.

There are four questions and these are all on your worksheet with sentence starters to help you.

So question number one, what were your first impressions of the poem "If We Must Die." Now here, you might want to go back to the notes you made at the beginning of the lesson.

What did you first think or feel when you listen to the poem? Number two, what do you now think the poem "If We Must Die" is about? So think about, you know, has your impression of the poem changed as we've heard it a few more times, now we've looked at it a bit more closely? Number three, what do we find out about the group of people referred to as we? Number four, what do we find out about the group of people referred to as they? And these two questions are really summing up the work you've already done thinking about these two groups and trying to use some of those words such as noble, powerful, and dangerous in your answers.

So pause the video now to answer those questions.

You can find them on your worksheet or you can rewind the video to look at them on here.

Welcome back, now's a chance to check through your work.

So you won't have written exactly the same as me and your words might be in a different order, but hopefully you'll see some of the types of things that you could have written, and you can use that to check, perhaps even improve your work.

Okay number one, what your first impressions of the poem "If We Must Die"? Well a good answer might be something like, "When I first heard the poem, "I thought it was a poem about animals.

"It made me feel curious and also a little scared." If you did a really great answer, perhaps you had a bit more detail.

So something like, "When I first heard the poem, "it seemed to include some type of conflict "because of the mention of death and blood.

"I felt concerned about the we who were about to die "and wondered why this was going to happen." So, as I said, you know, you won't have these exact answers because it's your first impressions, but you can see the level of detail you might be using to describe what your impressions were.

And what do you now think the poem "If We Must Die" is about? Well hopefully you've thought about what we said was the main idea.

So a good answer would be, "Now I think the poem "describes a group of people "standing up against unfair violence." And a great answer would a bit more detail to that.

So, "Now I think the poem "describes a conflict between two groups of people.

"The poet is writing from the viewpoint "of the group who are more human, but also less powerful.

"The other group were trying to kill them "and acting like monsters." Number three, what did we find out about the group of people referred to as we? So a good answer here, you just sum up.

"Okay, the group of people referred to as we "seem to be good and also to be more human." And a great answer will add that detail.

"The group of people referred to as we "seem like they're good and noble people," using that vocabulary, Were they attacked unfairly or having to defend themselves? "And even though they know they will die "because the other group are more powerful, "they are going to fight together until the end." And our last question, number four, what do we find out about the group of people referred to as they? Well, a good answer, again, might be, "The group of people referred to is they "seem to be dangerous and also to be powerful." But if we're going to add a bit more detail, we might say, "The group of people referred to is they "seem like they're cruel and violent.

"They're attacking the other group "even though they have more power.

"It seems that the poet does not like this group of people." Well, that's the end of today's lesson, and thank you for all your really hard work.

It's been a real pleasure working with you on this first lesson on Claude McKay's brilliant poem "If We Must Die." I'm really looking forward to seeing you in our next lesson.

We're going to learn more about the context of the poem and it's really interesting.

Before that, remember to do the quiz.

You can show off everything that you've learned today.

And also if you'd like you get your parents or carer to take a picture of your work and share it @OakNational on Twitter to show the whole world the amazing work you've been doing today.

Okay, that's all from me.

Looking forward to seeing you next time.

Bye.