Урок "Поезія Роберта Бернса"

The Title of the Lesson: Robert Burns. His Life and Literary Work. “My Heart’s In the Hihglands”.

Objectives: to relate the pupils to the literary epoch Robert Burns lived, to introduce the pupils to life and works of Robert Burns, to comprehend reading material, to introduce the pupils to the notion of alliteration and theme, to analyze and articulate the themes and literary devices in the poem “My Heart’s in the Highlands”, to research the internet for a scavenger hunt question, to find examples of alliteration in English poems, to introduce the pupils to the translated versions of “My heart’s in the Highlands”.

Skills: collaborative skills, reading for information, critical reading, critical and logical thinking skills, individual research work skills, information and communications technology (ICT) work, public speaking skills.

 

The Procedure of the Lesson.

1. Lead-in.

1. Revising Prior Material about the Period of Enlightenment.

Choose a, b or c to complete the statements:

1. The Enlightenment period began with

1. the end of the French revolution.
2. the close of Thirty years’ War.
3. the  beginning of Thirty Years’ War.

2. The Enlightenment covers the period from

1. 1600 – 1789
2. 1648 – 1800
3. 1648 – 1789

3. The leading literature forms during the Enlightenment period became

1. poems.
2. satirical essays.
3. novels.

4. The wide availability of knowledge was made possible through

1. the production of encyclopedias.
2. the compulsory education for children from both poor and rich families.
3. the growing number of available printed books.

5. The first group of Enlighteners believed that they could better the world simply by

1. developing manufacturing and factories for the good of the economics.
2. teaching.
3. getting free from religious authoritarianism.

2. Answer the following questions:

1. What is the key idea of the Enlighteners?
2. What two groups of Enlighteners were there in the 18^th century?
3. What writers or poets belonged to the first and the second group?
4. What group of writers did Robert Burns belong to?

3. Brainstorming. Individual Work.

Make a word or idea web to express everything that occurs to you when thinking of Robert Burns.

The teacher asks volunteers to read aloud the words they wrote in their idea webs. Those may be places, proper names, dates, events, traditions, notions relating to Robert Burns.

e.g. Scotland, Burns Night, 25 January, haggis, poems, national songs, “A Red, Red Rose”, “My Heart’s in the Highlands”, a pipe etc.

II.      Activities and Instructional Procedures.

1. Match the words with the definitions:

1. A sibling –                 a) a very bad effect that something has on something;
2. Harsh –                      b) the words of a song;
3. Climes –                    c) old-fashioned: the time when a woman gives birth to a baby;
4. Toll –                         d) a type of Scottish soup made with chicken, vegetables and leeks;
5. A lad –                       e) formal for a brother or a sister;
6. A venture –                f) literary for a place that has a particular type of climate;
7. Lyrics –                      g) to do something that makes someone unfriendly or unwilling to

                                       support you;

8. Confinement –           h) difficult to live in and very uncomfortable;
9. Cock-a-leekie –          i) having a low social class or position;
10. Assistance  –               j) a young man;
11. To alienate  –                      k) help or support;
12. Humble -                      l) a new business activity that involves taking risks;

2. Choose and fill in the appropriate word from the words in the box below. Use the words only once. You don’t need to use all the words.

Siblings   toll   venture   assistance   climes   lyrics   humble   harsh Confinement     lad    cock-a-leekie   to alienate

1.   Burns asked Jean’s father for …………after he had known about his illness.
2. Robert and his ………….worked hard in the fields.
3. Scottish climate often took its …………on Robert’s health.
4. Despite his …………..roots Burns became one of the most celebrated poets during his lifetime.
5. Renting a farm turned out to be a failing …………..
6. James Johnson and Robert Burns collected Scottish national ……………..and music.

3. Find the sentences with the highlighted words in the text and see if your answers are correct from the context.
4. Reading. Individual Assignment.

What new facts about Robert Burns do you suppose to learn from the text? Write at least three questions the answers to which you think you will get from the text.

1. Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) (also known as Rabbie Burns, Scotland's favourite son, the Ploughman Poet, Robden of Solway Firth, the Bard of Ayrshire and in Scotland as simply The Bard) was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and a "light" Scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English.

As well as making original compositions, Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His poem (and song) Auld Lang Syne is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and Scots Wha Hae served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country. Other poems and songs of Burns that remain well-known across the world today include A Red, Red Rose; A Man's A Man for A' That; To a Louse; To a Mouse; The Battle of Sherramuir; Tam o' Shanter, and Ae Fond Kiss.

2. Robert (Rabbie) Burns was born on 25 January, 1759 in Alloway, Ayrshire of south west Scotland, the son of a poor tenant farmer William Burnes (1721-1784) and his wife Agnes Broun. The Burns family lived in a cottage that William himself had built, and which John Keats would later visit and write his sonnet “Written in the cottage where Burns was born”. The cottage and property now belong to the Burns National Heritage Park. Young Robert and his siblings worked the fields with their father, which was hard manual labour near the shores of the Firth of Clyde. They were exposed to the sometimes fair but more often harsh climes of Scotland that would take their toll on Robert’s constitution. He and his younger brother Gilbert also attended the local school and were tutored by John Murdoch.

Burns became a reader of many classic Greek, English and Scottish literary works including William Shakespeare’s, Allen Ramsay’s, and Robert Fergusson’s. He also studied the Bible, French, Latin, arithmetic, geography, and history, and his childhood nurse Betty Davidson is said to have introduced him to the world of Scottish folklore as in “Tam o’Shanter”. The family moved to the farm Mount Oliphant in 1766, then a year later to Lochlea farm. Burns was a handsome, dark-haired young lad; a hard worker at the plow. After the death of his father in 1784, he and Gilbert rented Mossgiel farm, near Mauchline, but it proved an unsuccessful business venture.

3. Around the age of fifteen Burns had started writing poems in the Ayrshire dialect of Lowlands Scots, including his first, “Handsome Nell” (1771-79), which was dedicated to a young girl working with Robert in the field.

Other early poems include the oft-quoted “To A Mouse” (1785) written by Burns when he overturned their nest while plowing a field. It inspired the title of novelist John Steinbeck’s masterpiece Of Mice and Men (1937).

Around the age of twenty-five Burns fell in love with Jean Armour, to whom “Bonie Jean” (1793) is addressed, and with whom he had twins. He wanted to marry her but her father and the Kirk opposed it. Frustrated with this turn of events, he decided to emigrate and seek his fortunes in the West Indies. In order to fund his passage he had his first collection of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Kilmarnock edition) published in 1786.

However, his plans soon changed when the joy of fatherhood set in and Poems immediately received high acclaim. Burns “The Ploughman’s Poet” became popular among Edinburgh society. Though he was not aware of his contemporary William Blake, a fifteen year old Sir Walter Scott met him. With Armour’s father seeing a more respectable man who could provide for his daughter, he encouraged their marriage and in 1788 Robert and Jean finally married and settled down on the farm Ellisland in Dumfriesshire.

4. In 1787 he also enjoyed travels throughout the country. Due to his love of music, he and James Johnson set to the task of collecting together all the traditional Scottish songs, music and lyrics, published as The Scots Musical Museum (1787) which grew to six volumes. A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs (1793) was also partly produced by Burns, with George Thomson. Burns joined the democratic militia group Royal Dumfries Volunteers in 1795. The same year his beloved three year old daughter Elizabeth died.

He contracted rheumatic fever as stated in a letter to his friend Mrs. Dunlop of Dumfries on 31 July, 1796. Under the care of Doctor Maxwell, he knew his prognosis was grim. With four surviving children and his wife due to have her ninth at any moment, Burns wrote her father to send assistance for her confinement. Robert Burns died on 21 July, 1796, aged thirty-seven, at his home in Mill Vennel, now called Burns House. His son Maxwell, named after his doctor, was born three days later. Burns' remains now rest in the Mausoleum in St Michael's Kirkyard. Jean Armour died in 1834 and now rests beside him.

Robert Burns' birthday is now celebrated the world over as “Robbie Burns Night” with special suppers of cock-a-leekie soup, haggis, and typsy laird for dessert. Guests Address the Haggis, Toast the Lasses with Whiskey, and recite his poems and sing his songs.

5. Burns wrote of his own rural experience as well as dealing with themes of patriotism, republicanism, class structure, and sexuality, with wit, humor and always accessible verse. He devoted much of his life and writing to honouring Scottish heritage and culture;  its people, literature, folklore, ballads, and music. He was also at times deeply troubled by the societal values that led to conflicts and wars and he was considered radical for his political views. He alienated himself from many friends when he expressed support of the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. While not forgetting his humble roots he went on to be one of the most celebrated poets during his lifetime and up to the present, almost two hundred and fifty years later. His life and works have inspired many other writers including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Hugh MacDairmid, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth.

5. Asking the pupils to share the answers they got to their questions.

The volunteers take turns to read aloud the question and the answer to it to the class.

6.  Match the dates with the facts of R. Burns’ life.

1)  1759             a) Robert was sent to school and got quite a good education reading a great

                               number of books.

2)  1765             b) He was born in Alloway, on the 25th of January.

3)  1772             c) He wrote his first poem “Handsome Nell”. It was written for a girl who      

                               worked in the field with him.

4)  1773             d) He had to begin working on the farm as his family was poor.

5)  1786             e) He married Jean Armour, the daughter of a rich master-mason.

6)  1788             f) He published his first volume of poems chiefly in Scottish Dialect.

7)  1796             d) He died on the 21st of July in Dumfries.

7.  Say if the facts are true or false. If they are false, correct them.

1. R. Burns travelled all over the world. He was interested in all kinds of national songs, legends and poems.
2. He was a ploughboy and at 13 he worked in the field as much as grown-ups.
3. When Robert was 25 years old, his father died and he became the head of the family.
4. Jean Armour’s parents wanted Jean to marry Robert Burns.
5. In 1788 Robert and Jean got married. They had already had twins.
6. In last years of life Robert Burns lived in Dumfries with his family. He liked that old town for its beauty.
7. He started writing poems at the age of twenty-five.
8.  His first and well-known poem “To a Mouse” was written after Robert noticed a mouse living in his house.
9. The collection of Scottish songs and lyrics made by Burns and Johnson appeared in 1787 and consists of six volumes.
10. Burns’ “Wha Hae” served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country.

8. Introducing the pupils to the poem “My Heart’s in the Highlands”.

Teacher’s Comments:

A fine example of Burns cleaning up a song is My Heart's in the Highlands. Written in the year 1790. Burns was then living at Ellisland Farm, although by this time he had been appointed a post in the Excise and was contributing to Johnsons Scots Musical Museum.

Because of the Jacobite Rebellion the English had so repressed the Scots that old songs were forbidden to be sung and were dying out. Burns collected these old fragments from people that he met on his tour. Sometimes only a tune was remembered and sometimes only a line or two. Johnson had the idea that he would publish these with the music and Burns wholeheartedly joined in this cause, so much so that he later became editor for Johnson. Not all the songs in the Museum were written by Burns although the majority were. Burns own note on My Heart's in the Highlands is as follows: “The first half stanza is old, the rest is mine”.

Would this song have survived if Burns had not rewritten cleaner, purer words and from the patches created a song of beauty?

Listen to the poem and try to imagine the picturesque view of the place being described. Describe the place in time and space as you see it.

 

MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS
Tune - The Musket Salute
Chorus
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer,
A-chasing the wild deer and following the roe
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go!

 

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North
The birthplace of valour, the country of worth!
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love

 

Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods!

9. Read the poem one more time. What do you notice about the way it sounds? Are there any sounds that are repeated more than once in lines?
10. Introducing the pupils to the notion of alliteration.

Alliteration

In a basic definition of alliteration, we would say that the initial consonant sounds of words are repeated. Some examples: sweet, sweep, swallow. But the technical definition is a relationship between words when the following is present:

1.  - consonants just before the first accented vowels are the same
2.  - the vowels are not pronounced alike
3.  - the following consonants are different

Here are a few examples: sweet – swallow, lime – like, fellow – fat

A poem that contains alliteration can be fun and silly, but it still has to make sense. You can’t just throw a bunch of words together. There really aren’t any other “rules” for an alliteration poem. They can vary in length and you have the option to rhyme. See below for several examples of alliteration and your own planning chart.

Alliteration Examples:

The Sassy Sow sat on her sofa. Maggie Moose made friends with Mark Mouse.

Watching the wriggling worm workout. Having hot tea hosted at the White House.

11. Underline the alliteration in these sentences.

1. Puny puma pit their skills against zebras.

2. Pretty Polly picked pears for preserves.

3. Handsome Harry hired hundreds of hippos for Hanukkah.

 Fill in the table with the alliterated consonants and words in which alliteration takes  

       place in the poem “My Heart’s in the Highlands”.

Background information for teachers:

Burns choice of words is important. The alliteration of H in the chorus emphasizes this persons Heart belonging to his homeland. There is also an alliteration of "s" in “My heart(s) in the highland(s) my heart i(s) not here”. Also a-cha(s)ing. This "s" is almost like a sigh and the chasing suggests the chasing of a dream which cannot be fulfilled. The first verse uses the vowel "v" in valour, rove and love to emphasize each of these words.

12. Classify the words into categories:

Actions	Nature	Animals	Colour	Descriptive words

13. Introducing the pupils to the definition of the theme.

The theme is the point a writer is trying to make about a subject. Learning about theme helps you decide what is important. The theme of the poem tells what the whole poem is about. All the words, descriptions, figurative language, detail sentences, and scenes are all small parts that add to the reader's understanding of what you feel about the theme.

14. Group work. Brainstorming. Practicing defining themes in literary works.

Here are some central ideas, or THEMES. Divide in groups of 5-6. Choose a theme for your group and brainstorm some of your thoughts and feelings about the theme you’ve chosen. Put down your ideas making an idea web. Then be ready to present it to the class.

War                           Horses               The Elderly

Prejudice                 Family                Pollution

Love                        Violence             Music

15. Defining the themes in “My Heart’s in the Highlands”. Making a theme web.

1. Look through the text of the poem and the tables you filled in to help you answer the following questions and create an idea web:

What does the author describe? Put down your ideas in the right upper corner of the web.

What words relate to nature? Put them down in the left upper corner of the web.

What descriptive words does the author use for giving a vivid picture of nature? Put them down in the right lower corner of the web.

What feelings, emotions are expressed in the poem? What is its mood? Put down your ideas in the left lower corner of the web.

2. Look at all the words you wrote now. Those are the hints for the themes covered in the poem. Write down the themes in the central part of the web.

Teacher’s notes:

In the second verse note that this person is remembering his homeland and the order of the lines is important. Firstly the soft snow. Secondly the fertility of the valleys. Thirdly the wild-hanging woods are mentioned and then we move onto the torrents and the loud-pouring floods.
This is symbolic of this person’s heart and mind when thinking of his homeland. We start with soft images and move through the stages to his mind being tormented with torrents and floods almost as if this person is deeply moved to crying over the fact that he will never return.
We do not know why this person has left his beloved Highlands but it does not seem to be through choice. Does the Valour and Worth lead you to think that he could be abroad on regimental and military duty. Farewell is a "forever" word. This person will never return. Anguish, regret and pain about the fact that a person will never see his home place and its nature are expressed in the poem.

The themes are: nature, love for birthplace, regret, anguish.

III.Follow-up.

The pupils are offered to read the two translated versions of the poem. The first was made by S. Marshak and the second one by the Ukrainian poet M. Lukash.

В горах мое сердце.

С. Маршак

В горах мое сердце… Доныне я там.
По следу оленя лечу по скалам.
Гоню я оленя, пугаю козу.
В горах мое сердце, а сам я внизу.

 

Прощай, моя родина! Север, прощай,-
Отечество славы и доблести край.
По белому свету судьбою гоним,
Навеки останусь я сыном твоим!

 

Прощайте, вершины под кровлей снегов,
Прощайте, долины и скаты лугов,
Прощайте, поникшие в бездну леса,
Прощайте, потоков лесных голоса.

В горах мое сердце… Доныне я там.
По следу оленя лечу по скалам.
Гоню я оленя, пугаю козу.
В горах мое сердце, а сам я внизу!

Моє серце в Верховині
(переклад М. Лукаша).

Моє серце в верховині і душа моя,
Моя дума в верховині соколом буя,
Моя мрія в гори лине наздогін вітрам,
Моє серце в верховині, де б не був я сам.

Будь здорова, верховино, любий рідний край,
Честі й слави батьківщино, вольності розмай!
Хоч іду я на чужину, повернуся знов,
Моє серце в верховині і моя любов.

Прощавайте, сині гори, білії сніги,
Прощавайте, темні звори й світлії луги!
Прощавайте, пущі дикі й тіняві гаї,
Прощавайте, буйні ріки й бистрі ручаї!

Моє серце в верховині і душа моя,
Моя дума в верховині соколом буя,
Моя мрія в гори лине наздогін вітрам,
Моє серце в верховині, де б не був я сам.

Homework. 1. Try to translate the poem yourself and present it to the class. 2. Learn the poem by heart and be ready to recite it in class. 3. Read Robert Burns’ biography, be ready to answer the questions about it. 4. A scavenger hunt question: Give the example of alliteration in other poems of English authors. Here is the list of URL where the answer can be found.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/alliterative

www.types-of-poetry.org.uk/46-alliteration.htm

www.yourdictionary.com/grammar/examples/examples…

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~poems/ps/html/alliteration_examples.html

 

The Keys:

Task II.1. 1) e  2) h  3) f  4) a  5) j  6) l  7) b  8) c  9) d  10) k  11) g  12) i

Task II. 2. 1) assistance 2) siblings 3) toll 4) humble 5) venture 6) lyrics

Task II. 6. 1) b 2) a  3) d   4) c  5) f  6) e  7) d

Task II 7. 1) False 2) True 3) True 4) False 5) True 6) True7) False 8) False 9) True 10) True.