This is a good point at which to show excerpts or all of the 1997 film, Road to Jerusalem . Students work on Thoughts of a Dying Calvinist . Sounds , Structure. Students could explore the influence of place on Baxter's poetry by looking at Lloyd Godman and Lawrence Jones' The Mythology of Place . Through text and photographs, the site creators present Otago places such as the Matukituki Valley, the cave on Big Rock, Brighton Beach, the Brighton River, Taieri River and the Robert Burns Hotel which provided Baxter with the inspiration for many of his early poems.
Students write definitions and provide examples from their poems to support their definitions.
Each group feed back to the whole class providing specific examples from poems to support their findings. Alternatively, use a jigsaw method to allow students to share their findings in smaller groups. This analysis will be useful preparation for Bursary essay questions . If available students are given copies of Introducing James K. Baxter by Christopher Parr and, in class, read and extract information that enhances and extends their knowledge of Baxter relating this new information to their past and future analysis of poems. This activity will take 2 periods.