The Songs That Moved the World
Grammar: Rhetorical structures: tricolon, anaphora, antithesis
A Level 6 English lesson exploring culture.
What's in this lesson
A Level 6 (proficiency) ESL lesson on culture, practising rhetorical structures: tricolon, anaphora, antithesis. The worksheet has a reading, target vocabulary and discussion questions.
From the reading: The Songs That Moved the World
In January 2021, a Scottish postman named Nathan Evans posted a twenty-second video on TikTok. He sang the opening lines of Wellerman, a nineteenth-century New Zealand whaling shanty, and within days the clip had been viewed by forty million people. Music historians called it a cultural anomaly. Sociologists called it a symptom of pandemic loneliness. The sailors who first sang the song, hauling ropes in freezing Atlantic gales, would have called it something far simpler: work.
Vocabulary
- aesthetic
- decorative
- optional
- shared
- cost lives
- in unison
- not
- sometimes
- was viewed
Discussion questions
- Do you think music can change how hard physical work feels?
- Is there a song that belongs to your country or culture in a way that words alone cannot explain?
- Can something become art even if it was never meant to be?
The Songs That Moved the World
Grammar: Rhetorical structures: tricolon, anaphora, antithesis
What's in this lesson:
Full lesson plan with reading, grammar, vocabulary, and discussion.
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