1. Unseen poetry Section C of Lit Paper 2 2 Questions
1 Question about 1 unseen poem – how does the writer present X in the poem? (24 marks)
1 question comparing this poem to another unseen one you get in the exam (8 marks)

2. Hard Frost – Andrew Young
Frost called to the water “Halt!”
And crusted the moist snow with sparkling salt;
Brooks, their own bridges, stop,
And icicles in long stalactites drop.
And tench in water-holes
Lurk under gluey glass like fish in bowls.
In the hard-rutted lane
At every footstep breaks a brittle pane,
And tinkling trees ice-bound,
Changed into weeping willows, sweep the ground;
Dead boughs take root in ponds
And ferns on windows shoot their ghostly fronds.
But vainly the fierce frost
Interns poor fish, ranks trees in an armed host,
Hangs daggers from house-eaves
And on the windows ferny ambush weaves;
In the long war grown warmer
The sun will strike him dead and strip his armour.
In ‘Hard Frost’, how does the writer portray Winter?

3. How Do I Approach the Unseen Poem?
Read the question first before you read the poem – it will give you a clue for what to look for.
Read the poem through a second time and this time LABEL techniques and features.
Read the poem through once and highlight relevant words and phrases that stand out and that you think are interesting.
Read the poem through a third time looking for more techniques and annotate the effect of the techniques around the poem.
Plan your response…see next slide
Write down what you think the poem literally means and write a sentence which links it to the question 1 2 3 4 5 6

4. LOA: Reflective poem about winter
LOA: Reflective poem about winter. Juxtaposes cruelty of winter against its beauty. Ultimately, winter is only a temporary state.
INTRODUCTION
Stanza 1 -personification of frost - seems threatening + powerful.
Discuss images of the frost and ice.
LANGUAGE
Stanza 2 the beauty of winter is alluded to – discuss image and alliteration. A semantic field of death is created – why? Discuss references to challenges of winter.
Whole poem – regular rhyme scheme and stanza length – what might this suggest about inevitability of nature + the seasons?
STRUCTURE/FORM
Final stanza - semantic field of war introduced – battle between summer and winter. Personification of the sun in the final line – look at alliteration.
LANGUAGE and STRUCTURE
Despite the challenging conditions that winter presents, the poem reminds us that it is only a temporary state – summer will win in the end. CONCLUSION

5. Developing your answer
EVIDENCE
For example
In the case of
As revealed by
For instance
This is well illustrated in….
Useful Phrases:
This suggests..
This may make the reader feel…
The poet conveys a sense of…
The word which is particularly effective is…
Perhaps the author has used this phrase to ....
The use of this adjective/verb/imperative suggests....
Developing your answer
As well as
Furthermore
In addition to
Literally
Metaphorically
Figuratively/Symbolically
Linking to the Q
This helps portray….
Here, we can see the writers’ portrayal of…
The sense of….is shown....

6. Point Evidence Explain Link
Make a point about the poem that links to the question.
Point
Select some evidence from the poem to support your point.
Evidence
Explain the effect of the language in the quotation focus on MITSL.
Explain
Link your ideas back to the question and point you made earlier.
Link
At the start of the poem, the writer presents winter, and specifically, the frost as a powerful threat. Even the title of the poem “Hard Frost” suggests an enemy that will be difficult to overcome. The adjective “hard” suggests something unbreakable and tough whilst it could also suggest something cold and unfeeling. In the first line, the writer personifies the frost to seem like an evil threat. Through the use of the imperative line “Frost called to water ‘Halt!’” the frost is made to seem challenging and strong. This image of the frost being a powerful adversary is developed on the second line through the use of the dynamic verb “crushed” which suggests that the frost and the winter will have no mercy on nature. The sense of winter’s power and threat is clearly established in the opening stanza.

7. Hard Frost – Andrew Young
In ‘Hard Frost’, how does the writer portray Winter?
Hard Frost – Andrew Young
Frost called to the water “Halt!”
And crusted the moist snow with sparkling salt;
Brooks, their own bridges, stop,
And icicles in long stalactites drop.
And tench in water-holes
Lurk under gluey glass like fish in bowls.
In the hard-rutted lane
At every footstep breaks a brittle pane,
And tinkling trees ice-bound,
Changed into weeping willows, sweep the ground;
Dead boughs take root in ponds
And ferns on windows shoot their ghostly fronds.
But vainly the fierce frost
Interns poor fish, ranks trees in an armed host,
Hangs daggers from house-eaves
And on the windows ferny ambush weaves;
In the long war grown warmer
The sun will strike him dead and strip his armour.

8. A reflective poem about winter
A reflective poem about winter. Juxtaposes the cruel, challenging aspect of winter against the beauty of it. Ultimately, winter is only a temporary state. LANGUAGE
‘Hard Frost’ is a deeply reflective poem about winter. Winter, in literature, is often portrayed as the cruelest of the seasons. The poet captures this traditional portrayal of winter, encapsulating its cruel aspects and juxtaposing them against the true beauty that can be found in winter. We are left with the overarching sense that we must urge ourselves to see that this, like life is only ever a temporary state and winter moves to summer.

9. Focus on the personification of the frost and how it is made to seem threatening and powerful. Discuss the images of the frost and ice in stanza one. LANGUAGE
Across the poem, the writer explores winter’s cruelty. Early on in the poem, we are presented with the line ‘Frost called to the water “Halt!” ’. Immediately, we see Winter personified, with the use of the past tense verb ‘called’. Initially, this demonstrates that the writer is portraying a past event, but the use of ‘called’ perhaps portrays winter as so powerful that it deserves to be listened to. Furthermore, the use of the imperative exclamatory ‘Halt!’ adds to an abrupt sense that Winter has arrived, perhaps suggesting that Winter arrives so abruptly that you don’t see it until it is too late. The writer, here, could be implying that in order to truly appreciate the world around us, we must first appreciate its beauty in Summer, before Winter so abruptly announces its presence.
Furthermore, the writer’s use of imagery portrays winter as a powerful force, with an ability to ‘crust the moist snow with sparkling salt’. Here, the verb ‘crusted’ is a particularly interesting choice. It portrays a detailed action that it can protect something vulnerable in such a beautiful way as it is ‘sparkling’ which has connotations of diamonds, perhaps suggesting that the writer doesn’t see Winter as such an entirely brutal force as that portrayed in the abrupt opening line. Alternatively, ’crusted’ could also suggest that Winter’s effects, as strong as they can be, can only impact on something slightly. A crust is just the outside, and perhaps here the writer is metaphorically suggesting that while Winter changes the appearance of things, it does not change their essence.

10. In stanza 2 the beauty of winter is alluded to – discuss the image and alliteration. A semantic field of death is also alluded to – why? Discuss the references to the challenges of winter. LANGUAGE
Your Go…
Sentence starters:
As the poem progresses, we see that winter is portrayed as….
The writer has used....
An example of this is.....
Here, the writer could be suggesting....
The use of the word
This suggests that winter is being portrayed as being.....
Figuratively, the writer may be implying that.....

11. Structure of the poem – regular rhyme scheme and stanza length – what might this suggest about the inevitability of nature and the seasons? STRUCTURE/FORM
As the poem progresses, we continue to see different ways in which Winter is portrayed. We also see another portrayal of it through the structural choices the writer makes. For example, the poem not only has a regular rhyme scheme, but it also has a regular stanza and line lengths. The rhyming couplets are perhaps demonstrating that the writer is showing Winter’s inevitability. It will always come around, and we cannot avoid it coming. It could be said that the writer is portraying the relationship between humans and nature as a difficult one, one that humans will never win; we are at the mercy of the seasons.

12. Final stanza sees a semantic field of war introduced – a battle between summer and winter. Personification of the sun in the final line – look at the alliteration. LANGUAGE and STRUCTURE
Your go…
Sentence starters:
As the poem progresses, we see that winter is portrayed as….
The writer has used....
An example of this is.....
Here, the writer could be suggesting....
The use of the word
This suggests that winter is being portrayed as being.....
Figuratively, the writer may be implying that.....

13. Despite the challenging conditions that winter presents the poem reminds us that it is only a temporary state – summer will win in the end. Make a comment about the title. CONCLUSION
Across the poem, Winter is first portrayed as a cruel, abrupt force to be reckoned with. Although the writer portrays ideas about the beauty that Winter can bring, he also portrays it as cruel and inevitable. Humans can do nothing to fight it and we are powerless. However, the tone of the poem changes further, with the introduction of war imagery. This war imagery is used to provide humanity with more hope against Winter – although we cannot fight its arrival, Summer eventually will defeat it, like a soldier defeating an army. Given the poem’s title of ‘Hard Frost’, it is interesting that the ‘frost’ is the very thing that the sun, Summer, can indeed destroy. With its simple presence, the sun brings warmth to humanity, one which, I would argue, we are urged to appreciate in the poem.

14. Things you should NEVER write!
At first I didn’t understand the poem but after reading it a couple of times I think…
The poem has no rhythm
I think the poem needed to rhyme more because I like poems that rhyme…
I think the poet has done a very good job of writing this poem and they obviously thought carefully about it…
It flows
It makes you want to read on

15. How do Young and Mazur present ideas about winter?
Comparison
How do Young and Mazur present ideas about winter?

16. Ice – Gail Mazur In the warming house, children lace their skates,
then—twilight, the warming house steamy   
with girls pulling on boots, their chafed legs 
aching. Outside, the hockey players keep   
playing, slamming the round black puck 
until it’s dark, until supper. At night, 
a shy girl comes to the cove with her father. 
Although there isn’t music, they glide 
arm in arm onto the blurred surface together, 
braced like dancers. She thinks she’ll never 
be so happy, for who else will find her graceful, 
find her perfect, skate with her 
in circles outside the emptied rink forever?
In the warming house, children lace their skates,   
bending, choked, over their thick jackets. 
A Franklin stove keeps the place so cozy 
it’s hard to imagine why anyone would leave, 
clumping across the frozen beach to the river.   
December’s always the same at Ware’s Cove, 
the first sheer ice, black, then white 
and deep until the city sends trucks of men 
with wooden barriers to put up the boys’   
hockey rink. An hour of skating after school, 
of trying wobbly figure-8’s, an hour 
of distances moved backwards without falling,

17. Write 2-3 paragraphs…
Identify an overview of both poems – are their approaches to the theme similar or very different. (1 or 2 sentences)
Link back to your opening - look at the poems as a whole – how are they structured is this significant to how they present the theme or idea?
Link back to your opening - choose words / phrases from each poem that present the theme or idea –look specifically at the techniques used to convey these ideas.
Repeat step 3 if you have time.
Give your own positive opinion of preference for which poem is most successful in your view and why. (1 or 2 sentences)