Lesson video

Hello, it's Mrs. Smart.

Welcome back to our English unit.

I can't quite believe it, but it is actually the end of this unit.

We have learned so much about John Lyons' poetry.

And you have worked really, really hard throughout the whole unit, so well done.

In today's lesson, we're going to put all of our learning into practise and we're going to be writing our own poems about carnival based on John Lyons' poems "Carnival Jumbie" and "Carnival Dance Lesson".

I'm really looking forward to seeing the work that you produced.

Let's get started.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some lined paper, a pen or pencil to write with, and you're going to need your senses word maps from our previous lesson.

So, all of your notes to do with what you could see at carnival, what you could hear at carnival, and you might have done your own about what you would feel as well.

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

In today's lesson, we're going to start by rereading those two poems, "Carnival Jumbie" and "Carnival Dance Lesson" to remind ourselves of the theme and the tone of the poems. We'll then go to recaps on the vocabulary that we came up with together when we were describing what we could see and what we could hear if we went to a carnival.

Then, it will be time to shared write.

So, I'm going to show you a bit of writing, you're going to have a go.

Then, I'm going to do a bit more.

Then, you're going to go.

We'll write our poem in chance together.

And lastly, you will finish with your independent task.

Here is "Carnival Jumbie".

If you want to, you can pause the recording now and reread it for yourself.

I want you to remind yourself, what are the main themes of this poem? What's the main ideas? And what is the tone? Pause the recording and either have a think about it or write yourself some notes now.

Moving on to "Carnival Dance Lesson".

Same thing again, I want you to pause the recording and read the poem through to yourself.

You might even want to read this one out loud so that you can hear it.

Think about the two questions.

What are the main themes? And what is the tone of this poem? Pause the recording and either have a think or write yourself some notes.

We're now going to use that information you've just had a think about to compare those two poems and to draw out the similarities.

The features that I was saying.

So, what is similar between those two poems that you've just reread? Pause the recording and have a think or write yourself some notes now.

I had a think about it and I looked really carefully at the two poems and I thought about what I thought was the same.

I selected the themes carnival, dancing, music, and generally having fun were both themes within both of the poems. The tone in both poems was very positive, it was very energetic, it was very happy to reflect how people feel when they go to a carnival.

And things that were described within the poem.

A lot of movement was described because both poems were about dancing.

And music as well was described because, obviously, we dance to music.

I want you to think about all those ideas, the theme, the tone, and what's described and we're going to try and put all of that into our own poems today.

Now, let's have a look at these amazingly beautiful pictures.

We've got lots of pictures here from carnivals all over the world to remind ourselves what we could describe in our own poems. Pause the recording and have a little look at these pictures and remind yourself what could you describe.

I thought we could describe things that we can see.

So, people, we know there's lots of people at carnival.

They're often very, very busy.

There's colours, lots of really bright colours.

Costumes because we know lots and lots of people wear costumes and they're often covered in glitter and feathers.

And movement as well, most people at carnival are going to be moving because we know that there's going to be lots and lots of music.

That moves on to what we can hear.

So, of course, we can hear lots of music at carnival.

Can you remember that type of music that we learned about a few lessons ago that is the national music of Trinidad and Tobago? Well done.

Yes, it's called Calypso.

Calypso music very, very common at Carnival in Trinidad.

And also other carnivals around the world as well.

You might hear people.

So you might hear people laughing or chatting or shouting to each other.

You might even hear people singing.

And then you might also hear noises associating food and drink because often in carnivals, there's lots of stores where people can buy food and drink to eat, so you might hear things like meat sizzling.

And lastly, you might want to describe how you feel.

So, your emotional feelings, but also your physical feelings.

How does your body feel when you're really happy or when you're really excited? Or maybe how does your body feel after a whole day on your feet at Carnival dancing? I know that I would probably feel really tired and my muscles would probably ache by the end of the day.

Here's an example of the senses word map that we thought of in one of our previous lessons.

And hopefully you have got your own example in front of you.

So, we had one that we can see.

One where that would describes things that we can see.

We focused on people, colours, and costumes.

And then, we created a senses word map of what we could hear.

Again, we described people and music.

Make sure you've got those notes in front of you because you're going to need them in today's lesson.

Right, it is now time for our shared write.

Where we are going to try and write this poem about Carnival using all of the inspiration that we've gained from John Lyons' poetries and those images and the videos that we've already seen.

Here's out success criteria, features that we want to try and include in our poem today.

I have described aspects of a carnival.

So, of course, we're going to describe things that we might see at Carnival, things we might hear at Carnival, and how we might feel at Carnival, that might be inside, your emotional feelings.

Or it might be on the outside, your physical feelings.

I have thought carefully about my vocabulary choices.

And you should have those senses word maps in front of you where you thought of all that amazingly ambitious, appropriate, scripted vocabulary that you can just take and put into your poem today.

Now, this is something that you might not be familiar with.

I have included a repeated rhyming refrain.

If you remember when we looked at the two poems that John Lyons wrote about Carnival, they both had that repeated few lines that went through the poem after each verse.

It's a little bit like a chorus in a song, but we called it a refrain and it rhymed.

We're going to try and write our own today.

And then, I also want you to carefully consider the rhythm and the beat of your poem.

So, when you're writing your poem, you might want to tap a beat to yourself and keep saying it out loud so you can make sure that your poem is keeping to a beat.

It's almost like writing a song or a piece of music if you've ever done that before.

And hopefully, you've had lots of practise at tapping a beat to a poem because in your last lesson you had to practise reciting one of John Lyons' poems to a beat.

I'm so excited, I hope you're ready to write.

Now, the first thing we need to think about is this rhyming refrain because I want to start with my rhyming refrain and then it's going to repeat after each verse in my poem.

Now, I'm going to take lots of inspiration from John Lyons.

It's absolutely fine to steal some of his ideas.

Obviously, we're not going to just rewrite his poem exactly the same.

But it's fine to take words and phrases and rhyming words to use in our own poem.

So, mine I've written is quite similar to John Lyons.

I've written "Jump high, jump low.

Dance with me." Those are my first two lines.

But I'm going to repeat that "jump" and I'm going to say, "Jump in, jump out." It reminded me a little bit of doing "The Hokey Pokey" if you've ever done that before.

And then I want to rhyme with "me".

I want my last word in my fourth line to rhyme with "me".

Jump high, jump low.

Dance with me.

Jump in, jump out.

I'm going to have, "Join the party." 'Cause I know Carnival is a huge party.

Now, let's try and say that to a beat.

Jump high, jump low.

Dance with me.

Jump in, jump out.

Join the party.

So, you can hear each line I've written has two beats that goes with it.

Why don't you have a go at saying that out loud to yourself? Okay.

Right now, we're going to write our first proper verse.

And I'm going to do some repetition to start with.

I'm going to start with "Carnival, carnival" to make it really clear to my audience that my poem is about Carnival, in case they weren't sure.

And I know Carnival, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about Carnival is how busy it is.

So, I'm going to write, "Crowds fill the streets," and then the other thing that comes to straight to my mind, I can see crowds and I can hear lots of really loud music.

So, I'm going to describe the speakers pumping.

And then those speakers are pumping often really, really loud beats.

So, I'm going to write, "Air filled with beats." And actually, I've got "Crowds fill the streets," and "Air filled with beats," so maybe I don't want to say those both.

Hmm, what could I have instead? Maybe, I'll say, "Crowds all over the streets," that would be better, then I'm not repeating the word "fill." Okay, let's read that out loud and I'm going to pat a rhythm to myself.

Carnival, carnival.

Crowds all over the streets.

Speakers pumping, air filled with beats.

So, you can hear again, I might change slightly the way I pronounce words and the speed I say my poem at to fit with that beat.

You have a go at saying it to yourself now.

Try and pat the beat to yourself as well.

Good job.

Okay.

I'm now, of course, going to repeat my rhyming refrain.

So, "Jump high, jump low, dance with me.

Jump in, jump out, join the party." So, I've got my rhyming refrain repeated there.

I want you to now try and write your rhyming refrain and the first verse of your poem.

Remember to try and say it to that beat and use your senses word maps for your ideas.

Off you go.

Right, hopefully you are ready for the next part of our poem.

So, I've had our refrain so I'm now going to go into my second main verse.

And I want to describe some of the colours and some of the costumes that you can see.

So, I'm going to use what's on my senses word map.

I had "explosions of colour." Which is a really good way of describing lots and lots of different colours, explosions of colour.

And then let's think about some of the colours I might see.

I'm going to those pictures.

There was a lot of red.

But I don't want to say "red".

I'm going to use "crimson".

There was also a lot of blue, but I'm going to call it "sapphire blue".

I've got, "Explosions of colour, crimson, sapphire blue." And then I want to describe, hmm, what else could I describe? Haven't described that Calypso music yet and I know that's really important to Trinidad and to Carnival.

So, let's have, "Steel pans play." And then they often play Calypso.

"Calypso tunes." Now, you might notice that blue and tunes don't quite rhyme, but sometimes it's okay to have a half rhyme if you can't find a pair of words that completely rhyme.

Let's read that through and hear it to a beat.

Explosions of colour, crimson, sapphire blue.

Steel plans play Calypso tunes.

Excellent, so again, you can hear each line I've written sticks to that two beats per line.

And I might, again, change the way I pronounce things.

So, when I say "Crimson, sapphire blue," I say "sapphire" quite quickly so that it fits with my beat and that's absolutely fine.

That makes it sound like a song.

Okay, so, again, what do I need now? That's it, I need my rhyming refrain.

So, again, I'm going to have "Jump high, jump low.

Dance with me, jump in, jump out.

Join the party." Brilliant.

I'm doing really, really well.

Now, I want you to have a go at writing your second verse.

Think about describing something that you haven't yet described.

So, if you described the music, then now try and describe some of the costumes.

Or if you described some of the sounds, maybe now describe something that you might feel or something that you might see.

Off you go.

Right, I hope you're ready to start writing the last part of your poem.

So, I had my rhyming refrain.

So, I'm now going to write my third verse.

I'm going to start with describing some of the costumes in a bit more detail.

So, I'm going to go with, "Plumes of feathers, glitter covered face." 'Cause I know when I went to Carnival in Notting Hill, people, lot and lots of people had face paint on, glitter all over their faces.

So, "Plumes of feathers, glitter covered face." Now, the glitter sort of glints and shines in the sunlight.

So, I'm going to say, "Glinting in the sunlight." And I want something that rhymes with "face".

Hmm, what could rhyme with face? Maybe something to do with what I might hear? And ideas? That's a good idea.

I'm going to go with "bass".

Which is that deep sound that you often get when you hear a beat.

It's like a bass beat.

So, I'm going to say, "Hear the bass." Okay, let's read that back and check it all makes sense.

I'm going to say it to my beat.

Plumes of feathers, glitter covered face.

Glinting in the sunlight, hear the bass.

Excellent, that all fits.

Now, I've said, "Hear the bass." This would be a perfect opportunity to copy John Lyons and have those words that are like the sounds.

So, do you remember? He had "Boodum-di-dum-di-dum," or something like that.

I'm going to do that because I think that's exactly the sound that a bass beat would make.

So, I'm going to steal John Lyons' idea.

I'm going to say, "Boodum-di-dum-di-dum." Bit funny, not real words, are they? And I'm going to repeat it again, "Boodum-di-dum-di-dum." Quite difficult to write that.

Okay, great.

And then, of course, I'm going to end with my chorus.

Hopefully, you can all recite it with me now.

Jump in, jump out.

Well done.

What was it? Dance with me.

Excellent.

What's next? Jump.

Jump in, jump out.

Well, no, it wasn't "Jump in, jump out," was it? It was "Jump high, jump low," to start with.

Well done if you've got it right.

Then, it's "Jump in, jump out." And then we're going to finish with, "Join the party." I don't want to full stop there because that's not the end of my verse.

I'm going to put a comma there.

Okay, let's read that whole bit back and check it makes sense.

I'm going to say it with my beat.

You might want to say it with me.

Plumes of feathers, glitter covered face.

Glinting in the sunlight, hear the bass.

Boodum-di-dum-di-dum, boodum-di-dum-di-dum.

Jump high, jump low, dance with me.

Jump in, jump out, join the party.

Wow, it's got so much energy.

It really makes we want to dance.

It's exactly the tone and the themes that I wanted to create in my poem.

I'm just going to check back now through my success criteria and make sure I've included everything.

So, have I described aspects of a carnival? What I could see, what I could hear, and what I could feel.

Yes, I think I've done that.

Not sure I've got many feelings in there, so maybe you could have some more.

I've thought really carefully about my vocabulary choices, definitely, I've used lots of ideas from my senses word maps.

I've got my repeated rhyming refrain, which, hopefully, you all could remember now as well.

And I thought really carefully about the rhythm and beat of my poem, saying each verse out loud, tapping my rhythm as I wrote.

Okay, over to you.

This is now your time to finish off writing your poem.

So, try and write your third verse and your refrain at the end.

Pause the video to complete your task and resume once you're finished.

Right, time for your task.

Use your senses word maps and example poems to crate your own poem about a carnival.

You may have already done that throughout the lesson as we've done it in chance or you may not have done.

If you haven't done it yet, I hope you really enjoy writing your poem.

If you've already written your poem, this is your opportunity to practise performing your poem to a beat or rhythm.

You might even want to see if you can perform it someone at home or you could even film yourself performing it and listen to it back.

I can't quite believe it.

We've finished this whole unit.

We have learned so much about John Lyons and his poetry.

I really hope you enjoyed reading and listening to his poetry as much as I had sharing it with you.

And I hope you are really proud of all of the vocabulary that you've thought of and all of the poems that you have written within this unit.

I would absolutely love to see some of them.

Please, share your work with Oak National.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Twitter tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

And then everyone can see your amazing work.

Well done and goodbye.