1. LEARNING OBJECTIVE: TO BE ABLE TO PLAN FOR COMPARISON TO UNDERSTAND WORDS AND PHRASES THAT LINK POEMS Developing Skills in Comparison

2. Starter Read ‘Neutral Tones’ and ‘Winter Swans’ List words and phrases in the Hardy poem that create a negative mood and positive words from the Sheers poem: Neutral Tones – dismalWinter Swans – calm ‘starving sod’‘stilling water’

3. How do images help the reader imagine the scene?

4. Structure and Form Neutral Tones opens with a description of a dismal scene. There is a similar description in the last two lines. What does this suggest about the development of the speaker’s situation? There is also a miserable description of weather at the start of Winter Swan, but the word ‘until’ signals a change in the poem’s direction. How does this poem develop?

5. Making Notes Look at the model of an annotated poem. Now compare with the other form of note-taking. Which do you prefer? Why?

6. Independent Learning Look at the example response. Could aspects of this response be improved? Give detailed feedback.