To discuss the poet's choice of language and structure.

Key Stage 2

English

Poetry - The Listeners by Walter de la Mare

﻿Hello, everyone. Welcome to our fourth lesson on the poem "Listeners" by the poet Walter de La Mare. In today's lesson, we are going to think really carefully about the poet Walter de La Mare and his choices. In particular, we're going to think about his choices in structure, so how he chose to structure his poem, and also to think about his language choices and the effect that has on us, the reader of the poem. So, let's get started with our fourth lesson on the "Listeners." So, here's our agenda for today's lesson. We're going to start with a reading warmup and today's reading warmup is going to focus on rhyming words. Then we're going to re-read the poem one more time. We'll know this poem really well by the end of the unit. Then we're going to think about the structural choices. So, the choices that the poem made to do with rhyming and perhaps some different techniques that the poet used to get us engaged in the poem. And then finally, we're going to think about the choice of the vocabulary and how that makes us feel. So before we start the lesson, as always, you will need a piece of paper or an exercise book. You'll need a pencil or a pen. And you'll need your brain switched on, ready to do some reading and some looking for patterns in the poem. So, if there's anything that you need to go and get, then please pause the video and go and do that now. Okay, fantastic. Well done. So, hopefully we are ready to start our lesson now. So, let's start with our reading warmup. In today's reading warmup, we're going to think about rhyming words. So, I would like you to pause the video and identify, so spot which words rhyme with the word still. My turn, your turn, still. So, when we are looking for rhyming words, it's really important that we say the words out loud, because we can only hear when we say the word out loud, if a word rhymes with another word, okay? So, I'm not going to read the words for you. I would like you to pause the video, read the words on the screen out loud to see if you can spot the words that rhyme with still. Pause the video and press play when you have found the words, off you go. Okay, well done. So, the words were window, window does not rhyme with still. The next one was fill, fill and still rhyme. Traveller, traveller does not rhyme with still. Then we have until, still fill and until all rhyme. Then we have the word sill. Still, fill, until and sill all rhyme. The last one is stirrup, which does not rhyme with the word still. Okay, same again, but this time I would like you to identify the words that rhyme with the word stone. Off you go, please. Okay, well done. I hope that for this one you really had a go at saying those words out loud, because there are some words that are spelled with the same last three lessons here, but they do not sound the same as stone. And remember for two words to rhyme, they need to have the same sound at the end, okay? So, the first word that we had was gone, and gone and stone do not rhyme, even though they both end in O N E. Then along and down, we've got the word bone, and stone and bone do rhyme. And we've got the word from which does not rhyme. Then we've got the word grown. Now, it's out differently because it's O W N, but it's still rhymes with stone because stone and grown make the same sound. Then we've got the word shone, which is what the moon did. It shone on the door. That does not rhyme even though it ends in O N E. And then finally, we've got the word phone that does rhyme. So, well done if you spotted those rhyming words. Okay, so we're going to have a go at re-reading the poem. Just like we did in previous lessons, it's going to be my turn, your turn. So, first you can listen when I'm reading, and then when I say your turn, it's your turn to pause the video and read the poem out loud. Off, we go. 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. You're turn, pause the video, read this text and press play when you're ready to move on. Fantastic, well done. Okay, my turn. "Is that anybody there?" he said. But no one descended to the Traveller, No head from the leaf-fringed sill, the window sill that is, Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. Okay, pause the video. Your turn to read this section of the poem. Okay, great reading, well done. My turn, But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone 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. Okay, pause the video, your turn. Well done, my turn now. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, Neath the starred and leafy 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. And remember that I kept my word means that he kept a promise to somebody. Okay, your turn, pause the video and read the text. Well done, my turn to read the last part of the poem. Never the least stir made the listeners, so they didn't move at all. Though every word he spake, spoke Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house. So, echoing means it's going again and again 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, how the silence moved away so that it filled the air, as the plunging hooves, the horses' hooves were gone. Okay, pause the video. Your turn to read this part of the poem. Okay, fantastic. So we've re-read the whole of the poem, remembering this is a poem, all about a traveller who comes and knocks on the door of a house, but nobody answers except there are some listeners. And we're told by the poet that these listeners are phantoms. So, they are ghosts and they do not answer the door and the traveller knocks and knocks, but nobody comes to answer. And it tells us that he wants somebody to know that he came, he kept his word, he kept his promise, which makes us think that he promised to somebody that he would come back, but nobody answers. So, he leaves on his horse and the silence returns. Nobody knocking on the door anymore. Okay. So, now we're going to decide, we're going to discuss sorry, the choices that the poet made with regards to the structure of the poem. So, this poem does rhyme. So, that's why we had a look at rhyming words in our reading warm up, because this poem does rhyme. But not all poems have to rhyme, but Walter de La Mare chose to use rhyming in "The Listeners." So, what we're going to do now is I would like you to pause the video. I want you to read the poem to see if you can spot any rhyming words. When you spot some words that rhyme, so they might be in pairs, when you spot some words that rhyme, I'd like you to write them side by side on your piece of paper. So for example, if I read the first few sentences, is there anybody there said the traveller, knocking on the moonlit door and his horse in the silence champed the grasses on the forest's ferny floor. I've got a door and floor that both rhyme. So, I'm going to write them side by side on my piece of paper. So, I'd like you to pause the video and have a go for this section of the poem to read it and write down any rhyming pairs that you spotted. Off you go. Well done, okay, I wonder how many you spotted. So, I'm going to show you the ones that I spotted. So, like the first one I said, I had door and floor. You might have spotted head and said. You might have spotted sill and still, then and men, hall and call. Well done if you spotted all of those different rhyming words. Now, I want you to have a look. Now that you can see them highlighted here on the poem, where do they come in the poem? Where do they always come? Do they come at the start of the line? Do they come in the middle or do they come at the end? Can you tell your screen what you think, start, middle or end? They always come at the end and they are one line, yes. One line, no. So the two rhyming words skip a line and then they rhyme together. And that's a pattern that we can see in this whole section. So, now I've got the rest of the poem. And in a moment, I'm going to ask you to pause the video and do the exact same thing. So, read through this part of the poem and see if the pattern continues. Are the rhyming words always at the end> And are they always one line yes, one line no, one line yes that rhymes? Okay, so pause the video just like before, writing down your word pairs that rhyme, and then press play when you're ready to move on. Off you go. Okay, well done. So, here are the rhyming words that I spotted. I wonder if you spotted the same ones. I had cry and sky, head and said again, which we had before. And then that funny word spake that rhymed with awake. And remembering previous lessons, we talked about how spake is an old fashioned way of saying spoke and Walter de La Mare chose to use that way of saying spoke because it rhymed with awake. So every word he spoke, wouldn't ride with the one man left awake, okay? So, spake and awake rhyme. I haven't highlighted the last two skipping lines because we've got and the sound of iron on stone. And then when we've got, when the punching hoofs were gone, and this links us back to our reading warmup, where although they both end in O N E, they do not rhyme together. So, I wonder if perhaps sometimes gone was pronounced gone. So, it might be that it was pronounced differently, or it might be that that was just a choice that the poet made at the end of the poem to not have a rhyming pair. So, really well done for spotting all of those rhyming words. So, now I want to think about one phrase that comes right at the end of the poem. The phrase says, silence surged softly backwards. And this is the part of the poem where the traveller has knocked and knocked and nobody's answered. So in the end, he said, look, tell them I came and I kept my word. So he kept his promise to come back. And then he leaves on his horse. He left on his horse and they galloped away with the sound of the hooves plunging down. And it says, silence surged softly backwards to say that the silence came back and all was quiet again. But thinking about when we read this out loud, what do you notice? I'd like you to read this sentence out loud as well. So my turn, your turn. Silence surged softly backwards. Your turn. What do you notice about this phrase? What does it sound like? What sound can you hear lots of? Can you tell the screen what sound you can hear lots of? I can hear lots of the sound S. Silence, surged, softly, backwards. And I've put those S's in green. Now, when we choose to do this, this is called an alliteration. My turn, your turn, alliteration. Fantastic. So, an alliteration is when we choose to use the same sound at the beginning of some words, usually two or three or more words, and it has an effect on the reader. Why do you think that Walter de La Mare chose to use that sound? The S sound, silence surged softly backwards. Why do you think he chose to use the S sound? Have a little think to yourself? Hmm, I wonder perhaps it's like a spooky sound. Perhaps it sounds like a shh, like to do with the silence. So, he chose it and I think it works quite well that the silence surged softly backwards. It almost sounds like some waves of silence moving away. So that is an alliteration that he has chosen to use. So now for the final part of our reading lesson today, we're going to think about the poets choice of words and why we think they chose them. What effect they have on us and what we can picture when we read them. So, we're going to look at what makes this poem spooky and what makes it mysterious, cause it has a bit of a spooky, mysterious feel to it, and the poet's done that on purpose by the words that he has chosen. So, we're going to look at some phrases and we're going to think about their effect on the reader. We're the reader because we're reading the poem. We're going to think about why those choices were made. So, the first phrases that we're going to look at is in this part of the poem, where it says that the phantoms are listening in the quiet of the moonlight, and they're feeling the moonbeans on the dark stair that goes down to the empty hall. So, they stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight to that voice from the world of men, stood thronging the faint moonbeans on the dark stair, that goes down to that empty hall. I want you to think about what this makes you picture and how it makes you feel. So, what do you picture in your head when you imagine these phantoms in a lone house listening, in the moonlight, on the stairs with an empty hall below them. I want you to picture it in your head and think about how it makes you feel. Okay, I'm thinking about it too. And I'd like you to pause the video and I'd like you to write down how it makes you feel and why. So, pause the video and write down how these phrases make you feel and why, and then press play when you're ready to move on. Okay, thank you for writing down your ideas. So for me, when I pictured this, I imagine an old spooky house and the fact that that hall is empty, I don't imagine any furniture. I imagine it to be dusty. I think it sounds quite spooky how the phantoms are in the moonlight and perhaps I can imagine them shimmering and glimmering. So, I think that the poet has chosen to use these words to make us feel like something eerie, something spooky is going on. And it makes me feel a little bit curious. And it makes me feel like I want to know more about these phantoms, who they are, why they're there, why they aren't answering the traveler's call. So, that's what it makes me think. I wonder what it made you think of. Okay, let's look at another example. So, here Walter de La Mare has written, never the least stir made the listeners. So, a stir could be a noise or a movement, so they didn't move at all. Though every word he spake, remember that's like spoke, fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house from the one man left awake. So, when he's calling, it echoes out into the empty hall and it's shadowy and it's still. So, just like before, I'd like you to think about what this makes you picture in your head and then think about how it makes you feel. So, I'd like you to pause the video, re-read the section. Think about what you can picture and then write down how it makes you feel. Off you go. Okay, well done. Again, it tells me that if it's echoing, I feel like it's really, really empty and there's nothing going on. Then it says in the shadowiness of the still house, it must be really dark and it must be really quiet. And his voice echoing is again quite spooky, quite eerie. And the fact that the listeners aren't moving as well, makes me feel a little bit intrigued. I want to know what they're doing and why they're there. So, I wonder how it made you feel as well. I hope you wrote down your answer to explain yourself. Okay, really well done. We have finished another reading lesson based on the poem, "The Listeners." We've got one more reading lesson in this unit. So, I hope to see you for that lesson. Thanks for joining me, bye bye.

To discuss the poet's choice of language and structure.

To discuss the poet's choice of language and structure.

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UnitEnglish / Poetry - The Listeners by Walter de la Mare

English