‘Snow in the Suburbs’, by Thomas Hardy Lesson plan Introduction What’s your favourite season and why? List 10 words that you associate with this season: three nouns, three adjectives, three verbs, and one adverb. Development You are going to read a poem about a scene from one season. One word in the title and a number of words in the poem itself have been removed. Read the poem and guess what they are. Distribute the poem on page three. Which words and phrases offer clues? Distribute the full poem. Read the poem, individually, then as a class. Vocabulary Find a word in the poem that is synonymous with each of the following: a) fumble, scrabble, ferret, fish, rummage: ________________ b) inter, bury, entomb: _______________ c) weak, puny, frail, infirm: _______________ d) lower, bottom, under: _______________ e) storm, hail, shower, cascade: __________________ f) silent, speechless, dumb, voiceless: _______________ g) zigzag, wind, twist, turn: _______________ h) blow, puff, drift, whirl: ________________ i) fluffy, woolly, downy, fuzzy: _________________ j) drop, fall, sink dive: __________________ In each case, would any of the synonyms be as effective as or more effective than the word Hardy chose? Why or why not? Structure How does the layout of the poem and the arrangement of the lines supplement the meaning of the poem? © Ross Grainger, Education Umbrella 2017 1 Think of the season you wrote about in the introduction. If you were writing a poem about it, how could you manipulate the structure to supplement the meaning of your poem? Meaning Why is the final stanza both out of place and a fitting conclusion? How does Hardy convey the sense that the snow is both beautiful and menacing? Writing Return to the 10-­‐word list you made in the introduction. Use a thesaurus to find several synonyms of each word. Write a paragraph describing a scene from your favourite season. Include the 10 words from the exercise above, that is, either the original word or one of the synonyms you chose. End the paragraph with a moment, either real or imaginary, that, like Hardy’s, shifts the mood of your piece and provides a fitting conclusion. Extracurricular: turn your paragraph of prose into a poem. © Ross Grainger, Education Umbrella 2017 2 ‘_____________ in the Suburbs’ By Thomas Hardy Every branch big with it, Bent every twig with it; Every fork like a ____________ web-­‐foot; Every street and pavement mute: Some ______________ have lost their way, and grope back upward, when Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again. The palings are glued together like a wall, And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall. A sparrow enters the tree, Whereon immediately A ___________-­‐lump thrice his own slight size Descends on him and showers his head and eyes, And overturns him, And near inurns him, And lights on a nether twig, when its brush Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush. The steps are a blanched slope, Up which, with feeble hope, A black cat comes, wide-­‐eyed and thin; And we take him in. © Ross Grainger, Education Umbrella 2017 3