Teaching
Ideas
I would
begin by playing the film without sound and stopping it at 53 seconds (before
the humans appear)
Develop
some rich description using powerful verbs and adjectives.
Develop
this through up levelling the vocabulary before creating similes and metaphors.
Share the
poem with the students and allow them to read.
Discuss how
the poet create mood and atmosphere through language picking out words such as
chill, dreadful, haunting, etc
Discuss
with the children 'who is speaking?' Is
it the mountain or is it the 'presence'
that creates the weather.
Create some
personification poems based on other natural features such as: Mountains,
rivers, deserts, lakes and icebergs.
Using the
above as a stimulus for poetry (Thanks to @redgierob and
http://www.literacyshed.com for the idea) the students will spend time just
thinking about the mountain and complete the following short activities before
writing their own poetry imagining themselves as the mountain.
Focus –
Poetry/Descriptions
Watch the
opening to the Winter Olympic Games from the BBC (Literacyshed front page).
During the first 53 seconds students are to
write down any nouns they might include in their writing (recap on 4 types of
nouns here – proper, abstract, common, collective). Mountains, icicles, snow,
wind, rain, mist, clouds,
Now they
have done that get the students to add an adjective circle around each noun
Following
this get the students to add another layer to their noun – VERBS – action
words.
What could
the wind, rain, mountains etc be described as doing? This is called
personification.
Next – if
needed do an adverb circle too. This will add to the word bank that students
will have available. An alternative to this would be to do an a-z race and have
them up around the room as an aid to the students when they begin their
writing.
All of this
will then lead into the sentence foci which are shown below. Some are taken
from Alan Peats exciting sentences books. Others just seem to be getting
invented by the students!
Sentence
focus
Simile
beginning with a connective.
Despite
being rugged, I can shine like the sun.
Although I
am dangerous, many still try to climb to my head.
Adverb,
noun, verb where
Silently,
wind rushes through the deserted land around me.
Lazily,
snow drifts around every crevice of my body.
Beginning –
End
Dangerous –
the frozen landscape that covers my upper body is extremely dangerous.
Incredible
– the awe and wonder of this place is incredible to watch every day.
Finally,
once all this is done I would expect some awesome personification poetry from
the point of view of the mountain.
Another
poem:-
The Place
of Dreams
Drifting
across me, snow wildly tickles my jagged edges.
Standing on
the shoulders of giants, clouds float past me delivering their goods.
Silently, I
stand here. Millions of years old. No-one knows me.
Snowboarders,
skiers, crazy stuntmen – they all terrorise me.
Wind howls
throughout the day,
The sun
beams brightly down but I never warm up.
Incredible
– the land around me is just incredible!
Although
I’m as tall as a skyscraper, I’m no man made monstrosity.
But beware
– I am not to be messed with!
Lazily,
rain trickles down every crevice I have making its way to the valley below.
I’m soon to
be taken over by men, women and children,
because the
Winter Olympics are on their way!
