1. Kissing by Fleur Adcock
LO: To understand how Adcock uses structure and the concept of kissing to explore the nature of relationships at different ages.

2. What are your reactions to these images?
Display Images A7.1 and A7.2 of different couples kissing in public and discuss students’ reactions to them. Draw out whether they have any age or gender bias in their opinions about relationships at different ages.
Do you have any age or gender bias in your opinions about relationships at different ages?

3. Continuous possibilities leading to
greater things (sea)
(1st stanza about the young)
Interlocked
The young are walking on the riverbank, arms around each other’s waists and shoulders, Pretending to be looking at the waterlilies and what might be a nest of some kind, over there , which two who are clamped together mouth to mouth have forgotten about.
Romantic
Implies a wish for privacy or for a home
Syntax helps to portray convoluted awkwardness of kissing in public – or of other witnessing displays of affection.
End stop line
Like resuscitation

4. Voyeuristic – they are in that place, at that time the only ones who have ever been in love there.
Suggests a lack of courtesy from the couple; obvious they are in love & others respect this.
The others, making courteous detours around them, talk, stop talking, kiss. They can see no one older than themselves. It’s their river. They’ve got all day.
Syntax helps to portray convoluted awkwardness of kissing in public.
Selfishness and obliviousness to others.
Time is unimportant to the young; caught in moment; unaware of time.
Voyeuristic - a fascinated observer

5. The young couple’s moment is shared by the older couple; the young are not the only ones in love
(2nd stanza is about the old)
Public displays not needed to justify affection
More private, suggests affluence.
Seeing’s not everything. As this very moment the middle-aged are kissing in the back of taxis, on the way to airports and stations. Their mouth and tongues
Implies jet-setting/ cosmopolitan life
Sensual

6. Juxtaposition of adjectives indicate more experience, age.
Compared to when they were younger.
are soft and powerful and as moist as ever. Their hands are not inside each other’s clothes (because of the driver) but locked so tightly
Suggests desperation +
frustration similar to line 2
Parenthesis suggests control over emotions

7. Possible painful consequences
together that it hurts: it may leave marks on their not of course youthful skin, which they won’t notice. They too may have futures.
Conditional tense – nothing is definite.
Also, they can look forward to their future together; just like the young.
Discourse marker influences sense of conversational dialogue
Attraction not dependent on physicality.
Compare to poems which explore relationships at different ages
Conditional tense: to indicate what would happen in the future.

8. PEEE Point Evidence Explain Expand
How does the poet use the idea of kissing to explore the nature of relationships at different ages?

9. Peer assessment
Share your responses, comparing your own views with those of the poet. Swap your answers to the question. Mark each other’s work. Assess how well your partner’s responses:
show an understanding of the use of kissing to communicate thoughts and feelings about relationships;
use the ‘PEEE’ technique to show the link between form and point of view effectively;
demonstrate the ability to make relevant connections between the techniques used and the presentation of the nature of relationships at different ages.

10. Band
Award up to 5 marks, deciding which of the 5 bands the work falls into. 1
Generally sound comparisons.
• Some clear evaluation of the different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects.
• Mostly appropriate examples show some support of the points being made. 2
Sound comparisons.
• Appropriate examples show some support of the points being made. 3
Specific and detailed comparisons.
• Developed evaluation of the different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects.
• Detailed selection of appropriate examples to support the points being made. 4
Assured comparisons.
• Pertinent evaluation of the different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects.
• Assured selection of appropriate examples to support the points being made. 5
•Discriminating comparisons.
• Perceptive evaluation of the different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects.
• Discriminating selection of examples that fully support the points being made.
9 Further work
Students should select another poem from the collection, or a poem of their choice from another source, which also explores relationships at different ages. They should write three points about how the two poems are similar, either in content or the way in which they are written, and three points about how they are different.

11. Plenary You should have:
understood the ways Adcock has used structure to convey relationships at different stages of life;
responded to the language and emotions of the poem.
Discuss how successfully the poet explores the ways the couples of differing ages react and behave.
8 Plenary
Recap and ensure that students have:

12. Discuss
How does the passage of time influence our view of life and the way we live? What are your views of what we think of as characteristic of young people and older people in relationships? What other poems consider the relationship between LOVE and TIME.
Young
Old