Poetry Comparison: Environmental Poetry

This is a small, three-page worksheet that I usually use with my KS3 classes to help them compare Alan Brownjohn’s “We are going to see the rabbit” and Sheenagh Pugh’s “Do you think we’ll ever get to see Earth, Sir?”.

The first poem follows the narrator as they journey to the last patch of grass in England to see the last rabbit, which is being kept “protected” by barbed wire and is surrounded by thousands of spectators. Eventually the rabbit burrows under the earth and escapes the crowd, to the crowd’s disappointment, only to be sat wondering when they will find it. The language is quite straightforward and can be understood by all ability of classes.

The second poem is marginally more challenging in that there are some words that you may have to explain to your class, however the meaning of it is clear if recited well (with the correct tone) so that the class can sense the narrator’s meloncholy. The title of the poem is a question asked by a student in a space-ship classroom; humanity have had to abandon the earth for environmental reasons. The student asks if they will ever get to see the Earth and the poem is the teacher’s response as they reminisce about their life on earth when it was still habitable.

This worksheet has three mirroring tasks for both poems where it asks them to consider their feelings after reading, their six favourite quotes and three key images central to the poem. The final page gives the student space to turn the initial tasks into comparative sentences (introducing connectives for comparison to them) and then a challenge at the end of turning one comparative sentence into a comparative paragraph.

I have used this worksheet with my classes in an Introduction to Poetry unit and eventually had year 7 students turn their points into a comparative essay which could stand toe-to-toe with some of my KS4 students!