Many schools use the AQA English Literature specification for GCSE, and will be used to teaching Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ as part of the Conflict and Power cluster of poems. It seems to be one of the more popular poems, and this might relate to the poem’s memorable rhythm - this certainly seemed to be the case in a video I saw a few months ago of some school students vigorously reciting it in their playground in unison with their teacher. English teachers love complicated terminology, and like me, you have probably taught your students that the energetic rhythm is achieved through Tennyson’s use of dactylic dimeter ( BAH-ba-ba BAH-ba-ba ). When I first started teaching this poem, I would tell students that this was to evoke the sound of the Light Brigade galloping towards the enemy on horseback. This isn’t wrong, but I found that my students would tag this on to their answers - seemingly just so they could use the complicated terminology. Students were not linking
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