The document provides tasks and guidance for students to analyze and understand The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It begins by asking students to predict what the poem will be about based on artwork and captions. It then provides a cloze activity and asks students to summarize the first part of the poem in 5 sentences using connecting words. Finally, it discusses poetic techniques like onomatopoeia, alliteration and assonance that are used in the poem and asks students to identify examples.

1. The Rime of the Ancient mariner
LO: Developing and adapting active reading skills
and strategies with a pre-20th century text

2. Task 1: Prediction
Look at the famous artwork and captions for the
poem (See the next slide). Can you predict what
the poem is going to be about? Write a short
paragraph of your ideas.
Task 2:
Check your understanding with the missing
word task which follows.
Task 3:
Consolidate your understanding, with a more
detailed summary of each set of stanzas with
the task that follows.

3. Task 1: Prediction
Look at the famous artwork and captions for the poem. Can you predict what the poem is
going to be about? Write a short paragraph of your ideas.

4. Read the following cloze. Number 1 – 13 and just write the correct words from the
green box.
A really old 1 stops one of 2 people going into a wedding. He
seems to have a strange, almost 3 , hold over the 4 guest.
The Mariner starts to tell the guest a story about a sea 5 . The
ship he was on starts the journey well and travels down to the 6
. But then they encounter a storm, and are blown all the way
down to 7 . They become surrounded by 8 and mist.
Eventually an 9 , flies through the fog and the crew take it as a
good 10 . The crew 11 the bird and the ice 12 , letting the
ship through. It stays with them 13 days . The first part ends
with the Mariner looking distressed and admitting he later shoots
the albatross.
Wedding feed sign nine icebergs voyage Equator
Antartica albatross magical splits Sailor three

5. Writing a summary of part 1
Write 5 sentences (1 for each 4 stanzas) which describes
concisely(short but packed with detail) what happens. To
make your summary read more fluently (smoothly) , start
each sentence with a variety of the following connectives.
Firstly…to begin with… next… then… more significantly…
besides… also…in addition… so.. Consequently… hence…
thus…finally
e.g. Firstly the poem starts with a strange old sailor who
grabs a weeding guest on his way into a wedding and starts
telling him a story

6. LO: Explain the use of poetry techniques in The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner.
Onomatopoeia is a word or words that sound like the action:
snap, zip, bang, whisper, slither, buzz etc.
Alliteration – repetition of letters or phases at the beginning of a
series of words.
Assonance – repeated vowel sounds.
“The teasy bees take their honeyed ease.”
Repetition – using the same word or phrase more than once.
“Into the deep, deep ocean.”
M Rathor
Chapel-en-le-Frith High

7. LO: Identifying poetic techniques in a pre-20th century text
Copy and complete the following grids (Look at the next slide to get ideas):
E.g. of Colour/light What is it describing What impression does it
give?
e.g. ‘a dismal sheen’
E.g. of Sounds What is making the sound? What impression is given?
‘merry din’ (loud noise)
Similes, Metaphors,
Personification
Example This makes the reader feel
Simile e.g. green as emerald

8. Example Explanation
The ice “cracked and growled, and
roared and howled.”
Coleridge has used onomatopoeic
words with harsh sounds to make the
ice seem brutal. Also, by using sounds
associated with animals he has made
the ice seem like a predator and as if it
is attacking the ship.
“’green as emerald.”
This creates an eerie atmosphere
as we are used to icebergs being
described as pure white. These are
a strange colour and not what we
would expect.
M Rathor
Chapel-en-le-Frith High
:

9. Part 2
At first the other sailors were 1 with the Mariner for having killed the bird that made the
2 but then, when the fog lifted, the sialors decided that the bird had brought the fog. They
then ___ the Mariner on his deed. The wind pushed the ship into a _____ sea where sailors
are quickly stranded , the winds die down and the ship was unable to move. The ocean
seems to get thicker, and the men