Speech Work, Poetry & Vower Sounds – JSS3 English Lesson Note (First Term)

This lesson covers three areas: prepositions that follow words describing emotions (grammar), the elements and types of poetry (literature), and the weak vowel /ə/, called the schwa (speech work).

Behavioural objectives

1. Use the correct preposition after emotion adjectives such as happy, angry, worried and interested.
2. Choose between pairs of prepositions after common nouns and verbs, for example news of/about and listen to/for.
3. Name and explain the elements of poetry: form, lines, stanzas, rhyme, rhythm and euphony.
4. Identify poetic devices such as alliteration, anaphora, onomatopoeia and imagery.
5. Describe the types of poetry: narrative, lyric, humorous, limerick, ballad and free verse.
6. Identify the vowel /ə/ in words and transcribe words that contain it.

Grammar: how do we describe emotions with verb and preposition combinations?

A partner preposition is the preposition that regularly follows a word, and some words can take more than one.

• Adjectives: words such as happy and angry take about, with, for, at or in.
• Nouns: words such as news and theory take of, about, with or to.
• Verbs: verbs such as listen and look take to, for, at or after.

Which prepositions follow emotion adjectives?

When do we use about, with and for?

• About: goes with an existing situation, e.g. happy about the performance of a football team.
• With (positive adjectives): shows what one has, e.g. happy with one’s job.
• With (negative adjectives): goes with a living cause of the emotion, e.g. angry with the government.
• For: usually goes with living things, e.g. happy for a newlywed couple (glad that good fortune has come to them).
• Concerned for: expresses fear that something bad might happen, e.g. concerned for refugees.
• Concerned about: suggests that something bad has already happened.

Other adjectives with two prepositions:

• Good: at, to or for.
• Disgusted: at or with.
• Responsible: to or for.

Which prepositions follow nouns?

• News of / news about: news of an event means the event itself is the news; news about it gives extra information on an event already known.
• Theory of / theory about: a theory of gravity is a full scientific theory; a theory about gravity is a general belief.
• Difficulty of / with: the difficulty of curing cancer; the difficulty with children is that they need supervision.
• Cost of / to: the cost of inflation (what has the cost); the cost to the government (who suffers it).
• Advantage in: there is an advantage in starting early.
• Research in / into / on: in shows the broad subject (research in biology); into and on show a narrower object (research on primates).
• Research (verb): takes no preposition, e.g. They research primates.

What are prepositional verbs?

A prepositional verb is a verb that is followed by a particular preposition, and it is different from a phrasal verb.

• Meaning change: sometimes the meaning changes if the preposition is dropped.
• Different prepositions: sometimes each preposition gives a different meaning, as in look at and look after.

• Agree with: agree with a person; agree on a plan.
• Apply: apply for a job; apply to a school.
• Look: look at a picture; look after a baby; look for a lost book.

Literature: what is poetry?

Poetry is the expression of strong feelings and thoughts in carefully chosen words, often arranged in lines and stanzas.

• Purpose: it expresses a thought, idea, feeling or experience so that it can be shared and remembered.
• Common subject: the link between a person and nature, the world or the universe.

What are the elements of poetry?

The elements of poetry are form, lines, stanzas, rhyme, pattern, rhythm and euphony.

Form

• Form: the shape a poem has on the page.
• Traditional form: follows strict rules of lines, rhyme and stanza.
• Free verse: breaks from traditional form so that the shape fits the content and mood.

Lines

• Line: the building block of a poem, and it ends where the poet chooses.
• Length: lines may be equal or unequal in length.
• Punctuation: a full stop, a slight pause or a sudden break at the end of a line guides the reader.

Stanzas

• Stanza: a group of lines in a poem, like a paragraph in prose.

Rhyme

• Rhyme: the repetition of similar sounds, usually in the end syllables of words.
• End rhyme: words at the ends of lines rhyme.
• Internal rhyme: rhyming happens inside the line, e.g. “It won’t be long before my song ends the day, and the flowers near the towers reach the sky.”

Pattern

• Pattern: a repeated arrangement of sounds, syllables and lines that the reader notices.
• Rhyming pairs: squeeze/tease; run/fun; demonstrate/what she ate.
• Syllables: de-mon-strate matches what-she-ate in number of syllables.
• Stressed syllables: the combination of stressed syllables in a line is the main creator of pattern.

Rhythm

• Rhythm: the regular flow of stressed and unstressed syllables that gives a poem its tempo.
• Beat: each stressed syllable gives a beat.
• Regular repetition: repeating the same pattern in every set of lines and stanzas creates rhythm.

Stressed syllables are in capitals:
And as she WALKED to the MOON,
We could ALL hear her SWOON,
To the MARvelous SIGHTS,
In which she NOW so deLIGHTS,

Euphony

• Euphony: a combination of agreeable, melodious sounds that makes a poem pleasant to hear.
• Reading aloud: a poem is most effective when read aloud because its sounds can then be heard.

What are poetic devices?

Poetic devices are the techniques a poet uses to create effect, meaning and mood.

Sound and repetition devices

• Alliteration: repeating a consonant sound in nearby words, usually at their start, as in “big brown bears”.
• Repetition: repeating words, ideas or images for emphasis.
• Anaphora: repeating a word or phrase at the start of successive lines, e.g. “Tomorrow when the sun comes out, / Tomorrow when the birds sing out”.
• Anadiplosis: repeating a word or phrase at the end of one line and the start of the next, e.g. “She will never come to this my land, / To this my land where I belong.”
• Onomatopoeia: words that imitate the sounds they stand for, e.g. buzz, bang, splash.

Word order device

• Inversion: reversing the normal word order for effect.
• Anastrophe: a form of inversion, e.g. “To the sea, she went”; “Fear she felt”; “Out she went”.
• Hysteron proteron: putting the last thing first, e.g. “Put on your shoes and socks”.

Figures of speech

• Simile: compares two things using like or as, e.g. as brave as a lion.
• Metaphor: says one thing is another, e.g. Time is a thief.
• Personification: gives human qualities to non-human things, e.g. The wind whispered.
• Hyperbole: deliberate exaggeration, e.g. I have told you a million times.
• Understatement: making something seem less than it is, e.g. calling a heavy flood “a little water”.

Imagery and variety

• Imagery: sensory language that creates pictures or feelings of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch in the reader’s mind.
• Variety: changes in line length, rhythm, rhyme and line distribution that make a poem more effective, for example to create humour or sadness.

What are the types of poetry?

This note covers six types of poetry: narrative, lyric (descriptive), humorous, limerick, ballad and free verse.

• Ballad: a kind of narrative poem.
• Limerick: a kind of humorous poem.

What is a narrative poem?

A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story.

• Setting: the place and time of the story.
• Characters: one or more people in the story.
• Conflict: usually a problem or struggle.
• Plot: events that build up to a climax, often followed by a conclusion.

What is a lyric (descriptive) poem?

A lyric poem is a short, melodic and very personal poem that expresses feelings and impressions.

• Content: impressions, feelings, emotions, sensations and personal views of an experience.
• Themes: nature, beauty, love and friendship, joy of life, death and patriotism.

What is a humorous poem?

A humorous poem is a poem written mainly to amuse the reader.

• Reason: poetry is flexible, so poets can shape it to make people laugh.
• Common form: the limerick.

What is a limerick?

A limerick is a humorous five-line poem, usually nonsense verse about something ridiculous.

• Lines: five lines only.
• Rhyme scheme: lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyme with each other; lines 3 and 4 rhyme with each other (AABBA).
• Length: lines 1, 2 and 5 are longer; lines 3 and 4 are shorter.
• Name: linked to the town of Limerick in Ireland.

Example 1:
There once was a pretty young girl
Who had pretty teeth like a pearl,
But her fortune did change,
When her mom disarranged,
The nice girl, and her teeth and a curl.

Example 2:
A puppy whose hair was so flowing,
There was no means of knowing
Which end was his head,
Once stopped me and said,
“Please, sir, am I coming or going?”

What is a ballad?

A ballad is one of the oldest types of poetry: a long narrative poem about conflict and deep human emotion.

• Subjects: usually love, honour, courage and death, and sometimes the funny side of life.
• People: usually common people, though some ballads are about nobles.
• Theme: usually physical courage and tragic love.
• Detail: little characterisation or description.
• Action: moves forward through dialogue.
• Story: much of it is implied, so the listener fills in the details.
• Stanza: told in ballad stanzas.

The ballad stanza has these features:

1. It has four lines.
2. The fourth line rhymes with the second.
3. Lines 1 and 3 have four beats (accented syllables).
4. Lines 2 and 4 have three beats.

What is free verse?

Free verse is poetry that does not follow a fixed form, so the poet shapes it to suit the mood.

• Lines: irregular in length, with varied indentation.
• Rhythm: used, but not in a fixed pattern.
• Rhyme and stanzas: end rhyme and regular stanzas are seldom used.
• Capitals and punctuation: may be changed freely by the poet.
• Today: most modern poetry is free verse.

Speech work: what is the vowel /ə/?

The vowel /ə/ (the schwa) is a neutral, weak vowel that stands for the reduced form of other vowel sounds.

• Stress: it is found only in unstressed syllables and never carries stress.
• Length: it is short, like a weak form of /ɜː/.
• With consonants: it often follows a consonant, as in water /ˈwɔːtə/.

Why is the schwa the most common English sound?

The schwa is the most common sound because English is stress-timed, so unstressed vowels are weakened.

1. In English, stresses come at fairly regular intervals.
2. Nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs are normally stressed.
3. Auxiliary verbs, pronouns, articles, linkers and prepositions are usually unstressed.
4. Unstressed words are said faster and more quietly to keep the stress pattern regular.
5. Their vowels lose their full quality and often become a schwa.

• Within words: stressed syllables keep the full vowel, while unstressed syllables are weakened.
• Examples (letters in bold may be schwa, depending on accent): support, banana, button, excellent, experiment, colour, sister, picture.

Where does the schwa occur in a word?

Evaluation

1. Choose the correct preposition: (a) He is interested ___ music. (b) She is angry ___ the driver.
2. Explain the difference between “news of an event” and “news about an event”.
3. Define stanza, rhyme and rhythm.
4. State four features of a ballad stanza.
5. Transcribe these words and identify the vowel /ə/: (i) manner (ii) library (iii) other (iv) wonder (v) forward.

Assignment

Transcribe the following words and identify the vowel /ə/ in each: (i) backward (ii) harder (iii) sector (iv) failure (v) potato (vi) captor (vii) quiet.