Lesson video

Hello, It's Mrs. Smarts.

Welcome back to my English unit.

All about John Lyons poems. In today's lesson, we are going to be generating and developing some vocabulary to use in our own poems about Carnival.

I'm so excited to start writing our own poetry.

Let's get started.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some lined paper and a pen or a pencil to write with.

If you don't have either of those items with you right now, just pause the recording, and go and get them.

In today's lesson we're going to start by recapping those two poems by John Lyons about Carnival.

Carnival Jumbie and Carnival Dance Lesson.

Going to think about their themes and their tone.

So we've got those really clear in our head, ready to start developing and generating some vocabulary to write, to use in our own poems. We're then going to do something called zones of relevance, which you might not have heard of before, and all will become clear later on in the lesson.

Then we're going to generate some vocabulary.

We're going to do some senses word maps.

And lastly, your going to complete your independent task for today.

This is Carnival Jumbie, which is one of the poems that our lesson is based on today.

If you would like to please pause the recording and remind yourself of this poem by re-reading it.

Okay.

You should have re-read that poem reminded yourself of some of the features.

Can you now think about these three questions.

What is it about? Could you summarise what Carnival Jumbie is all about? What are the main themes? Remember that means the main ideas, and what is the tone? What's the general feeling that the poem gives.

Pause the recording and write some notes now.

Here we've got, Carnival Dance Lesson, which is the second poem we read by John Lyons all about carnival.

Again, I want you to pause the recording and read it through.

Okay.

Consider these three questions.

What is it about? Could you summarise it in one sentence? What's the main themes and what is the tone of this poem? Pause the recording again and write yourself some notes, Right? You should now have recapped reminded yourself of some of the key features of those two poems. We're now going to compare them.

What is similar or the same between those two poems, Carnival Jumbie and Carnival Dance Lesson? Have a look at your notes, remind yourself what you wrote.

Are there any similar themes? Is there a similar tone? Is there any similar content about what they're about.

Pause the recording and remind yourself now.

So, I think there is a very similar themes.

Both of them are about Carnival, which we know is that huge street parade that happens in Trinidad every year, every year, but also happens in lots of other countries.

And you may have been to or seen Notting Hill Carnival, which happens in London, in the UK.

The themes also cover music in particular, Calypso music and dancing or movement to the music.

The tone in both of the poems is very, very positive.

It's full of fun.

They're really energetic and happy.

These are generally the feelings around carnival.

People really really enjoy it and have a great time.

Before we start our zones of relevance, where we're going to think about some vocabulary we could use in our own poems about Carnival.

Let's just think about what could we describe.

If you were going to write a poem about Carnival, think about everything, you've read everything you've seen over the last few lessons.

What might you describe, pause the recording and have a think.

What could you describe in your poem about Carnival? I thought, you could just really describe your senses very effectively in this poem.

You could describe what you can see so you can see people, colours, costumes, the movement of people, particularly people don't sing.

You can hear lots of different things.

Because there are lots of people, you can hear laughter and chatter, but also music again, remember that Calypso music and there's steel pans we learnt about.

You might also have food cooking.

Lots of Carnivals have stands where people sell food and in particular, Caribbean food can include sizzling meats, which might make quite a noisy coz of loud sounds.

And lastly, you might describe your feelings.

Imagine yourself at Carnival, what emotions might you be having? But also what physical feelings might you be having, maybe you feel really hot, especially if it's in the middle of the summer, which kind of was often are maybe you'd be feeling really tired from all that dancing you've been doing.

Have a think about those different aspects that you could describe.

Here is a zone of relevance.

It looks a little bit like a target board that you might throw a dart at.

And the idea is that, we take a word and we put it.

We think of different words.

We think of synonyms for that word.

And we put them around the target.

The idea is that the best words, the most appropriate, most descriptive, most ambitious words go in the middle.

And then as you go further out, you get the less ambitious, less descriptive and less appropriate words.

Let's look at this sentence.

We've got her headdress was covered in red feathers.

And I want us to think about this adjective red it's a little bit boring, isn't it? Maybe we could think of some more ambitious words for red, to really paint a picture in our reader's minds.

Pause the recording, and think of any words you can for red.

If you want to draw yourself a target board, a zone of relevance you can, and put your best, most ambitious, most appropriate words in the centre, and then less ambitious, less appropriate words as they come out of the centre.

Pause the recording now.

Okay.

I've had a go at this.

Let's have a look at some of the words that I have used instead of red.

And then if you want to, you can write some of them down and steal them in your own notes.

I had cerise, that's a word often used to describe a kind of almost like a pinky red.

Sometimes it can be used to describe cherry red.

Ruby red, rubies are a type of stone.

Often you find it in jewellery.

So very kind of shiny red, a very deep red as well often Blood-red now I've put blood red on the outside, although that is a way to describe red, it's got quite negative feeling to it describing bloods.

So I think that's probably not very appropriate in this context.

Scarlet, that's another word we could use for red.

I put that right in the middle of the centre as probably my best synonym for red.

Fiery and particularly those feathers, they kind of look almost like fire.

I don't know.

So that would be quite a good one to use.

And Crimson.

That's another word to describe a really deep red.

If you want to pause the recording and write down any of those words for reds, you can, because they might be really useful when you come to write your own poem.

We're now going to do the same thing, but we're going to look at the word loud.

The music was loud.

Again we've got to know the adjective loud as describing the volume of the music.

And we know the kind of volume.

There is lots of, lots of different types of music and it's all very, very loud.

So, could we think of a better, more ambitious, more appropriate word for loud, to describe the music to our readers? Pause the recording, and write down any ideas you've got now.

Okay.

I had to think about this word loud.

Let's see some of my ideas and if you want to, you can steal them as well.

I've got noisy.

Now I've put that right on the outside.

That was the first word I thought of.

And actually it's probably about the same as loud.

It's not particularly descriptive or ambitious.

Then I had the word deafening.

So sometimes if music or noise is really, really loud, it's almost so loud, it might make us go deaf.

So we can't hear.

Or if you've ever had that feeling where music is so loud, it makes your ears is ring.

That might be a deafening, music or deafening noise.

Reverberating, that means sort of echoing sometimes when music or noise is so loud, it almost feels like it's echoing around you.

Pumping, that would be a good word to describe the music coming out of the speakers.

You might say the speakers were pumping or the music was pumping.

Ear-piercing, sometimes that might be a good word to describe something that's loud.

But ear-piercing is often a very high shrill sounds and music the music you tear at carnival probably wouldn't be like that.

So I've put that right on the outside as well.

Probably not very appropriate in this context.

Blaring, that's a similar word to pumping, to describe a really loud music coming out of some speakers.

Booming, get if you've ever felt really loud music, sometimes you almost feel like your whole body is shaking.

That would be really booming music.

Well, this is an interesting idea.

A cacophony of melodies, so melody is like a tune in music and a cacophony is a mixture of something.

So you might say a painting had a cacophony of colour.

It means a mixture, sometimes maybe a mixture that doesn't necessarily all go together.

So that's a really good way of describing the music at Carnival.

Because imagine as you walk down the streets, there's going to be lots and lots of different speakers and different bands.

And they all mix together in a cacophony.

If you want to pause the recording and write down any of those ideas, now you can.

Lastly, let's have one more go with the word people.

The sentences, the streets were full of people.

I know from going to Notting Hill Carnival, that it gets incredibly busy.

And I know Trinidad, the Carnival in Trinidad is the same.

So how are we going to describe the fact that the streets have got lots and lots of people in them.

Pause the recording and write down any synonyms you've got for people, now.

Right, let's have a look it through some of my ideas.

What did I have? I had participants.

Sometimes participants would be an appropriate word to use for people, but it sounds quite formal.

I don't think it's very appropriate in my poem about Carnival.

So I put that right on the outside.

Performers, that's a good noun to use rather than people, because we know that all of the people that are part of the Carnival, so not the people that are watching, but the people that are actually in the parade, they're all performing, they might be dancing, they might be singing, they might be playing musical instruments.

So they're all performers Dancers, again lots of the people that are in the parade are going to be dancing.

So we could refer to them as dancers.

Merry-makers, that now might be more appropriate to describe people that come to the parade to watch it because they want to be merry or make merry, you might refer to them as merry-makers.

Similarly, party-goers, would describe people that are going to the party.

It could describe their performance as well, but it's someone who's going to a party would be a party goer.

And it implies that someone's, up for a good time, they're full of energy and they want to have fun.

Crowds, is another noun we could use to describe lots and lots of people in one place.

Revellers, I've put that one right in the middle.

That's a really good, ambitious word that I could use.

And it describes people that want to have fun, want to have a really good time, they're filled with excitement and energy.

We're now going to generate some of our own vocabulary using a Senses Word Map.

So we're going to think about what we could see at Carnival.

And then we're going to think about what we could here.

I've chosen three different aspects of what we might be able to see.

You can see we've got people, colours and costumes.

What's I want you to do now, on your piece of paper is write see in the middle and you could draw an eye if you want to.

And then, you're going to have three lines that come off and you're going to write people, costumes, colours.

Make sure you've got lots of space.

So you might need a whole, A4 piece of paper for this one.

Pause the recording and do that now.

Okay.

Hopefully, you've got your word map all ready to go.

Now we're going to think about any words at all that we can think of to describe people, colours and costumes.

So it could be an adjectives to describe the nouns or it could be verbs to describe what these things are doing, or it could be other nouns and to use instead of people, colours or costumes.

So, you need to now pause the recording and write down as many words as you can.

Links to people, colours and costumes.

Try and be really ambitious and think about making sure that your language is appropriate for a poem, that's going to be all about Carnival.

Remember we want a really positive tone want our poems be full of fun and energy and excitement to reflect the feelings that people have when they go to Carnival.

Pause the recording and do that now.

Right, I wish I could see your word maps.

I bet you have come up with lots of really, really good ideas.

Your poems are going to be incredible.

I've had a few ideas as well, but we're just going to go through now.

And if you want to scribble any of them down while we're going through you can, as many ideas as you can to steal and collect together will mean that when you come to write your poetry, it will be an absolute breeze.

It'll be super easy, because you'll have all of your ideas ready to go.

Let's start with people.

Smiles spread across faces.

As we said, people are really happy generally when they go to Carnival.

So you might see lots and lots of people with smiles on their faces to show that they're really happy.

You could even say a sea of smiles, describe a big group of such smiles.

Revellers we've had that one already.

Another word for people particularly people that want to have a good time and wants to have fun.

Winding bodies, now this reminds me a little bit of the John Lyons poems, where he talks about whining.

Remember we talked about how that was that movement to your hips and your bottom that people do to music.

So you could describe whining bodies or winding bodies, to describe the movements of the dances that people do.

Rowdy crowds filling the streets.

So rowdy means people that are making lots and lots of noise.

Maybe some who's being a little bit disruptive.

Exuberant, that means full of energy and enthusiasm, which generally people at Carnival definitely are.

Throng, that's a noun describing big group of people.

Often very densely packed together like a big crowd where you can't move because you're so close to everyone.

An energetic, definitely a very appropriate words to describe the people and definitely the performers at Carnival.

Now let's have a think about the colours.

Rainbow, that's a good word to describe the fact that we've lots and lots of different colours.

An explosion of colour.

Sapphire blues were different way to refer to blues, to refer to it's a sapphire.

A sapphire is a type of blue stone that you sometimes get in jewellery.

That's very shiny.

Neon yellow.

Neon yellow is like a kind of fluorescent yellow that's really, really bright.

Crimson, we had that word already to describe red or another word for reds.

Vibrant, that's an adjective that might describe a very bright or bold colour.

Emerald green, again an emerald is a green stone that you get in jewellery so again another very shiny stone.

So you might refer to something as emerald, if it's a very deep, shiny green.

And tropical splash.

So tropical colours, we often think of as very bright colours and a splash is a really good way to describe lots and lots of different colours in one place.

Let's now think, excuse me, let's now think about costumes.

How could we describe them? What might we see in people's costumes.

Twinkling skirts, so remember we said that lots of the costumes have sequins on.

So they would probably twinkle in the sunlight could be twinklings skirts or shirts or dresses, anything at all.

Oh, that's something that really stands out.

And we know from looking at those pictures before the costumes are Carnival definitely bold.

You couldn't miss them.

Dazzling, that's another really good word to describes me and very bright and maybe shiny.

Decorated, we know that the costumes definitely aren't playing out there.

They've got lots and lots of decoration and detail on them.

Plumes of feathers.

That's a phrase that we could use to describe a group of feathers, a bit like the woman's head dress that we looked at earlier.

Bejewelled dancers, that means dancers covered in jewels a bit like sequins.

And sparkling glitter, lots and lots of glitter pop people often wear glitter on their faces like face paints at Carnival as well.

So you could talk about faces covered in sparkling glitter.

If you want to pause the recording now and write down any of those ideas, you can do.

Let's think about what we could hear at Carnival.

We can think about the noises that the people would make.

And we know there's lots and lots of people so people are going to make a lot of noise.

And then we can think about the sounds and the noise that music might make.

So, I want you to create your mind map now.

So again, you're going to need a whole new page, make sure you've got lots of space.

Write the word here in the middle.

If you want to draw yourself in air, you can do.

And then you want two lines coming off.

One that says people and one that says music.

Then see if you can think of as many words or it could be adjectives other nouns could be verbs to describe anything about people.

And then the same for music.

Pause your recording, and off you go.

Right, I'm sure you'll have got pages covered in ideas now.

I'm so excited to see them.

I'm going to share some of my ideas, and again if you want to copy any of them down, you can.

So we've got people, a gentle chatter.

So generally people go to kind of go with their friends, now obviously going to be talking to them and chatting.

So you might hear a gentle chatter.

Giggling, we know that people are really often very happy at carnivals they probably go into giggle with their friends or squeal with their friends, or maybe even shouts to each other if they see someone in the street they recognise they might shout over to them.

A fizz of a can opening, often Carnivals happening when it's very, very hot in the summer, I know Notting Hill Carnival happens in August.

And when I went, it was really, really hot.

So there was lots of drinking of fizzy drinks.

So that fizz or that snap of the sound it makes when you open a can of fizzy drink.

Meat sizzling, I know when I went to Notting Hill Carnival, I actually ate some goats.

So there's lots and lots of meat cooking in on stores on the side of the streets for people to eat.

That might be a sound that you can hear could also be a smell, maybe meat sizzling.

And laughter similar to giggling people having a good time.

You're always going to hear some laughter.

Let's now think about music.

Calypso of course, was that muse, that type of music from Trinidad and Tobago that we learned about in a previous lesson.

Blaring, one of those verbs to describe that really loud music coming out of those speakers.

Pumping again, another verb to describe loud music.

Singing, maybe you attend individual singing or band singing, performing during the parade.

Tunes definitely going to hear a lot of songs and tunes and you went to a Carnival.

Oh, this is a nice description, melodies drifted through the air.

That's a really vivid description.

So melody is a word for song or tune.

And the idea is that it's drifting through the air, into your ears.

Booming speakers, again another word for really loud music.

Steel pans, we know we have here, steel pans, the loss in Calypso music.

Rhythms, so you might hear lots of drum rhythms and thundering drums that really loud beats.

I know John Lyons tried to imitate those drums in one of his carnival poems at the ends.

If you want to pause the recording now and write down any of those ideas, please do so.

Wow, you have done so well in today's lesson.

I cannot believe, how much vocabulary we have generated.

I can't wait, to write our poems and our next lesson using all of your ideas.

Your task today, is I want you to complete your sentences word maps.

The things that you could see at Carnival and things that you could hear at Carnival.

So you might want to go back through the recordings and make sure you've got as many ideas as you possibly can.

Or if you think of anything else between now and your next lesson, make sure you add it to your notes so you can include it in your Carnival poem.

I then want you to create one more senses word maps because we talked about what we could see and what we could hear.

But what we didn't talk about is what we could feel.

And when we talk about feelings, it might be emotional feelings.

So as we said, most people kind of will feel really happy and positive and having lots of fun, but it could also be physical feelings.

How might your body feel? How does your body feel when it's really excited and happy.

Or maybe you'd feel really hot and you'd be sweating or maybe your muscles would be aching from walking and all the dancing.

Have a think about feelings and try and make yourself a word map.

And you could include some of those ideas in your poem in our next lesson.

Congratulations.

Wow! What an achievement you have worked so hard today.

In today's lesson, thinking of so much vocabulary.

If you would like to please share your work with your parents or carer, I'm sure they would be absolutely amazed at all of your ambitious, descriptive vocabulary in your senses, word maps.

I will see you in our next lesson.

We are going to use our ideas to write a poem all about Carnival.

I can't wait.

Goodbye.