To perform a poem

Key Stage 2

English

John Lyons - Poetry

﻿Hello, it's Mrs. Smart. Welcome to today's English lesson. In this lesson, we're going to be doing something slightly different. You are not going to need any paper and you're not going to need a pen or pencil to write with. Because in today's lesson, we are going to be learning how to perform a poem using our voices, our faces, and our bodies. We're going to be performing some of the poems that we have already read by John Lyons. So if you're ready, let's get started. As I mentioned, this lesson is a little bit different from our previous lessons. So you're not going to need any paper, or a pen, or a pencil, because we're not going to do any writing. In this lesson, you're going to need your voice, your face, and your body. So hopefully, you've got all of those things with you right now. So you should be ready to start. If you don't for some reason pause the recording and go and get them. In this lesson, we're going to learn how to perform a poet and think about what parts of our body and our voice and how we use them will help us to perform a poem effectively. We're going to infer tone from poems. We'll talk about what that means later on. Then we're going to do a little bit of a performance warm up together and then it will be over to you your task to rehearse and perform a poem of your choice. We're going to be performing poems today from "Dancing in the Rain" by John Lyons. And this collection of poems is an excellent choice of poems to perform for several reasons. John Lyons uses really lyrical language. So his poems almost sound like songs. So they're very effective to perform. Lots of them are very humorous, they're quite funny. He creates very vivid images and shares emotions. And he draws on his childhood in Trinidad and Tobago, and traditions of carnival and calypso. So they're really fun and upbeat and good poems to perform, really. What do we need to consider when performing a poem? I've given you a few clues already in this lesson as to what you're going to need, but what else might you need to consider? So think about your voice, think about your facial expressions, think about your body, how are you going to use them to perform a poem? Pause the recording and have a think or write yourself some notes. I think you're going to need to start with understanding the tone and the meaning of the poem. Because if you don't understand the meaning of the poem then it's going to be very difficult to perform. Because you wouldn't want to perform a sad poem in a really upbeat, happy way. And you wouldn't want to perform a very happy positive poem in a sad way. So we need to understand the poems first of all. Then we need to think about our voice. we need to think about the volume of our voice, the pitch, the speed that we speak, maybe into the rhythm that the poem has, our expression and our intonation. Our facial expressions, so showing our emotions through our face. And our bodies, so movements we might make, or actions we might make with our hands, or any form of gestures we might make to add to our performance. We're now going to watch a video from BBC Teach, which is Joseph Coelho talking about how to perform poetry successfully. I mentioned earlier that we needed to infer tone from poems to be able to know how to perform them successfully. So let's think about what that means to start with. Let's focus on this word, infer. Infer, infer. Infer means to work something out from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements. So often, it's a bit like looking for clues and trying to work something out if a story or a poem isn't telling you something explicitly. Synonyms might be deduce, conclude, and reason. And I could use it in a sentence like this. I can infer how someone feels from their facial expressions. If someone walks into the room skipping and smiling I know that they're happy even though they haven't told me. If someone is bent over and they're crying and they're wailing I know they're probably not very happy. They're probably quite sad or upset. So I'm inferring that from their body language and from their facial expressions. They haven't told me explicitly. That's what infer means. We can do that for people that we see in person. But we can also do it do it from written forms like from poems, and from stories. Let's also look at this word tone because we need to infer tone from poems. Tone, tone. Tone means the general feel of a piece of writing. Synonyms could be mood, style, or feeling. And in a sentence I could say the school report had a negative tone throughout. So if maybe someone hasn't been very well behaved or hasn't been working very hard their school report at the end of the year might have lots of negative comments. So you could say it had a negative tone throughout. so it's the general feel of a piece of writing. So poems might have a very positive tone, they might have a very negative tone, they might have an excited tone, they might have a confused tone. So often it's to do with the kind of mood or the feeling of a piece of writing. We're now going to look at five John Lyons poems from "Dancing in the Rain." And we're going to consider these two questions. What's the tone of the poems? Remember, tone means the feeling or the mood of the poet. And how would you represent the tone in your performance? So how would you show that mood or feeling throughout your voice, through your face, and through your body movements? I'd like you to pause the recording, read through this poem, again, to remind yourself and consider those two questions. You can either think about them or you can write yourself some notes. Pause the recording now. I think this poem has a very positive tone. Remember, it was John Lyons as a child asking his mum lots and lots of really interesting questions. I think the poem has real energy to it. And it shows John Lyons' inquisitiveness so that means he wants to find out lots about the world and he's really interested in the world. The way I might show that my performance is I'm going to speak very confidently. I'm going to ask lots of questions. And I'm going to have lots of energy and enthusiasm to show my inquisitiveness for the world. Maybe I might use some facial expressions, but my voice is going to be very expressive as well to show that real energy. Let's now look at Granny's Sugarcake and consider those same two questions. So what's the tone of the poem? And how would you represent the tone in your performance? Pause the recording now. Again, I think this poem has real energy. It's about John Lyons as a child watching his grandmother cooking this cake that he's desperate to try and he can't wait for it to cool down so that he can then eat it. So the tone again is full of energy and enthusiasm. How might we represent that would be probably almost too shouting at some points. Because we know the part where it says sugarcake, sugarcake, and it has exclamation marks, that's to show that he's almost shouting and demanding it because he's so desperate to try some. So probably quite a loud confident voice I would use in this one. Also, it's almost telling a story. This one is about telling a story about his grandmother and his grandmother making this cake. So you could act out some of the parts of the story about her putting in different ingredients and mixing up the pot. So lots of opportunities for body movement here as well. We're now going to look at Happy Hummingbird Food and consider those same two questions. What's the tone of the poem? How would you represent the tone in your performance? Pause the recording now. This poem is quite different from the previous two because it's not about John Lyons as a child. It's describing something completely different. It's describing animals and nature. And I think it has quite a less energetic feel this one. It's more of a calm, relaxed, gentle feel. So how I might reflect that in my performances, my voice might be a little bit quieter, it might be quite soft. It might need some lilt to it to show the gentleness of the poem and the gentleness of the animals moving together and sipping the nectar from their favourite, their favourite flowers. We're now going to look at Tadpole Comets. So consider the questions, what's the tone of the poem? How would you represent the tone in your performance? Pause the recording now. This poem is almost telling a story again and I could almost imagine acting it out like you are the tadpoles in the pond. It also has a really good opportunity to use some speech. So you can put some voices on there. This poem would be of humour twist. The tone might be quite a funny feel to it at points when you've got the tadpoles talking to each other and one tadpole calling the other silly. So a bit of a humorous tone to this one. We're now going to look at Natural Dancing Partners. What's the tone of this poem? And how would you represent it in your performance? Pause the recording now. This poem really reminds me of Happy Hummingbird Food, because again, it's got that quite calm, gentle feel. It's about nature. It's about different parts of nature and how they interact together. So again, my voice might be quite calm, quite soft, quite slow, have an almost like a song like lilt to it to show the gentleness of the movement between the willow and the wind. You could also use some body movements here to act out the movement of the willow and the wind and to represent that for your audience. We're now going to warm up our voices, our faces, and our bodies, ready for performance at the end of today's lesson. So we're going to practise speaking with different volumes, different pictures, different speeds. And then I'm going to show you some examples of how you might read poems slightly differently depending on the meaning and the tone. So I'm going to say something and you're going to repeat back. My voice is really quiet. My voice is really quiet. My voice is really loud. My voice is really loud. My voice is really deep. My voice is really deep. My voice is really high. My voice is really high. I can speak really fast. I can speak really fast. I can speak really slow. I can speak really slow. Excellent, good job. So your voices should now be fully warmed up. You've had to go at speaking at different volumes, at different pitches, and at different speeds. So I'm now going to show you an example. I'm going to read from this book here "Dancing in the Rain." I'm going to read you how you might perform Tell me Mama, thinking about the expression that I use in my voice. Tell me, Mama, where does the sun come from in the morning? Where does it go to when it reaches the edge of the fields? Teacher said the world is round and spinning. I'm standing on the world. How come I don't feel dizzy? And if the world is spinning why do I miss seas and oceans spin out into space? So hopefully you'll notice from that reading I have lots and lots of expression in my voice. I paused at different points. But I maybe spoke faster and slower at different points to add emphasis to different areas. And obviously I was asking lots of questions as if I was a very energetic and inquisitive young child's just like John Lyons. I'm now going to be doing an example from happy Hummingbird Food. Let me find it in my book. Here we go. And this one we know is quite different. This one is more about nature. It's much calmer, it's much more relaxed. So listen to how my voice might be different for this one. Hummingbird, hummingbird, humming a tune, happy in June, when flowers and roses bloom. So you'll notice that my voice was much much slower. And it almost had a song like quality to it to reflect the peace and the tranquillity of the hummingbird just sipping gently its nectar and the bees also sipping and enjoying their nectar in a kind of calm and gentle way. So hopefully that's given you an idea about how your voice might change depending on the meaning and the tone of the poem that you are reciting or performing. I now want you choose to have the poems that we looked at earlier. Try to choose two which have a different tone or meaning to them. And practise saying just the first few lines out loud thinking about how your voice varies between the two. So you might want to choose one of the poems where John Lyons is being a child and talking very energetic, enthusiastically, so Granny's Sugarcake or Tell Me Mama. And then you might want to choose a different poem, which has got a different tone to it. So for example, Happy Hummingbird Food or Natural Dancing Partners are both much calmer, and more gentle poems where your voice will vary. So have a go now, pause the video to complete your task and resume once you've finished. We're now going to move on to warming up our faces and practising some different facial expressions. And then I'm going to show you how you could use your facial expressions when you're reading some of the poems. So I'm going to have a go and show you a facial expression. And then you're going to try and mimic me and do the same facial expression. Okay, I'm going to start with happy. So hopefully you can see I've got a big smile. My eyes are really wide. Can you have a go at doing a happy face for me? Brilliant, well done. Okay, now I'm going to try sad. So you can see my mouth is lowered. My eyes are much smaller. I'm maybe almost looking down. Okay, you have a go at sad now. Great, well done. Okay, now I'm going to do shocked or surprised. So you can see I've got my mouth open. I've got my eyes really wide. My head almost moved backwards away from the camera. You have a go at shocked. Excellent. Again, lastly, let's have a go at scared. Okay, as you can see my mouth is sort of together. My eyes showing a lot of expression there. Have a go it scared yourself. Brilliant, well done, some really expressive faces that I can tell exactly how you're feeling just from your facial expressions. I'm now going to show you how you could use these facial expressions when reading poems. So I'm going to start by reading a little section of Granny's Sugarcake. She screwin up she face, keepin she yeye pon it. So you can see there John Lyons was talking about his grandma screwing up her face. And I was imitating that myself. And keeping her she yeye pon it remember we talked about what's her eye pon it. So I made sure I was looking down imagining that I'm looking at my cooking pot. Now I'm going to go at showing you Tadpole Comets. This is quite a good one for acting because it's got those two tadpoles that are talking together. So we've got tadpoles huddled in a pond, afraid of the Caribbean nights, it's intense darkness. Candle flies moving about, lighting up, going out, lighting up and going out. So you can see that I pretended to be really scared because it said the tadpoles were huddled together afraid of the Caribbean nights. And then I imagined that I was a tadpole watching those candle flies flying above my pond. I now want you to have to go at the same thing. So choose out two different poems and see if you can use some facial expressions to read out just a few lines as a practise. Pause the video to complete your task and resume once you've finished. We're now going to warm up our bodies ready for using some body movements or some hand actions or gestures in our poems. So let's just have a quick warm up. So you're just going to roll your shoulders back. Make sure that you're not stiff, opening nice and flexible and supple and then forwards. Release any tension in your shoulders. And I just want you to do some stars. Warm up those fingers. Shake your hands and then shake all of your arms. Brilliant. Okay, now you're warm. you want to stand up and do the same to your legs, you can do. So I'm now going to show you two examples from poems as to how you might use your body when you are performing a poem. So the first one I'm going to choose is from Granny's Sugarcake. This is a really good one to use some body movements to show granny cooking or stirring the pot of the sugarcake that she's making. I'm going to move back a little bit so you can see my body. She's stirring it. She's stirring it, and she whole body shaking up. So you can see that I was really acting out the movement of granny's body as she was stirring that sugar cake. And really exaggerate to get to make my performance a bit more interesting. I'm now going to read you a little bit from Natural Dancing Partners. There isn't my book, just found it. Now this is a really good one for body movements, again, because you can show the movement of the wind and the willow interacting together as those natural dancing partners. So you could have the willow is one arm, and the wind is the other arm. And you could have them interacting together. So I'm going to do like this. The willow and the wind are natural dancing partners. Look how the willow weeps with the joy of movement skillfully rooted to the spot. So you can see you can do it in whatever way you want. You might use your whole body and act it out or you could just use two of your arms. I now want you to choose to poems. You don't have to choose the whole thing you just need to choose a few lines and practise using some body movements and some hand actions to add some interest to your performance. Pause the video to complete your task and resume once you're finished. It is now time for your independent task, which is of course to rehearse and perform a poem. I would like you to choose a poem to rehearse, there were five poems that we looked at earlier in today's lesson. So you can rewind through the recording and choose the poem that you want to perform. Practise before you actually perform it. So think about your voice, practising in different ways to try and see how you want to do it. Think about your facial expressions. Think about your body movements. Could you add some movement? Could you add some hands actions? Once you've tried out lots of different things, you've rehearsed it, you can decide exactly how you want to do it. And you can practise it. And then it is your time to perform. You could either perform to maybe someone at home, a parent or a carer. Or you might even want to film yourself performing so that you can see what you look like. And then you might want to do it again so you can make it better. Think really carefully about the tone and the meaning of the poem. Remember, your voice, your face, and your body movements all need to reflect the tone and the meaning of the poem. So think really carefully about your voice, your facial expressions, and your body movements all the way through. Well, good luck performing your poem. I hope you enjoy having a go at reciting it and doing something a little bit different for today's independent task. As I said before, please share your performances of your poems with someone at home with a parent or carer. I'm sure they would absolutely love to hear your recital and to see your performance. Good luck with your performance and I will see you in your next lesson. Goodbye.

To perform a poem

To perform a poem

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UnitEnglish / John Lyons - Poetry

English