Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3: How to use verbs
CAROLINE BIRD:Now what I want you to do is I want you to think of the two sides of your personality.
CAROLINE BIRD:One side of you might be really helpful really wanna just yeah don't, you want some help with that? The part side of you might wanna
CAROLINE BIRD:just stay in bed forever. One side of you might really want to be kind to people, you know? And really care whenever you see anyone else in pain.
CAROLINE BIRD:But the other side of you might be kind of feel angry and aggressive and Urgh! These people are so annoying.
CAROLINE BIRD:OK, So I want you to give a name to the two sides of your personality. It might be something simple like Jack and John or something more complicated don't think too much about the names.
CAROLINE BIRD:And write me a poem each telling me what they get up to. Go! There might be a moment when the two sides of you have to meet or they come into conflict or something happens or鈥
CAROLINE BIRD:There's a situation where one of them has to take charge. If any of you are really trying to rhyme it and you get in this thing where your like鈥
CAROLINE BIRD:Dog, log, hog, fog. Right, just break out of the rhyme. Because otherwise the rhyme ends up controlling you, you know? I generally say don鈥檛 bother rhyming.
CAROLINE BIRD:If your finished you can just sit there and stare into space and think about how cool you are.
CAROLINE BIRD:OK cool, let's hear some.
CHILD #1:Charlie likes to sing in the rain and dance away yesterday's tattooed pain But Ron likes to pick people up and dangle them 70 thousand feet from a purple crane.
CAROLINE BIRD:Right.
ELIZABETH KIMBERLY:Oh my god! Right鈥 Bill looked in the mirror, Ben stared back giving each other glares. Bill likes talking to carrots,
ELIZABETH KIMBERLY:Ben liked wrestling bears. Bill loved riding his unicorn along the sea. Ben liked using a plant pot as a head.
EVERYONE CHEERS
CAROLINE BIRD:It might not be perfect poetry but actually it's poetry you can't write when your older.
SHANKER GABO:This isn't the best poem I've written.
CAROLINE BIRD:Sorry, you must never apologise before you read anything ever, ever, ever.
SHANKER GABO:I'm not sorry for anything.
CAROLINE BIRD:Thank you!
EVERYONE LAUGHS
SHANKER GABO:Yeah this poem says quite a lot about me doesn't rhyme but yeah. Don't expect anything too good.
CAROLINE BIRD:I'm sorry.
EVERYONE LAUGHS
SHANKER GABO:I take all that back OK, don鈥檛 listen to me.
SHANKER GABO:My soul is burning fierce and never connected. The embers are burning the metaphorical bridge the gateway of separation. I'm bathed in a dark loneliness yet I'm surrounded by friends and loving family.
CAROLINE BIRD:It was just lovely to see them all laughing whilst writing actually really quite serious and funny and poignant stuff.
SAFA ABUKAR:-My voice projects to you this very moment.
SAFA ABUKAR:To say our blueprint is the same. Let's put a full stop to the hate and let's put a full stop to the fighting.
CAROLINE BIRD:-You know when you close your eyes just before you fall asleep and you have that kind of cinema rolling on your eye lids? Yeah? We all have a different cinema we all have a different film playing.
CAROLINE BIRD:And all those pictures and memories and dreams and, kind of, mad thoughts that you personally link stuff together, that鈥檚 your material.
CAROLINE BIRD:You know that鈥檚 what you use to write. Also what's the point of feelings otherwise? Were full of this stuff yeah that doesn't-- where do we put it?
CAROLINE BIRD:Right, poetry gives us a place to put it. Thank you very much, you've been amazing.
Video summary
Now in her mid-twenties Caroline Bird published her first book of verse aged just fifteen.
In this entertaining workshop she invites thirty teenagers to imagine the two sides of their personalities, and then write poems that describe their differences and what might happen if 'The 2 sides of me' were to meet or come into conflict.
The result is a crop of poems, some funny, others poignant.
This clip is from the series How to Write.
Teacher Notes
Useful when discussing creative writing and poetry and as an inspiration for classroom poetry workshops.
This clip is relevant for teaching English Literature at KS3 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and 3rd and 4th Level in Scotland.
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