Comparing poetry – Part 1
Take a look at these comments by Examiners about the GCSE Antholgy question:
‘Students who knew the text were able to move around and within it in
order to respond to the specifics of the task.’ AQA Examiners’ report, June 2017.
‘The selection of the second poem is one of the keys to success as this gives the student the material to construct a holistic response.’ AQA Examiners’ report, June 2017.
One examiner commented that one of their key teaching points for next year will be that “comparison comes in a variety of shapes and does not have to be formulaic”‘. AQA Examiners’ report, June 2017.
I think these comments are important as they tell us 3 things.
- Really know the poems; and I mean really know them; rip them apart; know every adjective, verb and noun and every possible meaning.
- Make sure you know which poems are best suited to compare with each other regarding theme (Anthology comparison grid). Two poems might be great to compare if the question is on the power of nature (The Prelude and Ozymandias would be a good comparison) but might be totally unsuitable if the question is on Tyrannic rule (The Prelude and Ozymandias wouldn’t be good).
- This is about your confidence in comparing poems. We often teach things in quite a formulaic way – because if all our students learn a formulaic approach, they are all likely to pass, as it ticks enough boxes to get at least get a 4 or 5. However, if you are looking for higher grades, you don’t need to be so formulaic – I will explain this in more detail later.
Know your poems:
Before looking at comparing poems let’s look at number 1 – really know the poems, as this is the first step to being able to compare successfully.
A good starting point is something many people overlook: THE TITLE
Wordsworth never named his poem and it was named ‘The Prelude’ by his wife after his death, so in this case we can ignore the title.
However, we have seen how the first 8 letters of ‘Storm on the Island’ spell Stormont, which is the Northern Ireland parliament building, and so offers another interpretation beyond the obvious.
We will look at the titles of each poem in a seperate Blog or lesson.
Words:
A great starting point to really know your poems is to deconstruct it and look for the reocurrance of particular types of language to establish semantic fields.
Whilst class discussions are probably the best way to understand the poem this is written during the Coronavirus lock-down, so such discussions are not possible. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be asking yourself questions or even contacting a fellow student and discussing and sharing your ideas. So what questions should you ask? A good starting point would be to ask:
I will look into the answers to these questions and many others in a separate blog; but here is a Poetry Table which will help you answer these and other questions for each poem:
Choosing the right poem to compare with
Looking at the 2nd comment of the Examiners:
In the GCSE you are given one poem from the anthology and a question asking you to compare the given poem with a choice of your own, based on a particular point specified in the question. Now, this has it’s good and bad points. First the bad: You are given one poem and it’s a bit hit and miss whether it’s a poem you like and feel confident about or not. Now the good: you can choose the poem you compare it with.
Of course, you can’t just compare the given poem with one you like just because you like it, well not if you want a higher grade. One misconception is that you can just compare two poems that share the same topic; so if the given poem is a war poem, you mistakenly think you have to compare it to another war poem. Well, for the higher grades, this isn’t the case. Topic is not the important thing. So what is? Well let’s look at what you are asked to do at the highest level:
To start with what is important here is the ‘conceptualised approach’ and it’s asking you to compare not with regard to topic or show off everything you know about each poems, but to the PURPOSE of the poems in relation to Power and Conflict.
Remember: Power and Conflict encompasses various themes:
Themes:
Power of humans
Power of nature
Effects of conflict
Reality of conflict
Loss and absence
Memory
Negative emotions – anger
Negative emotions – guilt
Negative emotions – fear
Negative emotions – pride
Identity Individual experiences
Using the above poetry tables and Word class documents for each poem and then comparing them will help you to see links between the poems.
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Mr Bacon's GCSE English 