Poetry makes the horizon endure

What is the point of poetry?

The second expedition of Year 10 for the class of ‘21 was called ‘Poetry in the Making’ where students studied The Hawk in the Rain by Ted Hughes and a collection of unseen poetry. The poems studied encouraged students to consider, explore and express the relationship between humanity and nature through the idea of horizons.

The learning targets were :

  • I can read a range of poems considering language, structure, form and context
  • I can use language form and structure to construct a powerful and engaging poem

The guiding question was intended to encourage students to explore and analyse the power and impact of poetry and consider poetry as an art form.

The expedition began with an immersion where students worked with the poet Becky Cherriman and explored the concept of horizons using a mind map and wrote group poems, using phrases from Hughes’ poems as starting points.

Students continued to work with Becky Cherriman on a series of poetry workshops designed to allow students to:

  • Celebrate the work of Ted Hughes and make students aware of Hughes’ local links and heritage
  • Nurture creativity, imagination and skills to enable students to produce a high quality poem
  • Develop confidence in students’ written and spoken voices
  • Better understand themselves, students’ relationships with others and the natural environment; be better able to express thoughts and emotions through the written word and to promote the poetry produced and the skills acquired in a publication

The final product for the expedition students used their learning of how to critically respond to poetry by writing an original poem of their own. The poems were then presented to the Ted Hughes Festival to be considered for publication. All of the poems were collected in an ebook that included all the poems, an answer to the guiding question and a short commentary to explain their choice of language, form and structure in their poetry.

Links to all the resources relating to the development of the final product and the relating expedition can be found on this page.

Expedition Posts

Final Product – Poem ebook