Section One: Apirana Taylor Whakapapa

We're going to study the poetry of Apirana Taylor who is of Ngati Porou, Te Whānau a Apanui, and Ngati Ruanui as well as Ngati Pakeha descent.

He is a prolific (writes a lot!) and important poet. First, get to know your poet a bit better by having a watch of these two short documentaries.

Section Two: Background to the Poem

It's important to understand what life was like for soldiers during the war and during battles because that will help you to better understand the poems we are about to read.

• Check out these stories of what life was like for a young ANZAC soldier from Auckland Museum

Section Three: Close Reading of the poem

Read the poem here and then comple

1. Read the poems twice each. Write down what you think they are about and five words that describe how they make you feel.

2. Circle any words that you don’t know what they mean. Look them up on the internet and write what they mean beside them on the page.

3. Use Google to find out information about Apirana Taylor and Wilfred Owen such as where they lived, when they lived, and what they often write about.

4. See if you can spot any writing techniques, such as similes, metaphors, rhyme, and highlight them.

Read the poems for the first time. As you do, complete this task:

1. Audience positioning. Write down five words that describe how you feel after reading these poems. For example, sad, happy. These adjectives will become your tools for discussing the impact on the audience. So always keep them in front of you.

2. Character map - on a piece A3, write down each of the characters as you come across them. Draw arrows between the characters to denote their relationships and add in adjectives that describe each character and at least one quote for each characters.

After completing your first reading of the poems , complete these tasks to set you up for a close analysis of them

1. Figure out of the theme. What's this story about? To do this, work through these questions:

   1. Who's the main protagonist?

   2. What challenges do they face?

   3. How do they face these challenges?

   4. How do they change over the course of the narrative?

   5. What main ideas are thrown up by the adventures of the protagonist and what do you learn about these ideas?

3. Some big questions to consider about Tusitala's poetry.

• 1. What is she saying about who she is in her poetry?

  2. How would you describe the tone of the poem and why has Tusitala Marsh chosen this particular tone?

3. Think about which bit you remember best. It is now time to reread this chapter, thinking about these things as you go:

• 1. What is the tone and mood of each poem?

  2. Who are the main antagonists and how are they positioned? How is the audience positioned to think about them.

  3. Identify TEN main quotes these poem- note these and justify why you have chosen each one.

  4. Identify language features that Tusitala Marsh employs in this chapter and explain why you think she used it.

Use these learning stations to more deeply understand how these poems have been put together to make them the convincing pieces of poetry that they are.