1. The Émigrée
QfL: How can I consider alternative interpretations of specific language choice?
Word of the Day: Forgo (v.): To go without
She wanted to forgo the dessert and leave while they could.
Starter:
‘To leave’ - How many alternative impressions can you come up with for this line?
Challenge: What varied contexts might this be related to ?

2. Considering A02:
-Analysis of writer’s methods with subject terminology used judiciously
-Exploration of effects of writer’s methods on reader
Specific Word Choice
Personal impressions
Feelings
Connotations and associations
Considers multiple levels of meaning
Critically analysing

3. The impact of word choice: almost every poetic phrase can be evaluated (critically explore) on multiple levels. An example below:
An impression of something never-ending
The ‘unknown’- mysterious or shadowy group/figures
Implies a separation
The concept of support- trust
“they circle me.”
Implies a large, imposing group- being outnumbered
personal experience of isolation
A journey- although one without a purpose or destination
The concept of equality- levels, scale or viewpoints
Being trapped, imprisoned

4. You will have 2 minutes to add each each new comment/impression.
You will be creating some ‘alternative’ quotation explosions today. Your teacher has chosen 8 quotations from a new unseen poem and cut them out. You will pass these between you across the class, adding your ‘alternative’ impressions and insights.
You will have 2 minutes to add each each new comment/impression.
Read those already there before you add your own- the aim is to expand and deepen the analysis

5. The overall impression created by these poetic extracts is......
On your tables, stick each of the quotation explosions to the sugar paper and review your ideas. (You will be using these annotations to form your extended response in tomorrow’s lesson
Let’s share our impressions!
What are the best ideas we have for each quotation?
The overall impression created by these poetic extracts is......
as a child
It tastes of sunlight.
I am branded
the bright, filled paperweight
like a hollow doll
the graceful slopes
sick with tyrants
dancing through the city

6. Plenary: Reading the full poem.
How does the full text change your impression of the poetic message and impact? What are you surprised by?
The Emigrée (1993)
Carol Rumens
There once was a country… I left it as a child
but my memory of it is sunlight-clear
for it seems I never saw it in that November
which, I am told, comes to the mildest city.
The worst news I receive of it cannot break
my original view, the bright, filled paperweight.
It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants,
but I am branded by an impression of sunlight.
The white streets of that city, the graceful slopes
glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks
and the frontiers rise between us, close like waves.
That child’s vocabulary I carried here
like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar.
Soon I shall have every coloured molecule of it.
It may by now be a lie, banned by the state
but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight.
I have no passport, there’s no way back at all
but my city comes to me in its own white plane.
It lies down in front of me, docile as paper;
I comb its hair and love its shining eyes.
My city takes me dancing through the city
of walls. They accuse me of absence, they circle me.
They accuse me of being dark in their free city.
My city hides behind me. They mutter death,
and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight