Week commencing 1st June

English 

Reading Activity 1

Read a book of your choice and tell someone about what you have read.

 

Reading Activity 2

Read a book of your choice and tell someone about what you have read.

 

Reading Activity 3

Read a book of your choice and tell someone about what you have read.

 

Reading Activity 4

Read a book of your choice and tell someone about what you have read.

 

Reading Activity 5

Read a book of your choice and tell someone about what you have read.

 

 

Write a book review telling the teacher why he should read the book. Think about:

Why you liked it. What were the exciting parts, the sad parts etc.

What surprised you about the story?

Do you have a favourite character?

 

Words of the Week

Word 1: supersede

Word 2: confine

Word 3: purpose

Word 4: ingratiate

Word 5: anticipate

 

Learn how to say it, spell it, its definition and use it in 3 different sentences to show you can use it

 

Activity 1

This week we are going to look at a piece of Poetry by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939). Yeats was an Irish Poet who won the Nobel Prize for literature. This poem is from the period when he wrote primarily about mythology and Irish legend. Aedh, the god of death in Irish mythology, was one of four characters who appear in Yeats’s poetry in the middle of his writing career.  This work of Yeats explores the idea of wanting to give gifts to someone you love, but having only the greatest gift of all, your dreams, to give. The poem also explores the idea that love makes you vulnerable because the person you love could hurt you by treading harshly on your dreams.

 

Read the Poem and then look up any words you are unsure of. Then answer the following Questions using full sentences:

 

1. What would “the heavens’ embroidered cloths” be? What colours would they be? Why would they be embroidered?
2. Yeats says, “I, being poor…” Would a rich man be more likely to have the heavens? What might the embroidered cloths stand for?
3. Have you ever heard the expression to ask for the moon? This means to wish for something unattainable. What would it mean, then, to want to give someone the moon and stars, and in fact the whole sky?

 

“Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” by William Butler Yeats

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

 

Activity 2

Reread ‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ and answer the following questions using full sentences:

 

1. Yeats wants to spread the sky under the feet of the person he’s talking to. Have you students ever wanted to spread something under someone’s feet? What would that mean?
2. Yeats can’t give the sky, but he can give his dreams. Now he wants to lay his dreams under the foot of the person to whom he addresses in his poem. What would that mean?
3. Yeats asks the person to whom he is addressing the poem to tread (walk) softly, since she’s walking on his dreams. What might it be like to walk on someone’s dreams?
4.  People usually think this is a love poem. Are there other ways to interpret it? If this is a love poem, is it a reasonable request? Would she be responsible for the safety of his dreams?

 

Activity 3

On a sheet of paper (suitable for drawing on), copy down ‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’. Illustrate the page with images from the poem. This can include nature, stars etc.  Most importantly what you think the poem would look like if you were to illustrate it.

 

Activity 4

Today you are going to memorise and perform the poem to a member of your family. I have included a helpful video from Michael Rosen on performing poetry to guide your efforts. Please encourage a member of your family to take a picture/video of your performance so I can see it on the blog.

 

Memorising it:

 

This poem has a very odd ending pattern. Notice how lines 1 & 3 end with the same word. So do 2 & 4, 5 & 7, and 6 & 8. That means that of the eight lines, there are only four words they end with, which makes for a very strong rhyme scheme. Memorize this poem line by line, then couplet by couplet, then in two four-line groups, then all together. As you work on memorizing the lines, let your mind imagine the beauty of the colours and images that Yeats describes.

 

1. Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

2. Enwrought with golden and silver light,

3. The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

4. Of night and light and the half light,

5. I would spread the cloths under your feet:

6. But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

7. I have spread my dreams under your feet;

8. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Activity 5

Today you are going to have a go at writing your own short poem inspired by ‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’. Choose one of the lines from Yeats’s poem as a starter from your own (see activity 4 no1-8).

 

I made my own example to help get you started, continuing the theme/mood/style of Yeats (you might chose to follow your own style). I hope you enjoy it:

 

I have spread my dreams under your feet, (from line 5)

A narrow sea of brittle desires,

A twisted carpet of hopes and fears.

I have laid bare my path for us,

Our future preserved in a beam of morning sun,

Illuminating a winding corridor

With beguiling temptation.

 

Before you get started, have a read of Michael Rosen’s top tips for writing poetry (below):

 

Be a scavenger

If you want to write poetry, you need to look at the world around you. You could start from something you’ve seen, or something you’ve heard someone say, or something you remember. Think of yourself as being like a crow, going about looking for things you can take for yourself.

 

Use repetition

Repetition is a brilliant way to pull a poem together. Rhyming is a form of repetition, but you don’t have to write poems that rhyme. You could make the last line of the poem the same as the first line, or have a little phrase that you repeat, or even repeat a chunk of three or four lines.

 

‘When you use repetition, it gives your poem a shape and meaning.’

 

Compare things to other things

‘Poets always describe things by saying they’re like something else. For example, one of Shakespeare’s most famous poems describes someone as being ‘fairer than a summer’s day.'

 

‘You can compare things by using phrases such as “like,” “as lovely as,” “more than” and “less than.” These are called similes and metaphors.

 

Look very closely at things until you find something that it’s similar to: you might cut an apple in half and think it looks like a cross-section of the world. Remember, comparisons don’t always have to be beautiful and nice: you might think that a crow looks like a wounded soldier.

 

Think about how it sounds

If you were writing about the school dinner hall, you could use short sentences that interrupt each other to make it sound noisy and busy. If you were writing about a river, you could make your sentences long and flowing.

 

‘Your poem might even end up sounding like a song or a rap!’