This document provides guidance for answering an exam question comparing how poets present ideas of national division in two poems, "Flag" and another from the Conflict poetry collection. It outlines a perceptive approach, identifying the key theme of national division and comparing how the poets use language and structure to reflect their attitudes towards creating divisions between people and the damage that can cause. Students are instructed to choose a language or structural feature from each poem, analyze its link to the theme, explain its effect, and evaluate how effectively it expresses the poet's feelings on national division.
2. Practice Questions:
• Compare the ways the poets present ideas
about national division in ‘Flag’ and one other
poem from Conflict
• Compare the ways poets present feelings of
loss in ‘The Falling Leaves’ and one other
poem from Conflict
• Compare the ways poets present divided
societies in ‘The Right Word’ and one other
poem from Conflict
3. Compare the ways the poets present ideas
about national division in ‘Flag’ and one other
poem from Conflict
1. Choose a poem to compare to
2. Identify key theme AKA national division
4. Compare ‘Flag’ and ‘At the Border
Introduction
Both ‘Flag’ by John Agard and ‘At the
Border’ by C.H. explore ideas about
national division in their poems. Most
notably, they both explore the idea that
nationalism is an abstract idea and that
nations are merely imagined
communities. Both poems seem to
criticize the damage that creating such
divisions between people can lead to. In
each poem, language, form and structure
are used to reflect the poet’s attitudes.
Why is this
perceptive?
Because – I have
gone beyond the
obvious and put
the theme into
context. I have
also mentioned
the poet’s
attitudes towards
the issue they
explore (the
question)
Key Theme
5. Perceptive Language Comparison
1. Select a language feature which links to the key theme
(national division)
2. Support with evidence
3. Explain effect on reader
4. Explore possible interpretations
5. Take a word from your quotation and explore even further
– linking to the key theme
6. Link the use of the language feature/word back to the key
theme and evaluate how effective it is at expressing the
poet’s feelings
7. Compare to a language feature in another poem
8. Repeat stages 1-6 with second poem
6. Perceptive Structural Comparison
1. Select a structural feature which links to the key
theme (national division)
2. Support with evidence or reference
3. Explain effect on reader
4. Explore possible interpretations
5. Link the use of the structural feature back to the key
theme and evaluate how effective it is at expressing
the poet’s feelings
6. Compare to a structural feature in another poem
7. Repeat stages 1-5 with second poem
7. Another point of comparison on either
language, structure or form
