Pretty by Katie Makkai

Learning objective: to develop our ideas on the power of the word pretty, and what it means to different people.

Success criteria: 

1. We can describe our own thoughts and experiences relating to the word "pretty."

2. We can discuss the ideas in Katie Makkai's spoken word poem.

3. We can show our understanding of the poem "pretty" in our responses to the set questions, using specific supporting details.

Step one: discuss, in pairs or in your table groups, what you think "pretty" means and what expectations there are about being 'pretty' in our culture.

Step two: silent writing.  Ten minutes to write your thoughts down, including examples, opinions and supporting details.

Step three: watch Katie Makkai's performance

Step four: You can find the full text on the poemhunter website.  Make a copy of this text and paste it into a new document in your English folder called "Pretty:" Reading Skills."  Then I want you to decide how to set it out, as the text is all mashed together on the poemhunter website.  Where will you start new stanzas or paragraphs?  Use the comments function to highlight words and then find out what they mean.