The poem describes a schoolboy in India who endures daily bullying and violence. He finds no help from teachers and escapes by hanging himself in his home. The poem uses this tragic story to call children to unite against bullies and racism, and to stand up for themselves by telling teachers about their troubles instead of enduring in silence. It promotes messages of fighting for freedom and an end to violence and crime against children.

1. Use of songs, raps,
poems

2. Benjamin
Zephaniah

4. …Lessons start at the school from Unite as CHILDREN make the change
hell Don't let things stay the same
Classroom's more like a prison cell We want freedom - no more crime
Sitting in his blood stained clothes We want freedom all the time
Tears in his eyes and a busted nose No more Singhs will die this way
Bully boys don't stop their taunting Unite as CHILDREN - fight them
No teacher saw his daily haunting today!
No teacher said you're a lion Singh CHILDREN UNITE
Be BRAVE, be STRONG but never IT'S TIME TO FIGHT
give in THE BULLY BOYS
THE RACIST NOISE
School bell rings:"Bye-Bye friends I DON'T LIVE IN DREAD
ain't coming to hell again!" TELL THE TEACHER INSTEAD
Running home as fast as he can YOU'RE NOT ALONE
No one knows his secret plan LET YOUR TROUBLES BE KNOWN
Up the stairs for freedom call
He escapes from his body walls
Free at last from the violence
Hangs himself in deathly silence.
Where he ends we begin
Bullies won't kill another Singh

5. Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Dulce et Decorum Est As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed He plunges at me, guttering, choking,
through sludge, drowning.
Till on the haunting flares we turned our If in some smothering dreams, you too
backs could pace
And towards our distant rest began to Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
trudge. And watch the white eyes writhing in his
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their face,
boots, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
all blind; Come gargling from the froth-corrupted
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots lungs,
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
dropped behind. Of vile, incurable sores on innocent
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of tongues, –
fumbling, My friend, you would not tell with such high
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; zest
But someone still was yelling out and To children ardent for some desperate glory,
stumbling The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . . Pro patria mori.
Dim through the misty panes and thick
green light,

6. Top tips!
• Clear message
• Create an emotional response
• Imaginative
• Catchy
• Use of imagery
• Humour – if appropriate!

7. Best protest songs - link
http://www.spinner.com/2007/07/13/20-
protest-songs-that-mattered-no-16/