This text-based, 5 session English planning explores poems written by Grace Nichols, the renowned poet from Guyana. For Forest and For Ocean feature personification and imagery. Pupils are asked to imagine our natural world as a person with thoughts and feelings.

All aspects of poetry from the national curriculum in reading, spoken language and writing composition will be covered across the full set Au1-Su2.

For schools that use Pathways to Write, this unit aligns with the  summer 1 set 1 unit.

National curriculum skills for this unit:

Spoken language:

• Listen and respond
• Use spoken language: speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas
• Participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play, improvisations and debates
• Gain, maintain and monitor the interest of the listener(s)

Reading comprehension:

• Identify and discuss themes and conventions
• Learn poetry by heart
• Prepare poems and plays for performance

Poems for this unit can be found online