Lesson video

Hello, everyone, and thank you very much for joining me.

I'm Mr. Blackburn.

Today, we're going to be reading a poem about nature called "Sycamore Gap," and thinking about what the poem might really mean.

But before we can, you'll need to make sure that you have a pen and paper.

You'll need to ensure that you've turned off notifications or anything which might distract you.

And if you can, you'll need to try to find somewhere quiet to work.

And once you've done all that, let's get going.

And here's what we're going to be doing today.

We're going to start off by reading the poem, before looking at the way the poem is structured.

Then I'm going to introduce you to one possible interpretation of the poem, a way of understanding the hidden meaning of the poem, before we come to the end of the lesson, and there'll be a chance for you to draw all of your knowledge together.

Let's start by reading the poem.

"You're history, said the tree to the wall; the last crumbling remains of empire.

You are the invader, replied the wall.

I am the conqueror, said the tree to the wall; sending platoons of seeds across my territory.

I stand alone, replied the wall.

I chose this valley, said the tree to the wall; stretching my roots under your scored foundations.

I belong here, replied the wall.

I'm growing taller, said the tree to the wall; you're a lonely stone sentry outstripped by a sapling.

I remain, replied the wall.

I am a survivor, said the tree to the wall; I host the resurrection of each turning season.

I endure, replied the wall.

You're the one they blame, said the tree to the wall; insensate barrier, stone-deaf to the rough bark of liberty.

You cannot know, replied the wall." What a brilliant poem.

What a different poem to ones you might have studied before.

So before we go any further, I'm going to show you some of the important vocabulary in the poem, and then we're going to start thinking about the poem on a bit of a deeper level.

So we'll go from the beginning again.

"You're history, said the tree to the wall; the last crumbling remains of empire." An empire is a group of countries ruled by a single leader called an emperor, and there aren't any empires in the world today, which surprised me, 'cause I thought there were, but you may have heard of the Roman Empire, and if you have, that might be important.

"You are the invader, replied the wall.

I am the conqueror, said the tree to the wall; sending platoons of seeds across my territory." Invader and conqueror are both words which are used to describe people who take countries over by force, and they remind us of war.

So throughout this conversation, it's aggressive and reminds us of talk that might happen before or during wartime.

"I stand alone, replied the wall.

I chose this valley, said the tree to the wall; stretching my roots under your scored foundations." Scored means to cut something.

So here, we can think that the wall is cutting through the natural world.

If the tree represents nature and the wall represents things which are manmade, then the wall is cutting through the natural world, and we can maybe understand some of the aggression in the poem.

"I belong here, replied the wall.

I am growing taller, said the tree to the wall; you're a lonely stone sentry outstripped by a sapling." Well here, a sentry is a soldier that keeps watch over one place and decides who can enter and who can't.

That could probably also describe an actual wall, couldn't it? But again, a sentry is something we might associate with the Roman Empire.

"I remain, replied the wall.

I'm a survivor, said the tree to the wall; I host the resurrection of each turning season." The resurrection means to bring something back to life, and the tree points out that it dies in winter, but comes back to life every year.

So we've all seen trees without leaves, and the important point about the tree is that every year it comes back, it's resurrected.

So it makes it sound almost God-like.

"I endure, replied the wall.

You're the one to blame, said the tree to the wall; insensate barrier, stone-deaf to the rough bark of liberty." Insensate means unfeeling, and liberty means freedom.

So the wall doesn't show any emotion.

It doesn't care.

And it also is stone-deaf, according to the tree, to the rough bark of freedom.

"You cannot know, replied the wall." What I'd like you to do now is write down two or three ideas explaining what you think this poem is about.

Your interpretation is just as valid as the one that I'm going to show you later on.

So pause the video, write down two or three ideas, and then we'll see if your answer's match what I show you.

Welcome back.

We need some context to understand this poem properly.

In the North of England, you will find Hadrian's Wall.

It was a wall built by the Roman Empire in the year 122.

So if you remember, I spoke about empire and sentry, and said that if you know the Roman Empire, it might be useful.

Well, this will help you understand the wall.

It marked the boundary of the Roman Empire, and it was meant to keep out invaders.

Some people think it marks the boundary between England and Scotland, but it doesn't.

Now, much of Hadrian's Wall still exists, though a lot of it is fragmented or buried, but you can still go and see it.

And the poem "Sycamore Gap" is about this place, Sycamore Gap, and here's a picture that I took of it when I was out walking in the hills.

And you'll notice that there's one lonely tree in the middle of two hills, and running between those hills is part of Hadrian's Wall.

Now, which came first, the wall or the tree? Isn't that an interesting thought? But we can look at this picture and we can look at Sycamore Gap, and we can think about the loneliness that that tree might feel.

We could think about the arguments that the tree and the wall might have about which is more powerful, and that's what's reflected in the poem.

We're going to read the poem again, and I want you to think about where the tree is talking and where the wall is talking, and what type of tone each of those has.

"You're history, said the tree to the wall; the last crumbling remains of empire.

You are the invader, replied the wall.

I am the conqueror, said the tree to the wall; sending platoons of seeds across my territory.

I stand alone, replied the wall.

I chose this valley, said the tree to the wall; stretching my roots under your scored foundations.

I belong here, replied the wall.

I'm growing taller, said the tree to the wall; you're a lonely stone sentry outstripped by a sapling.

I remain, replied the wall.

I am a survivor, said the tree to the wall; I host the resurrection of each turning season.

I endure, replied the wall.

You're the one they blame, said the tree to the wall; insensate barrier, stone-deaf to the rough bark of liberty.

You cannot know, replied the wall." So here I've given you three choices.

I want you to try and decide what tone best describes the wall? Does the wall seem wise, aggressive, or sympathetic? Three, two, one.

You might have thought that the tree sounded wise.

It doesn't say much.

It doesn't argue.

It just replies with short sentences.

Maybe that's a sign of wisdom.

What about the tree? Which of those three best describes the sound, the tone of the tree? Wise, aggressive, or sympathetic? Three, two, one.

I think the tree sounds aggressive, and that's a contrast to the way that the wall sounds.

So we have an aggressive tree, and a wall which has more measured responses.

There is an argument running through the poem.

Let's explore the structure of the poem to see if we can find examples of the argument there.

Before we do, we need to consider what we mean by structure.

Structure simply means the way that a poem is laid out on the page.

And among other things, we can think about stanzas, so verses of poetry, groups of lines of poetry.

They're called stanzas.

We can think about the way they look on the page.

Are they all the same length? Are they different lengths? We can think about whether ideas or themes are repeated throughout the poem.

And we can even look at things like punctuation.

We're going to think about structure in a slightly different way.

We're going to look at what happens at the beginning of the poem, and then what happens at the end of the poem, and we're going to think about how those ideas have changed.

So how do we start the poem? Well, to begin with, the tree is aggressive towards the wall, and the wall reacts in a calm manner.

That's obvious, isn't it? We've seen that.

But what happens at the end? Oh.

At the end, the tree is aggressive towards the wall, and the wall reacts in a calm manner.

So what's changed? Nothing.

Oh.

Now, the very fact that nothing's changed is important.

The structure of the poem doesn't change.

Nothing changes in the poem, and that could suggest lots of things.

It could suggest that the wall and the tree are never going to learn to get along, and this argument could carry on forever.

It could be a reminder to us that it's easy to let arguments and disagreements carry on.

So in this case, it's been going on for hundreds of years.

It could also be a warning to us against being stubborn and not giving up, especially when you're arguing, because where's it going to get you? Nowhere.

The tree and the wall have been arguing for hundreds of years, and they're probably still going to carry on.

Are either of them going to be satisfied? Probably not.

Now, what's really interesting about this poem is that it's written as a dialogue, which is a conversation between two or more people.

And in this case, the characters in the poem are the sycamore tree and the wall.

This technique allows us to imagine the tension between two immovable objects.

The wall's never going to move.

The tree's never going to move.

They're going to carry on having the same argument over and over and over again.

Right.

Let's see what you can remember.

What is the structure of a poem? Is it option one, the way that it's presented to a reader? Is it option two, the rhyme scheme? Is it option three, the type of language a poet uses? Or is it option four, the way that it sounds when it's read? Three, two, one.

Hopefully you said this one, the way that it's presented to a reader, the way it looks on a page.

What might the fact that nothing changes in the poem warn us against? Could it warn us against planting trees? Is it option two, we're warned not to disrespect nature? Is it option three, we're warned not to be stubborn? Or is it option four, we're warned not to worry what people think of us? Three, two, one.

It's a warning against being stubborn and never giving up.

Learn to get along with each other.

The message of the poem.

This poem is a conversation between two things.

What could we call this? Is it option one, a monologue? Option two, a metaphor? Option three, a dialogue? Or option four, a soliloquy? Three, two, one.

This is a dialogue, a conversation between two characters.

Well done if you've got all of those answers right.

Don't worry too much if you didn't.

It's not the end of the world.

Now we're going to look at how we could interpret this poem, what we might think about the hidden messages or the secret meaning of the poem.

To be able to understand the poem, we need to know a term called allegory.

An allegory is when big ideas or concepts are represented by characters.

In this case, the sycamore and the tree are both allegorical.

So that is, they both represent different ideas.

There are lots of ways to interpret the poem.

Young versus old, or nature versus humans, but here's what I think it's about.

In my interpretation, I think the poem is about migration.

The tree represents people who are migrating from one place to another, while the wall represents people who might be afraid or unsure about whether this migration is a good thing or not.

In this interpretation, I think we feel sympathy for both the tree and the wall.

Both the trying to make sure that their own thoughts and identities are allowed to flourish, but they're finding it difficult to adapt to one another.

And more importantly, they don't know how to effectively communicate with each other.

"You're history, said the tree to the wall; the last crumbling remains of empire.

You are the invader, replied the wall.

I am the conqueror, the tree to the wall; sending platoons of seeds across my territory." Now, earlier in the lesson, you might remember, I asked what sounded like a rhetorical question.

Which came first, the wall or the tree? Now, we actually know the answer to that.

The answer is that the wall came first, because at the time the Romans were building the wall, there weren't any sycamore trees in England.

Sycamores came much later.

So the wall was there first.

The tree is something new.

And here's how this section of the poem ties into my interpretation.

I think that the wall's use of invader makes it sound as though the tree is someone who's coming to take over the space that that wall currently inhabits, and invader sounds warlike, someone coming to take your things by force, and the tree in retaliation says that it is the conqueror.

And that is going to make the wall more angry.

He's using the same kind of warlike language.

And maybe it's because the tree is angry, or maybe it's because it doesn't know how to communicate with the wall properly yet, but there's only confirms the fears that the wall already had, that the tree is that to take over.

This section, "I stand alone, replied the wall.

I chose this valley, said the tree to the wall; stretching my roots under your scored foundations.

I belong here, replied the wall." Now, the wall is determined that it doesn't want company, it doesn't want anyone else there.

It's alone and it feels that it belongs there.

The implication being that the tree doesn't belong.

The roots of the tree could be metaphorical for the cultures and practises of those migrating.

You might have heard the phrase putting your roots down when you move somewhere.

They could strengthen the ground, the roots, or destroy the wall.

So there's a challenge that the tree is putting out.

Are the roots that it's putting down going to make the ground stronger or ultimately topple the wall? "I'm growing taller, said the tree to the wall; you're a lonely stone sentry outstripped by a sapling.

I remain, replied the wall.

I'm a survivor, said the tree to the wall; I host the resurrection of each turning season." Now, the tree points out to the wall that it's lonely.

It literally says, "You're a lonely stone sentry." It doesn't have to be lonely.

The wall doesn't have to be alone.

It's choosing to be.

What would stop the wall from being alone? Well, having a proper conversation with the tree, rather than just being scared of it and thinking it's there to take over.

But the wall's simple reply shows that it might be unwilling to get to know the tree properly.

It has no interest.

It wants to be alone.

It's been alone forever.

It's always been happy.

Why would anything change now? So it's either that the wall is really stubborn or the wall is really scared.

"I endure, replied the wall.

You're the one they blame, said the tree to the wall; insensate barrier, stone-deaf to the rough bark of liberty.

You cannot know, replied the wall." Here, the tree is telling the wall that it is unchanging and it's stubborn.

And we as readers get the idea that this argument is going to last for ever, until both sides learn to talk to each other and communicate properly.

Without that communication, nothing will ever get sorted.

This argument will last forever.

No one will be happy.

Isn't that excellent? What looks like a simple poem on the page holds a much deeper and more profound meaning, and it's probably a lesson that we could all learn.

Stop arguing with people and get to know them and learn to communicate properly, instead.

In just a couple of seconds, I'm going to ask you to pause the video, and I want you to do two things.

Firstly, I want you to evaluate how close you were when you wrote down a prediction about what the poem would be about earlier on in the lesson.

Was your prediction close to my interpretation? The second thing I want you to do is write a paragraph including at least one quotation from the poem, which explains what you think the poem's about, your own interpretation.

Now, it could be the same as mine.

It could be an argument between someone young and someone old.

It could be an argument between something made by humans and something natural.

But the joy of poetry is that we can all come up with different interpretations.

So pause the video, write me a paragraph, and then come back.

Excellent work today, everyone.

We've analysed what I think is a fantastic poem, and we've looked at different ways of interpreting it.

Now, because I asked you to write a paragraph about your own interpretation, I obviously can't show you a model paragraph, an answer perhaps to mark your own against.

So what I'd like you to do instead, if you're willing and you're able to, is ask your parent or carer to share your work on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram.

Our handle is @OakNational and you can include the hashtag #LearnwithOak and that way I will get to see all of your interpretations of this poem.

I think you've done a great job.

The last thing I'd like you to do is take the quiz to prove how much you've learned.

Well done for all of your hard work today.

Goodbye.