Tenses, tenses everywhere...

I recently took some Year 11 students to a youth hostel in Alnmouth, Northumberland, for an immersion French weekend. The point of this exercise was to try and inject a bit more culture and fun into their learning. When I was preparing for this weekend, I wanted to do some work on tenses and a poem by Leopold Sedar Senghor I had used a few years ago and had forgotten about surfaced to mind. The poem has a very thought provoking message and a great structure to use when looking at different tenses. 

Cher Frère Blanc

Quand je suis né, j'étais noir,
Quand j'ai grandi, j'étais noir,
Quand je suis au soleil, je suis noir,
Quand je suis malade, je suis noir,
Quand je mourrai, je serai noir.

Tandis que toi, homme blanc,
Quand tu es né, tu étais rose,
Quand tu as grandi, tu étais blanc,
Quand tu vas au soleil, tu es rouge,
Quand tu as froid, tu es bleu,
Quand tu as peur, tu es vert,
Quand tu es malade, tu es jaune,
Quand tu mourras, tu seras gris.

Alors, de nous deux,
Qui est l'homme de couleur ?

I think that this poem could be exploited with Y7 to look at colours, year 9 to look at tenses and KS4 as a stimulus for writing as well as getting an important message about race and skin colour across.