Powerful poetry
29 Apr 2021
Over the last couple of weeks, we have been spending our English lessons looking at poetry, and specifically narrative poetry. We spent some time getting to know inspiring existing narrative poems, these included: The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes, The Hypnotiser by Michael Rosen and The Pig by Roald Dahl. We really enjoyed reading and watching them.
Once we knew what the features of a narrative poem were and we understood all the different structure options we had, we started to think about our own poems.
We all agreed that the purpose of a narrative poem is to tell a story as well as to engage the reader. The children chose a target audience for their poem, and considered how they would create rhythm in their poem. The children were allowed to choose their own storyline ideas, and so we discussed a range of options for them.
The children wrote their plan, decided on a set of success criteria, and then began writing!
Importantly, once the children had completed their writing, they edited and assessed their poems. When the children do this they always use their purple pen, and I am really pleased with how their editing skills are developing.
I was really impressed with the variety of ideas the children came up with, and with the different ways they found to create rhythm in their poem, these included: repetition, rhyme and punctuation.
Here are a few of the children's poems; some of them go over more than 1 page.