What is Mametz Wood?

1. If you were a farmer and you found out the land that you had been farming turned out to be a battleground of WWI, full of dead soldiers who had died in battle, write down what you would do. Would you continue to farm the land or would you protect the field?

2. What is Mametz Wood? Mametz Wood is a wooded area in northern France that was the location for the Battle of Mametz Wood, which was part of the famous Battle of the Somme in 1916 (World War One). The battle saw the 38th Welsh Division pitted against German Forces on the border of the wooded area. The German Forces were nestled in the trees with machine guns and the Welsh Division were in open ground. The 38th Welsh division took heavy losses of around 4000 men.

3. Context Mametz Wood was the scene of fierce fighting, it was one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War. The name comes from how the soldiers were ordered to take (cover) Mametz Wood, the largest area of trees on the battlefield. Although this poem is not a personal account of war, Sheers has created quite a moving description of the war, and how its reminders are still present after many many years later. Owen, himself from Wales, like the soldier’s at Mametz Wood, choose to remember those soldiers who had lost their lives by writing a poem in their honour.

4. Owen Sheers I wrote ‘Mametz Wood’ after visiting the site of a WWI battlefield on the Somme in Northern France on the 85th anniversary of the battle that had happened there in 1916 to make a short film about two Welsh writers who’d written about their experiences of fighting at Mametz. The writers were David Jones and LlewelynWyn Griffith, and although they both survived the battle of Mametz Wood, around 4,000 men of the 38th Welsh Division did not. The attacking Welsh soldiers had to advance uphill, over open ground, into sweeping ‘hip and thigh’ machine gun fire as the Germans hid in the woods. The fighting was brutal and, once in the wood, often hand to hand. Walking over that same ground, now a ploughed field, 85 years later I was struck by how remnants of the battle – strips of barbed wire, shells, fragments of bone, were still rising to the surface. It was as if the earth under my feet that was now being peacefully tilled for food could not help but remember its violent past and the lives that had sunk away into it. Entering the wood, a ‘memory’ of the battle was still evident there too. Although there was a thick undergrowth of trailing ivy and brambles, it undulated through deep shell holes. My knowledge of what had caused those holes in the ground and of what had happened among those trees stood in strange juxtaposition to the Summer calmness of the wood itself; the dappled sunlight, the scent of wild garlic, the birdsong filtering down from the higher branches. While I was in France visiting Mametz Wood I read a newspaper article about a shallow war grave that had been uncovered during the building of a car factory nearby. The newspaper carried a photograph of this grave which I will never forget. There were twenty skeletons lying in it in various states of completeness, some still wearing rotten boots, others without. Each skeleton lay in its own position of death, but all of them were linked, arm in arm. It was a strange, touching, disturbing photograph and as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to write a poem about Mametz; about how the resonance of that battle was still being remembered in the soil over which it was fought. The poem I’d eventually write, much like the remnants of the fighting at Mametz, took a long time write. I’m not sure how much more I will say about the poem itself as I believe a poem’s meaning should be found in the reading of it, not in an explanation of how it was written. What I will say is that my choices of image, vocabulary, focus were all guided by those few moments of standing in that Summer wood, experiencing the strange juxtaposition of its natural present against its all too unnatural past. And, of course, by the photograph of that grave and the desire it left me with to give voice to those silent, unknown skeletons, most of whom would have been younger than I was then, 26 years old, when they were killed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6D8CEtUxfE

5. Progress Check PointSUMMARISE the context Answer in full sentences and in detail based upon the information you have just read. • What happened at the battle in ‘Mametz Wood?’ What caused so many deaths? • How many men were wounded in the battle? Where were they from? • Why did Owen Shears write the poem? • What was the photograph Shears viewed which influenced the content of his poem?

6. DESCRIBE what is happening in this image DESCRIBE what is happening in this image

7. Look at this overall picture. DESCRIBE what is happening? How would these soldiers be feeling? Descriptive writing based on your section of the image.

8. Learning Path We will COLLABORATE to explore the language of the poem and EXPLAIN poetic devices that are used by the writer. Lesson Objective: To annotate the poem ANALYSING language and poetic devices. Lesson Outcome: Literacy Objective: Modal verbs are ALWAYS followed by the word HAVE. There are NO exceptions to this rule. Examples of modal verbs are: Could have / would have / should have / might have / ought to have

9. Pre Reading poetry COLLOBORATE Language Task: In your pairs, you have been given a word from the poem. Complete your ‘I Am’ task in your book. Reminder on how to complete ‘I Am’: I am …(your word) I am a… (technical term for your word) I mean that…(define your word) I suggest that… (inference skills) Think Pair Reminder: Adjective-describing word Verb-doing word Adverb-described the verb (ly) Noun-naming word

10. Annotation Of The Poem In the opening lines of Mametz wood, Sheers mentioned how the battlefield had gone back to being a farmland and how years later the farmers had found the remains of the soldiers. Emotive adjective “wasted” shows that the soldiers that were fighting on the battlefield, were young men and had not yet even reached adulthood. Emphasising young lives have been wasted, there was no reason for their deaths and the futility of war. It is almost as if the place is trying to get rid of anything that is linked with the war, and trying to return back to its original state.

11.  A emotive metaphor with the words ‘’a china plate’’ is used to describe a shoulder plate which shows that Sheers is trying to signify how fragile and delicate the soldiers were/everything is (the bones of the dead), and yet here they were, lying on the ground. Soldiers are meant to be strong. A part of a bone lying around. Chit – small piece of paper. Fragility. There are even bones of dead birds lying around. Shows that absolutely nothing was spared. The plosive b alliterative sound mimics the sound of the guns in battle, which emphasises the violence of war. This is emphasised by the use of enjambment, which shows how the soldiers were blown apartand how their empty skulls litter the ground. Someone's finger is evident on the grounds. Imagine the horror of seeing decayed fingers lying around. Also using the noun “relic,”(leftover/historical object/links to saints) as if to say that it has no use now but could also be considered holy (saint.)

12. Alliteration describing the colours of the remains (bones) of the soldiers that are pushing through the surface of the earth. How the soldiers were ordered to walk towards the wood, (unaware of the guns that were waiting to fire on them.) This suggests the soldiers were east targets. Sheers uses a metaphor to describe the machine guns as “nesting” in the wood, once again using an image related to birds, almost as though the guns belonged among the trees. The collective noun for a group of machine guns, hidden from view, is a ‘nest’. What other ideas about the machine guns does the word ‘nesting’ give?

13. Personification of the French earth standing guard, afraid of another brutal battle in which the earth is demolished and there is nothing left of it. Sheers seems to have great respect for the earth, which on line 10 ‘stands sentinel’ as though it is keeping watch over its dead. Sheers returns to the present time – “even now.” The poet’s voice is heard here, reflecting on the way discoveries are still being made that bring the past into the present. These three lines introduce the new discovery of the shared grave, which is described in the next six lines. Sentinel - guard, lookout. creating the impression that the field is almost ‘on guard’. This simile suggests the bits of bone(soldiers) are unfamiliar and need to be pushed up and removed from the soil. Possibly insinuating that the earth doesn’t want to carry the burden of the remains and wants to set them free. The adjective “foreign” suggest Welsh soldiers died away from home and don’t belong in the field.Think about the way a splinter is eventually pushed out of your skin. Recognising its English or Welsh occupants, it seems to have slowly lifted the skeletons upwards so they can be discovered in peacetime. Going back to wounded memories, the idea that it cannot let go of the memories of the war.

14. It is a moving/emotional image showing how the men were physically connected, dying together. Moves to past tense. They are linked together in this one grave. A mosaic is something carefully constructed out of glass or stone; the bodies were buried with care/linked together. The adjective ‘broken’, which could represent the injuries the soldiers had suggests the broken remains of different bones colliding together.Sheers use this moving metaphor to describe the fragments of soldier’s bones. They fit together like a jigsaw; the whole picture tells a very different story from that of the individual pieces. A medieval (old fashioned) dance of death. Shows that their lifeless bodies were in some sort of position. It depicts a skeleton (Death) leading all ranks of people to their graves.Simply meaning that whether you were a King or a maid, death is inevitable and everyone should expect it. The ‘danse-macabre’ itself consisted of the dead, who represented all walks of life, dancing along to the grave. In this particular case, the ‘danse-macabre’ consisted of the dead soldiers. These paintings were produced to remind people of the fragility of life In the poem the skeletons are “paused”; they did not get a proper burial or grave because they died in battle.

15. Sheers mentions the soldiers' boots that have had a longer life than their owners. We can see the photo in our minds in all its distressing detail and further emphasises the horror the soldiers faced. He goes on to describe the skulls of the soldiers, although not all of them were intact (whole). Not many even had their jaws.. The soldiers death’s were painful and horrific.

16. Sheers tries to inform the reader the idea that the soldiers' skeletons appeared to be singing, but that the sound of their voices was not heard until the grave was discovered years later. (Metaphorically speaking) Use of adjective ‘absent’ suggests soldiers had not received a voice for many years but had finally gained one years and years later. Shears wants to honour their deaths and let people know about their contribution to the war.Sheers’ feels the it has been a waste of young vigorous life that has been the result of war. He finishes the poem with the observation that ‘only now’, when dug up after many years, do the 20 ‘wasted young’ get the chance to complain about the way their lives were sacrificed. Although in free verse, there are two examples of half-rhyme in the poem. Lines 8 and 9 close the first section, almost like a rhyming couplet (run, guns) and lines 19 and 21 end with ‘sung’ and ‘tongues’ to give a feeling of finality to the poem.

17. Can you find the quote to match these points? Reading Question: How does the poet present the soldiers in “Mametz Wood?” • The poet emphasises the violence of the soldiers’ deaths. • The poem creates a sense of sympathy towards the soldiers. • The poet seems critical in the way the soldiers and the battle was managed. • The poet emphasises how fragile the soldiers are through nature imagery. Vasso Kondou-Watson

18. Learning Path We will produce an ANALYSIS of ‘MametzWood.” Lesson Objective: To complete an assessed analysis of the poem using PETER structure. Lesson Outcome: Literacy Objective: Modal verbs are ALWAYS followed by the word HAVE. There are NO exceptions to this rule. Examples of modal verbs are: Could have / would have / should have / might have / ought to have

19. ANSWERING THE QUESTION. Would this achieve a level 7? Why? Reading Question: How does the poet present the soldiers in MAMETZ WOOD? Look at main ideas, themes and language used. Use my model, annotation and my displays for support. Point-what is this paragraph going to be about? Evidence- quote a sentence from the text technique-explain why the poet has used certain words Explain- the theme and what it means Reader -how does the reader feel? Give your opinion. The poet has intentionally presented the idea of soldiers in the poem as wasted people that have been lost in time. This is demonstrated by the quote‘For years afterwards the farmers found them – the wasted young’ VassoKondou-Watson The adjective ‘wasted’ has been used by the poet in order to suggest that the young men were not adults yet, hence, their lives had gone to waste. This implies that the land held the bodies of the soldiers hidden in its earth for all those years. Those ‘wasted’ lives were not earthed and that reveals great injustice. This has an effect on the reader in that it makes us feel sympathetic towards all the lives of the young men that should not have been taken away in that way. What is more, the lives of those men have not been recognised for their bravery. In my opinion, the writer has successfully managed to portray the theme of injustice taken place during the war by describing the youth as ‘wasted’.

20. TASK Pick 3 points and quotes and explain using PETER! Reading Question: How does the poet present the soldiers in MAMETZ WOOD? Look at main ideas, themes and language used. Write PETER in the margin. Point-what is this paragraph going to be about? Evidence- quote a sentence from the text technique-explain why the poet has used certain words Explain- the theme and what it means Reader -how does the reader feel? Give your opinion. VassoKondou-Watson

21. Peer assessment • Swap over your books. Complete a peer- assessment. This time give your partner some written feedback on their finished PETER paragraph. WWW: EBI: