LESSON IDEAS ON ‘DEATH OF A NATURALIST’
Starter/Orientation: * Ask students if they have seen frogspawn. What does it look
like? What exactly IS frogspawn?
 Discuss the word ‘Naturalist’ – students can look it up in the dictionary and
discuss the definition. Does it suggest child or adult, but tell students poem is
about a boy. ‘Death’ sounds final and literal too- so title quite confusing…will
be returned to.
READ POEM
1) How can the boy be called a ‘naturalist’?
ACTIVITY: (A) Ask students to reread the poem and in one colour, to highlight all
the CHILDISH WORDS/PHRASES (e.g. “mammy,” “daddy,” “But best of all,”
“slobber”) and FOOD METAPHORS/REFERENCES (e.g. “clotted water” – like
cream, “jellied specks,” “jampotfuls”).
Then, in a different colour, to highlight all the words to do with BODILY
FUNCTIONS/PROCESSES (e.g. “cowdung,” “farting” and perhaps “sickened”) and
VIOLENT, MILITARY IMAGERY (“cocked”- like a gun- and could be eg of bodily
image too!! - “mud grenades”, “invaded”).
What do they notice?
(B) Ask students to design/select a symbol for each section of the poem and to
draw it – e.g. jampot for first section and frog for second. Discuss choices.
(C) Ask students to select a WORD/PHRASE for each section of the poem –
e.g.fiction/ reality, innocence/experience, censorship/reality. Discuss. Alternativelyand for less able students – you could GIVE them these pairings and ask them to place
them next to the relevant section of the poem. Draw out that this is a RITE OF
PASSAGE poem, about the awakening of sexual identity.
(D) Poem is very SENSUAL, a characteristic of Heaney’s early poetry and
reflecting the heightened senses of a child and the vivid quality of his memories. Ask
students to focus on SMELL/SOUND and identify references to these in the poem.
The only real reference to smell/sound in the first section is:
“Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.”
Note here the use of SYNAESTHESIA or sense transference, whereby the sound of
the flies becomes visual (gauze, or mesh). But sound is heard, not seen. Synaesthesia
here reflects the interconnectedness of the senses and sows how the scene appealed to
more than one of the boy’s senses simultaneously.
References to sound/smell in second section include – “coarse croaking” (harsh
alliteration and onomatopoeia), “bass chorus,” “slap and plop,” (onomatopoeia).
Ask students to identify the difference between the references to smell/sound
in two sections of poem- ie in first, nature is beautified and, in a sense, disguised
(“delicately,” “wove”), while in the second section it is shown to be base and
revolting.
Why are there more references to smell/sound in the second section?
(2) Compare line 15 – “Miss Walls would tell us…” to line 21 “brown in rain..” to the
second section of the poem. How would you describe the teacher’s language? What
does she omit from her account of the frogs’ reproduction? What does the second
section focus on?
(3) Now ask, why is the poem divided into TWO sections? (Show that it moves from
the general “All year..” to a specific event/memory “Then one hot day…”.
(4) The child feels guilt in the last three lines of the poem and thinks the frogs have
“gathered there for vengeance.” What ‘crime’ committed by the boy do they want to
avenge? Why else might the boy feel guilty? (CLUE: What has he just witnessed?
Could introduce term ‘voyeur’??)
(5) Return now to title. In what sense has the ‘naturalist’ in the boy died and why?
Ask students to rename the poem and discuss possible titles.
(6)CONCLUSION: The child only wants to study the childish, sanitised version of
nature, not its bodily, physical reality. Miss Walls constructs a censored fiction for the
child; his true teacher is nature itself.
Ask students to discuss in pairs whether Miss Walls is responsible or not in ‘lying’
to the boy (and is it lying)? Remember he would probably be below 11 years old.
EXTENSION FOR ABLE STUDENTS:
And to tie the poem back to the theme of identity more!
Show students that there are THREE ‘I’s in the poem:
(1) the I of the first section;
(2) the I of the second section – a little later on
(3) the adult I writing the poem- the narrator/speaker.
Are 1 and 2 naïve, inexperienced speakers?
What is the third I’s attitude to experience?
Is the title IRONIC, mocking, in its grandiose use of the term ‘naturalist’ for a child?
1 and 2 are known as the FOCALISER (self actually experiencing the actions
described), while the NARRATOR is the self relating these experiences, often much
later on. What is the narrator’s attitude to the focalisers?
What different identities are there in this poem (of the boy)?
FOR LESS ABLE
Starter idea only: Give students images of FROG and FROGSPAWN and ask them to
think of nice/fun aspects of both (pleasant/positive words to describe them) and
disgusting aspects of both (revolting words to describe them). You could ask them to
think of SIMILES for each and for the noise frogs make.
Then- give students a list of words taken from the poem ( e.g. bass chorus, clotted
water, jellied specks, farting etc ) and they have to place them either with FROG or
FROGSPAWN image and decide whether they are POSITIVE or NEGATIVE.
Now read the poem….. a way into speaker’s attitude to frogs/frogspawn and analysis
of language.