Unseen Poetry: Word Choices

1. Unseen Poetry: Word Choices LO: To understand how the sound of words affects a poem.

2. The following are examples of sound techniques. How do the poets create an effect using these techniques? • Onomatopoeia: ‘bubbles gargled delicately’. (Describing a pond full of tadpoles) • Alliteration: ‘In the greyness / and drizzle of one despondent / dawn’. (describing a dull morning) • Assonance: ‘A mate / with a mind as cold as a slice of ice / within my own brain’. (describing a ‘tough’ teenagers thoughts)

3. Write your own verse of poetry based on one of the following pictures. You must use alliteration, onomatopoeia and assonance to create sound effects.

4. Now, turn to page 17 in your text books and complete activity 1 and 2.

5. Check your learning. • Copy and annotate the following text. Desk-lids deafen the dead with chaotic clatter, Crisp-packets crackle and crinkle, a galaxy of gobstoppers Glop and gurgle in cheeks blown big as bellies. • Make notes on: • Sound effects. • The tone of the poem. • What you think the poem is about. • How is makes you feel. • What you think the title should be.

6. Imagery Key Terms Image: a picture created with a poet’s choice of words that the reader can imagine. Visualise: to picture or to see in the imagination.

7. The rails scored a bull’s eye into the eye. Scored also suggests railway line really stands out, like a line drawn forcefully with a pen Poet looking down railway line towards bridge; shape suggests a staring eye Line is dead straight, direct; hits its ‘target’ like an arrow. Repetition of ‘eye’ reinforces image.

8. ‘our inner-city boa pushing / through the deepening night’ (A different train view point.) • Try to explain this image, focusing on the highlighted words... • ‘This image suggests to me...’

9. Turn to page 19 and complete activity 1, 2 and the stretch yourself activity.