Learning and performing poetry by heart – a strand of KS2 English
Year 6 completed a two-week poetry unit in the Spring term. In Guided Reading, this included learning and performing poems off by heart and in English the children drafted their own original, personification poems about a natural phenomenon. As the children are older, they were exposed to more challenging, classic poetry that stretched their thinking and understanding.
In Week One, the children learnt the poem “The Tyger” by William Blake. This is a very beautiful poem, where Blake tries to understand why God would create gentle creatures like lambs, as well as fearsome, deadly creatures like tigers. The poem contained many powerful images, like God as a blacksmith, and several changes in tone, which allowed the children to use their voices to evoke different moods. The children all learnt and performed the poem off by heart in groups, and some children even performed it solo.
In Week Two, the children learnt a very different poem called “The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll. Here, Carroll plays with language, inventing his own nonsense words to describe the various creatures and environment where the Jabberwocky lives. The children quickly appreciated that, although dozens of words were made up, they were meaningful, and the reader was able to create impressions of what was described. They thoroughly enjoyed learning this one off by heart and performing it to their peers.
