INDIE COLLECTION

LESSON 11: Perfect Love

Poem: ‘One Perfect Rose’, Dorothy Parker

Framework Objectives: Learning Objective:

Year 8, Reading 5
Trace the development of themes, values
or ideas in texts
Year 8, Speaking and Listening 15 Explore
and develop ideas, issues and relationships
through work in role
To use drama techniques to explore
tone and the portrayal of a relationship
in the poem ‘One Perfect Rose’ by
Dorothy Parker

Resources and lesson preparation

OHT 107: Isn’t it romantic?
Copies of the poem

Starter

 Display OHT 107. Ask students to rank the objects from most romantic to least romantic. Take
feedback, asking individuals for their reasons.
 Alternatively, students can complete ICT Activity 1.

Introduction

 Display the poem, but keep the last stanza covered up. Ask pairs to discuss the following ideas:
o What is the tone of the poem?
o How would you describe the speaker in the poem?
o What do you think the last stanza will be about?
 After a few minutes of discussion, ask some pairs for their responses. Now reveal the final stanza of
the poem and elicit responses.
o Did they see the ending coming?
o Did they have a limousine as a high ranking romantic object?
o How has the tone changed?
o How does the language and syntax in the final stanza differ from the previous two?

Development

 Discuss the woman’s reaction to the rose and compare it with students’ responses from the starter
activity.
 Use ICT Activity 2 to explore further the characterisation of the man and woman in the poem. Ask
students which words best describe the man in the poem, and which best describe the woman. Get
them to group the magnet tiles accordingly. Alternatively, draw columns for ‘Man’ and ‘Woman’ on
the board and ask students to suggest words from the poem and/or words of their own to describe
both the man’s and the woman’s attitude to relationships.

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 INDIE COLLECTION

 Explain to students that they are now going to explore the relationship between the man and the
woman through role play and thought-tracking. If necessary, explain how thought-tracking works:
that this is when a person in role as a character speaks their inner thoughts out loud. Students
should work in groups of 2-4.
 Students should improvise the man giving the woman the rose, supplying the thought-track of what
each character is really thinking. For example, man: ‘She’s going to love this, all women love
flowers, especially red roses…’. They can use all the ideas generated from the Who? What? exercise
when working in role.
 Now give students the following scenarios to choose from, or choose which group will be given each
scenario. They must continue their role play to include one of the following situations:
o the man’s reaction after he has given the rose
o the woman explaining why she is disappointed
o the man and the woman are out with their friends separately discussing Valentine’s Day.
o Ask some of the groups to share their performances.

Plenary
 Gather students back together and discuss the following question: What do you think of the
woman’s reaction to the man’s gift?
 Do boys and girls react differently to the question?

Suggestions for writing

 The poem can act as a stimulus for several different writing tasks:
o a diary entry for the man and the woman in the poem
o a lonely heart’s column for the man and the woman, each describing their ideal partner
o a playscript of what happens after the events in the poem
o a poem from the man’s point of view.

NOTES
 This poem links to other poems about love, e.g. ‘Sonnet 130’, ‘Valentine’, or ‘i wanna be yours’.

Teachit KS3 Interactive Pack © HarperCollins Publishers and Teachit (UK) Ltd 2008. This page may be
photocopied for use in the classroom
 OHT 107: Perfect Love

Put these objects in the order you think is most romantic.

1 = most romantic 10 = least romantic

Object Rank order

Vacuum cleaner

Cute card

Single red rose

Limousine

Teddy bear

Onion

Coffee pot

Photo

Perfume

Knife

Teachit KS3 Interactive Pack © HarperCollins Publishers and Teachit (UK) Ltd 2008. This page may be
photocopied for use in the classroom
 OHT

One Perfect Rose

Dorothy Parker

A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.

All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet –
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;

‘My fragile leaves,’ it said, ‘his heart enclose.’
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet

One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

Teachit KS3 Interactive Pack © HarperCollins Publishers and Teachit (UK) Ltd 2008. This page may be
photocopied for use in the classroom