@stoneman_claire @KLMorgan_2 @thingsbehindsun Gurney's triple art - his prose, poetry, music - makes him the most fascinating of poets, though perhaps he resonates powerfully for me because I'm a Gloucestershire lass! I based this chapter on my breakthrough with a tricky Y9 set: Use a Gloucestershire son. They were hooked.
@stoneman_claire @KLMorgan_2 @thingsbehindsun In the chapter (as in my teaching) I alternated the focus on the war and his own recollections of Gloucestershire, especially his grieving for his dear friend Will Harvey (another glorious Gloucestershire poet), which turned out to be misplaced.... Will hadn't died after all! 
@stoneman_claire @KLMorgan_2 @thingsbehindsun After that page, I switched back to the wider WWI story, with just a very brief ref to a Gurney letter "My dear friend, we suffer pain out here...". I later used this sequence to show trainees how to blend overview and depth in #curriculumplanning.
@stoneman_claire @KLMorgan_2 @thingsbehindsun Weaving a double narrative - an individual's life (with strong evidential focus on his prolific artistic output) and the wider WWI story - is worth the effort. Far from confusing pupils, it makes each narrative secure & invites useful questions about narrative construction itself
@stoneman_claire @KLMorgan_2 @thingsbehindsun The #Gurney story is layered with historical & literary meaning. Tiny, tender moments portend an eventual tragic conclusion: "Snowdrops, the first flowers I had seen for so long. So I plucked one for my friends that I so desire to see again, and one for Gloucestershire".
