Word sort

‘Hawk Roosting’ by Ted Hughes

Teaching notes

Before you begin reading a poem or story with your class, you can analyse the words in it
by sorting the text into groups with associated meanings.

 The list of words on the next page is a de-sequenced or ‘collapsed’ version of the
poem. The words are in alphabetical order, and all duplicate words and smaller
grammatical words (such as prepositions) have been removed, leaving you with
the core vocabulary. Substantially, these lexical words provide the meaning of the
poem.

 Students are given the task of sorting the words into categories – words that
relate to each other in some way, through meaning. Ask students to invent their
own groupings and categories and find their own associations: for example,
violent words, or words relating to the sea. The grouping sheet is best enlarged to
A3 to give students plenty of space to write in.

Through this activity students can ‘discover’ patterns of meaning, for instance
underlying metaphors, before reading the poem and seeing them revealed in the true
context of the whole text.

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 Word sort
‘Hawk Roosting’ by Ted Hughes
The words below have been taken from a poem you will be studying. Create as many
categories as you need to sort these words into groups.

Relationships

earth Advantage
Arguments
Body
Buoyancy
Convenience
Creation
Dream
face
falsifying
head
high
perfect
manners
mine

advantage air allotment arguments assert bark body bones buoyancy change closed
convenience creation death direct dream earth eat eye face falsifying feather feet
flight fly foot hawk head heads high hold hooked inaction inspection kill living
locked manners mine path perfect permitted please produce ray rehearse revolve
right roosting rough sit sleep slowly sophistry sun tearing top trees wood
Sort the words into different groups:
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 Word sort
‘Hawk Roosting’ by Ted Hughes

 You can label the groups however you want to, e.g. ‘colour’ or ‘movement’
words.

 You can put a word into more than one category if you wish.

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