Reading
We’ve chosen four poems about pathways and walking to inspire you:
- Michael Rosen’s ‘Walking poem for Shakespeare week 2022’
- David L Harrison’s ‘Crossing paths’ (NB the second poem on this page of his blog)
- Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The way through the woods’
- Robert Frost’s ‘The road not taken’
Between them, these explore ideas about how walking can help us think and process, about how our paths intersect with the natural world, about the transformations of time and about big decisions in life. They also use strong, simple, fresh descriptions and sound effects like rhythm and rhyme to echo the walking process and the movement along a pathway.
Attached to this page are four units of work that delve into these four poems and then bring them together at the end of the fourth. Please make use of these as you feel fit. The schemes are adaptabel to age and ability. Please pick and choose, add and delete as desired.
You do not have to read these poems or notes to enter the competition, but they may help and could dovetail with other topics you are studying.
Writing
Please encourage your pupils to take a walk along a footpath and gather observational details to use in their poems. Where teachers have found the time to take their classes outside for this purpose in the past that has shown up clearly in the fresh qualities of the writing.
Literature & Landscape is all about encouraging people to get out into nature with senses alert, open to discovery and to the creativity (practical or scientific as well as artistically expressive) that can spring from that.
We hope all the children who take part will be able to find a voice they feel comfortable with for writing a poem.
Attached are also some teaching notes for writing poems, including:
- observation and note-taking in the field
- ideas for different approaches to writing a poem
- a handy check-list for editing and polishing
Literature & Landscape 