UKS2Poems:  ‘Jabberwocky’ Resources Pack – Comprehension, Vocabulary, Composition

This poetry pack, based around the classic nonsense poem ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carol, contains lesson ideas that could be completed over a series of five sessions for Year 5 and Year 6.

Pupils will explore the author’s use of language, exploring what the nonsense words used could mean and also their word class, which will aid their understanding of the poem. They will also have the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the poem by completing comprehension activities and, finally, create their own nonsense poems.

The five lessons in this KS2 poems resource pack:

• Lesson 1: understanding the poem
  Pupils will read the poem and explore Carol’s use of nonsense words and the theme of the poem.
• Lesson 2: performing the poem
  Pupils will rehearse a performance of the poem.
• Lesson 3: comprehension
  The comprehension questions can be answered through discussion as a class or as a written task.
• Lesson 4: creating nonsense words
  Pupils will look again at nonsense words used in the poem ‘Jabberwocky’, investigating words that may have been combined to create them, before creating their own nonsense words.
• Lesson 5: writing nonsense poems
  Using ‘Jabberwocky’ as inspiration, pupils will have the opportunity to write their own poems.

What is a nonsense poem?

This is a type of poem where the poet has used made up words to describe things or to make the poem sound nice. They do not always make sense and they often use nonsense words and real words in their poems. The authors Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear and Spike Milligan have all written nonsense poems.

National Curriculum programme of study links

Year 5/6

Reading – Comprehension

• Pupils should continue to read an increasingly wide range of … poetry …
• Pupils should prepare poems to read aloud and perform, showing understanding through intonation, tone and volume so that the meaning is clear to the audience
• Pupils should show understanding of what they have read by: checking that a book makes sense to them, discussing their understanding and exploring new words in context; drawing inferences such as inferring characters’ feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, and justifying inferences with evidence.
• Pupils should discuss and evaluate the author’s use of language, including figurative language, and discuss its impact on the reader

Writing – Composition

• Pupils should plan their writing by identifying the audience and purpose for writing, selecting the appropriate form and using similar writing as models for their own
• assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing

This resource is part of the Calendar Resources collection.
View more from this collection

• Teacher notes
• PowerPoint
• Illustrated text
• Understanding the poem worksheet
• Comprehension questions and answers
• Word cards
• Themed writing paper