1. Girls - what words would you use to describe the relationship between you and your mother?
Boys (if you have a sister) – what words would you use to describe your sister’s relationship with your mother?

2. When in a relationship between mother and child are there points of conflict do you think?
Why do you think these conflicts occur?

3. Lesson objectives:
To understand what the poem ‘Catrin’ by Gillian Clarke is about.
To analyse how the poet has used language and structure to convey thoughts, feelings and ideas.

4. Let’s hear the poem being read.
Follow it in your anthologies while you listen (page 26).

5. Quick questions after the first reading:-
What is being described in stanza one? Where is the poet?
How many years have passed between stanza one and stanza two? How old is Catrin now do you think?

6. Task:
Underline in blue all the words to do with conflict.
Circle in blue all the words to do with love and affection
Let’s see which words you identified…

7. What are the two main emotions felt in this poem?
What, therefore, is the conflict represented in this poem?

8. The poem shows the conflicting emotions in the relationship between Gillian Clarke and her daughter Catrin.
How does the structure of the poem help to convey the ongoing conflict between mother and daughter?

9. Structure:
Use of punctuation
Use of repetition
Number of stanzas
What each stanza is about
Layout on the page

10. The poem shows the conflicting emotions in the relationship between Gillian Clarke and her daughter Catrin.
What language techniques does the poet use to convey this conflict?

11. Oxymoron – where two words appear together that appear to contradict each other.
Enjambment – where a poet deliberately starts a new line in the middle of a sentence to add emphasis to the word at the start of the line.
Metaphor – where something is described as being something else.

12. ‘…I wrote
All over the walls with my
Words, coloured the clear squares
With the wild, tender circles
Of our struggle to become
Separate.’
What techniques have been used here?
What does it show about the mother’s feelings?

13. ‘With your straight, strong, long
Brown hair and your rosy,
Defiant glare’
What technique has been used here?
What does it show about the mother’s feelings?

14. ‘I can remember you, our first
Fierce confrontation, the tight
Red rope of love which we both
Fought over’
What techniques have been used here?
What does it show about their relationship?
What is the red rope of love?

15. ‘Trailing love and conflict,
As you ask may you skate
In the dark, for one more hour’
What is the conflict that the mother is struggling with at the end of the poem?

16. Pronoun – a word that replaces a noun, to avoid repetition of nouns within a sentence.
Jim went to the bathroom, Jim brushed his hair, Jim washed his face and Jim brushed his teeth.
Jim went to the bathroom, he brushed his hair, he washed his face and he brushed his teeth.
Pronouns also create a sense of unity – we, they, our – or separation – you, them – or ownership – your, mine, my

17. ‘Of our struggle to become
Separate. We want, we shouted,
To be two, to be ourselves’
How do pronouns add to the sense of conflict in these lines?
When does it change in stanza two?

18. To show your understanding of the poem ‘Catrin’ complete the writing frame on the poem, making sure that you fill in the last gap in enough detail.

19. Plenary – our lesson objectives were:
To understand what the poem ‘Catrin’ by Gillian Clarke is about.
To analyse how the poet has used language and structure to convey thoughts, feelings and ideas.
In your own words, answer the following questions:
What is ‘Catrin’ about?
How do language and structure contribute to meaning?