To learn about a poet and engage with the poem for first impressions

Key Stage 2

English

Poetry - The Listeners by Walter de la Mare

﻿Hi, everyone. Ms. Vincent here for your reading lesson today. In today's lesson, we're going to start a brand new reading unit based on the poem "The Listeners" by a poet called Walter de La Mare. Today, we're going to hear the poem for the first time, we're going to get to know a little bit about the poet, and we're going to think about how the poem makes us feel and what it makes us think of when we hear it for the first time. So let's get started with this first lesson on the poem "The Listeners." Here's our agenda for today's lesson. So we're going to start with a reading warmup, just to get our brains into gear for our reading. We're going to learn a little bit about the poet. We're going to think about some words that we might come across, which might be little bit tricky. So we're going to learn some pre-vocabulary before we hear the poem. And then finally, we're going to read the poem and we're going to think about our first impressions. That means what we think about when we hear it for the first time. So in this lesson, you will need an exercise book or a piece of paper, a pencil or a pen, and your brains switched on, ready to do some thinking. So if there's anything that you need to go and get, then please pause the video, go and get your things, and when you're ready, come back and press play. Okay, fantastic. So let's get started. So let's start with a reading warm up. On the screen, you can see a sentence. I'm going to read it first and then you can read it after me. The wind shook the bushes as the moon cast its silver light over the ground below. Your turn. Fantastic! Great reading. So I have a question for you. My question is what time of day is it? Is it the morning? Is it the evening? Is it nighttime? And how do you know? So I'd like you to pause the video and write down your answer. What time of day is it and how do you know? When you've finished writing your answer, you can press play and we'll move on with the lesson. Okay, fantastic! I wonder what you thought. Well, when I look a little bit more closely at the sentence, I can see that it talks about the moon casting its silver light, and I know that the moon is out at night time. So it must be night because the light of the moon is strong enough to shine on the ground that must be dark below. So the time of day must be nighttime. Really well done if you've got that answer as well by finding the evidence in the text. But if you weren't sure, that's okay. It's just good practise to think about what we can see in the text and how it can help us. Okay, so now we're going to move on to learning about the poet. The poet's name is Walter de La Mare. So my turn, your turn. Walter de La Mare. Good job. Okay, so let's find out a little bit about this poet. So he was born in 1873 and he died in 1956. So Walter de La Mare is a British poet, so he comes from Great Britain, and he wrote a huge number of poems; he wrote lots and lots of poems. The poem that we will be learning, which is called "The Listeners," is probably his most well-known poem, and he wrote this poem in 1912. So let's say the title of the poem together. My turn, your turn. "The Listeners." Fantastic. And it was written in 1912. Okay, now, let's think about when Walter de La Mare was alive because we know that he was born in 1873 and he died in 1956. So in 1837, that's when Queen Victoria first became queen. And then if we jump forward in time, around 1914 to 1918, we had the First World War. And then in 1939 to 1942 was the Second World War. So during Walter de La Mare's lifetime, he went through both of the World Wars and he was born sometime after Queen Victoria became queen, but she was still queen when he was born. So in his lifetime, he lived through the two World Wars. So given what we know about when he was alive, I wonder if you could have a go at thinking about what you think he wrote about in his poems. Think about when he was alive and what kinds of things he might have written about. So I'd like you to pause the video and just make some brief notes about what you think he wrote his poems about, and then press play when you're ready to move on. Okay, fantastic. So, Walter de La Mare actually wrote many, many imaginative poems, and they had lots of elements of mystery and fantasy that were linked into reality. So very creative poems using his imagination, often thinking about made up worlds or made up elements. So perhaps in your answer, you might have thought about the fact that Walter de La Mare perhaps wrote some poems about wartime or some poems about the Victorian era, but actually he took inspiration from those times, but he made poems mysterious and full of lots of fantasy as well. And the poem that we're going to look at definitely has a lot of mystery and fantasy in it as well. So let's have a little check to see what we can remember about the poems or about what we have learned about Walter de La Mare. So my first question is, what is Walter de La Mare best known for being? Is he known for being an artist or is he known for being a poet? Can you point to your answer in three, two, one? Well done, he is a poet, and he wrote the poem that we will be learning about. Okay, next question. The poem we will be learning about is called, is it "The Speakers" or is it "The Listeners?" Make your decision. Point to your answer in three, two, one. It's "The Listeners." Well done, fantastic. Okay, thinking back, can we remember when Walter de La Mare was born? Was he born in 1873 or was he born in 1973? Hmm. Choose your answer. Point to your answer in three, two, one. Well done. He was born in 1873. Fantastic! Okay, last one. Was he born before or after Queen Victoria was crowned? So when she became queen was when she was crowned, was he born before that or was he born after it? Choose your answer in three, two, one. After. Well done. Fantastic work. Okay, so now let's think about our poem. The poem is called "The Listeners." Now inside "The Listeners," I can see the word listen. Now listen is a verb because it's a doing word. It's something that I do, "The Listeners." Now think this poem might be about? And more importantly, who do you think the listeners might be? Now we don't have any information at the moment, so we're just making a guess about who we think the listeners might be. So I'd like you to pause the video and write down on your piece of paper who you think the listeners might be. And once you pause the video, you might need a little bit of thinking time to make your best guess once you pause the video, and that's fine. And then you can write down your ideas and press play when you've written down an idea and you're ready to move on. Press pause and then play when you're ready to go. Well done. Fantastic. I wonder who you thought the listeners might be. We'll find out when we read the poem in a moment. Before we read the poem, there are some words that I would like you to understand so that when we come to read the poem, you stand a better chance of understanding what is happening. So this is just some pre-vocabulary. And we're going to think about what those words mean, but also what type of word they are. So our first word is traveller. My turn, your turn. Traveller. Good job. Now I want you to think about whether a traveller is an adjective, a noun, a verb, or an adverb. I know that an adjective is a describing word and an adjective often describes a noun. And a noun is a PPT, a person, a place or a thing. A verb is a doing word. And an adverb describes a verb and it often ends in ly and that can help me. So I'm going to help you a little bit more by putting the word traveller in a sentence. The traveller got on his horse to go to his next destination. So I want you to think about what the word traveller might be. Is it an adjective, a noun, a verb, or an adverb? Make your choice in three, two, one. It is a noun. So a traveller is a type of person who travels a lot, and that's the word given to a person who travels a lot. And in this poem, we will hear about a traveller. So a traveller is a person who has done some travelling. The next word I want us to think about is the word smote. Hmm, that smote is an unusual word. Now, unlike travelling, you probably have never come across the word smote before. So I'm going to put the word smote in a sentence to help you try and understand it. The sentence is he smote on the door. My turn, your turn. Smote. He smote on the door. Now I want us to think about whether it's an adjective, a noun, a verb, or an adverb. And in order to do that, we need to think carefully about the words around the word smote. So I have to look, he, mm, on the door. Hmm, now that tells me that he's doing something on the door; he smote on the door, and that means that it's a particular type of word if it's a doing word. Can you make your choice about what type of word you think it is? Is it an adjective, a noun, a verb, or an adverb? Point to the one that you think in three, two, one. It is a verb, so it's a doing word. And to smote, so he smote means he knocked really, really hard on the door. He beat on the door to get somebody to open it. So to smote on the door means to knock really hard on the door. Okay, let's look at our next word. The next word, my turn, your turn, is phantom. Okay, phantom. Thinking carefully, you might have heard this word before. Phantom, I want us to think about whether it's an adjective, a noun, a verb, or an adverb. Let me put it in a sentence for you to help you. The spooky house was haunted by a phantom. Hmm, what type of word is phantom? Remember, an adjective is a describing word; it describes a noun. A noun is a PPT, a person, a place, or a thing. A verb is an action word or doing word. An adverb describes a verb; it tells us how we do an action. So choose what type of word do you think it is and point to it. You have three seconds. Three, two, one. A phantom is a noun. A phantom is like a ghost. And we can see that from the sentence, because it says the spooky house was haunted by a phantom. And we know that often in stories, it's ghosts that do the haunting. So phantom is another word to mean ghost. Okay, so now let's have a go at reading the poem called "The Listeners." Now I'm going to read the poem and I want you to listen really carefully, and you can start to think about what you like about the poem. You can start to think about what you don't like about the person. If it reminds you of anything perhaps. Or if you have any questions, if it leaves you with any questions that you would like to try and answer. So for example, you might come across a word that you don't understand and that might be one of your questions, or you might be a little bit puzzled by something that happens during the poem, and that could be your question as well. So I'm going to read you the poem, and then we're going to think about our likes, our dislikes, things that it reminds us of, and if we have any questions, any puzzles after we've listened to the poem. So the poem is called "The Listeners." You're going to listen to the poem. And as I said, as you are listening, thinking about what you think this poem is about as well as those other factors. So "The Listeners," that's the title. "The Listeners." "Is there anybody there?" said the traveller, knocking on the moonlit door. And his horse in the silence champed the grasses of the forest's ferny floor. And a bird flew up out of the turret, above the traveler's head. And he smote upon the door again a second time. "Is there anybody there?" he said. But no one descended to the traveller. No head from the leaf-fringed sill leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners that dwelt in their loan house then stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight to that voice from the world of men. Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair that goes down to the empty hall, hearkening in an air stirred and shaken by the lonely traveler's call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, their stillness answering his cry while his horse moved, cropping the dark turf 'neath the start and leafy the sky. For he suddenly smote on the door even louder and lifted his head. "Tell them I came," and no one answered, "That I kept my word," he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, though every word he spake fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house from the one man left awake. Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup and the sound of iron on stone, and how the silence surged softly backward when the plunging hoofs were gone. So now we're going to think about our first impressions of the poem. First impressions just means how it makes us feel after we've heard it one time or after we've very quickly engaged with it. So we've only listened to the poem one time. Now, if you're feeling like you'd like to listen to it again, remember you can always skip back in the video and listen to it one or two more times. And if you'd really like to, you can also pause the video at different points so that you can have a go at reading the poem from the screen. So now that we've heard it, we're going to think about what we think of it so far. So thinking about what our first impressions of the poem are. Perhaps, was there anything that you really liked? Was there anything that you didn't like? Do you have any questions? Perhaps having listened to it, you now have lots and lots of questions about the poem. And then finally, does it remind you of anything? So what I would like you to do now, I guess you could perhaps split your page into four parts, and I'd like you to think about these four different sections and think about what your ideas are around them, what your likes are, what your dislikes are, whether you have any questions, and whether it reminds you of anything. So I'd like you to pause the video and make down as many, take down, sorry, as many notes as you can about these four different sections. Off you go. Okay, I wonder what things you liked. I wonder what things you didn't like. I wonder what questions you have and what it reminded you of. Hopefully you're able to think of something to each of the sections. Over the next few lessons, we are hopefully going to find out a little bit more that might answer some of your questions, and we're going to talk a little bit more about things that we like, perhaps, or things that we maybe don't like. So really well done for working so hard. You have completed today's reading lesson. You've done a really good job and you've completed the lesson. I hope that you will join me for some more reading lessons on the poem "The Listeners." See you soon. Bye!

To learn about a poet and engage with the poem for first impressions

To learn about a poet and engage with the poem for first impressions

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UnitEnglish / Poetry - The Listeners by Walter de la Mare

English