The Lady of Shalott - Lesson 2 - Establishing Setting PowerPoint

Lesson Two of an English teaching resource focuses on the poem 'The Lady of Shalott' by Alfred Lord Tennyson. The lesson's objectives are to encourage students to make predictions about the text and to analyse the language used to establish the setting in the poem's opening part. Students are presented with an image from John William Waterhouse's famous painting of the Lady of Shalott, prompting them to speculate on the poem's content and the identity of its central character. They are asked to consider how the Lady of Shalott might relate to the legends of Camelot and King Arthur, recording their thoughts in a spider diagram.

The setting of the poem is introduced through Tennyson's vivid description of the Lady's home. Students are tasked with reading the first two stanzas and highlighting words or phrases that portray the surroundings of the Lady's dwelling. The stanzas depict a pastoral landscape with long fields of barley and rye, a road leading to Camelot, and an island where the Lady resides, surrounded by nature's beauty. Further activities include comparing the poem's description with various pictures to determine which one aligns most closely with the setting described by Tennyson. Students must support their choice with textual evidence. Finally, they are invited to draw their interpretation of the scene and label it using words from the poem, enhancing their understanding of the poem's setting and the use of descriptive language.