Poetry: Voices of War

Overview

An exploration of World War 1 poetry. Pupils will be introduced to the concept of different voices of war/varying perspectives and how these people were affected. Pupils will explore and challenge stereotypes about war and use their understanding to explore writers’ intentions, methods and evaluate the impact of writing. Pupils will use their knowledge to focus on writing analytically.

Unit aims:

To introduce pupils to the concept of different voices of war and how different people react and are affected by conflict
To challenge stereotypes about war
To identify writer’s intentions and viewpoints – WHAT
To explore the methods used – HOW
To consider and evaluate the impact of the writing – WHY
To equip pupils with a skillset to begin to evaluate the success of different writers

Example Key Words

Imagery

Visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work.

Simile

Figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g., as brave as a lion).

Perspective

A particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; point of view.

Allusion

An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.

Repetition

Repetition is the primary way of creating a pattern. Meaning accrues through repetition. One of the deep fundamentals of poetry is the recurrence of sounds, syllables, words, phrases, lines, and stanzas.

Sibilance

Sibilance is a figure of speech in which a hissing sound is created within a group of words through the repetition of “s” sounds.