Please Mrs Butler: The timeless school poetry collection

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This poem humorously mentions the typical incidents that children may experience while in school which allows them to relate to the poem more. What makes the poem comical, is the unexpected responses that are given from the teacher. Anaphora: the repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of multiple lines. For example, “Go and sit” in stanza two. Parallelism: the use of the same line structure. For example, likes one and two of stanza two as well as the structures of all the odd-numbered stanzas. The third part of the poem progresses in the same way, with the final issue being raised in the fifth stanza and amusingly dismissed in the sixth. There are a few different themes that one might interpret from this poem. One of the primary options is self-reliance. The teacher is unwilling to provide the student with the answers they are looking for. Instead, they are forced, in theory, to solve their own problems.

Supply Teacher' is one of my favourites. Ahlberg uses an introductory verse followed by two verses concluded with the all too familiar phrases; The bestselling and much-loved children's poetry classic, Please Mrs Butler by Allan Ahlberg is celebrating its 30th anniversary! With a fresh new look for a brand new generation of school children to take to its heart, every teacher, parent and child should have a copy. There aren’t many modern or contemporary poems which recall schooldays with affection, but ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ does just that. Duffy paints a fond picture of her time at primary school and on the brink of adolescence, powerfully suggested by the poem’s final image of the sky breaking into a thunderstorm. Allan often uses traditional verse forms like the ballad. Many of his poems have a very strong rhythm, and some sound like playground rhymes and chants. Some are actually written to be sung to a traditional tune. You can sing ’What shall we do with a grumpy teacher?’ to the tune of ‘What shall we do with a drunken sailor?’! The lines conclude with, “But don’t ask me!” Although the teacher is the only one who has the power to do anything about these minor inconveniences, she is not willing to. This is clearly quite frustrating for the student but, very likely, not nearly as frustrating as being constantly barraged by questions and issues is for the teacher.The final line is perfect as it breaks from the pattern of the two previous verses, but maintains the effective structure; This is a brilliantly child friendly book that they can relate to due to the wording and the way the poems are written. Children will really love the poems as they are a focussed around children's everyday lives and their lives within school. The poems are also written in a way that adults can relate to, as quite often the poem is from the view point of the teacher or the adult. There are many types of poetry used throughout the book, mainly written to sound like children speaking, and also full of humour.

From the opening verse of the first poem it is easy to see how beneficial such a collection is to a child's understanding of the features of the literary form such as structure, verse, rhythm and rhyming couplets:Alliteration: a common literary device in children’s poetry. It’s seen through the repetition of consonant sounds, like “Derek Drew.” I read this poem to my year 1 class during BSE and they absolutely enjoyed it. Although this poem is fairly outdated, the comical content still produced a lot of laughter from the children. Moreover, the repetitive nature of the poem engaged the children to participate in the reading of the poem.

Allan Ahlberg's collection of witty and comical poems about the trials and tribulations of being at school is superb. Although some of the content is pretty dated, having been written in 1983, the comedy contained within still manages to produce laughter in the classroom. Children of all ages can relate to the various aspects of school life such as friendship, breaking up and making up, misbehaving and getting into trouble, and mean and unsympathetic teachers. This poem appeals to both children and teachers alike, thanks to its structure: the odd stanzas are spoken by a particularly talkative child complaining about what other children are doing, and the even stanzas comprise the teacher Mrs Butler’s responses to the child’s requests, with mounting frustration. Anyone who’s endured a particularly fraught and annoying class at school (and let’s face it, which of us hasn’t?) will find something that strikes a chord here.

The Mrs Butler Blues

Haircut' depicts a common fear in many children's lives - standing out. At school consistency is key; the minute you change your appearance someone will have something to say about it. Ahlberg captures the annoyance at being told the blatantly obvious; Differentiated group activities Using the technique of text marking the children are to find and mark the different sections of the poem, identifying any patterns that they notice. This begins with noting the rhymes in individual stanzas; and could lead on to how the six stanzas are divided up into 3 'sections'.

Please Mrs. Butler’by Allan Ahlberg is a six-stanza poem that is divided into sets of four lines, known as quatrains. These quatrains follow a simple rhyme scheme of ABCB; changing end sounds from stanza to stanza. It’s also worth noting that all the odd-numbered stanzas and even-numbered stanzas follow a simple line structure. This helps keep up a steady rhythm and makes sure that the three parts of the poem are very easily distinguished from one another. In the first lines of this poem, the speaker, a young student, begins by asking their teacher what to do about a boy copying their school work. Because the child says “This boy” when referring to “Derek Drew,” it seems like the speaker is a young girl. The speaker continues, complaining again to Mrs. Butler about Derek Drew. The young speaker tells her teacher that the boy is taking her rubber or eraser, and she wants him to stop. The third stanza follows a very similar structure to the first. Then, the fourth stanza conveys the same dismissive attitude readers saw from the teacher in the second stanza.

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The poem is divided into three parts. The first contains a young student’s plea for her teacher to stop one of their fellow students from copying their work. Rather than provide a solution, the teacher dismisses the issue and tries to get the student to solve it themselves. Throughout, the poet uses amusing and outrageous language that is meant to entertain, especially in the teacher’s rather outlandish suggestions. Allan is perfectly tuned in to the language of the classroom, the playground and the kitchen table. His first book of school poems was published over thirty years ago, but you will almost certainly recognise some of the things that the children, teachers and parents say. (So will your teachers, we’re willing to bet!) In ‘Please Mrs Butler’, you can hear him speak with voice of the teacher and the child. Both sound more and more desperate. Death of a Naturalist’ – the title poem from Heaney’s first collection of poems, published in 1966 – is a poem about a rite of passage, and realising that the reality of the world does not match our expectations of it. Here, specifically, it is sexuality which is the theme: the speaker is appalled and repulsed by the reproductive cycle of frogs, which doesn’t quite tally with the view of nature offered by his teacher, Miss Walls. Please Mrs Butler was voted the most important twentieth-century children's poetry book in a Books for Keeps poll. The first time I read Please Mrs. Butler was as a year 6 pupil. .it is a journey through the school day - School time, Play time, Dinner time, School time again and Home time - all from the prospective of the children.