Inset session 3
Working with a poetry unit
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This inset session
• demonstrates how an illustration can
engage children in discussions which
encourage them to speculate and infer
meanings
• illustrates how performing poetry can
support children’ understanding and
awareness of language.
• demonstrates the ways drama approaches
can support children’s ability to empathise
with characters and recognise their
motivations and feelings
Using the poem
The Highwayman, Alfred Noyes,
Illustrated by Charles Keeping
Artwork by Carles Keeping
may be viewed at
www.thekeepinggallery.co.uk.
Key teaching
approaches
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Reading aloud
Responding to illustration
Discussion
Storytelling
Freeze frame
Writing in role
Text marking and word collections
Poetry performance
Responding to illustration
• What do you see in the picture?
• What questions do you have about the character?
• Make notes with a partner.
• Share ideas with the whole group. Record this on a
flipchart or IWB
• Keep these notes so that you can look back on them
later in the unit.
Artwork by Carles Keeping may be viewed at
www.thekeepinggallery.co.uk.
Read the poem aloud in
pairs, taking alternate verses
What did you gain from reading
it aloud?
Open questions and
discussion
Working in groups of 4, discuss
• What you liked about the poem
• Anything you disliked about it
• Anything that puzzles you
One member of the group should keep
notes
Feed back to the whole group
Storytelling
• In pairs:
• Draw a storyboard to show the main
events in the poem.
• Use the storyboard to help you take
turns to tell the story of the
highwayman
Freeze frame
• In groups of four create a ‘freeze
frame’ for the scene in the story when
Bess is tied to the bed, taking the
parts of Bess, Tim and the soldiers.
• Look at one group’s freeze frame
discuss with them what they think the
different characters might be
thinking.
Working with drama
Writing in role
• Building on from the drama, one of
the activities in the teaching
sequence is to write the story from the
point of view of one of the
characters.
• Thinking about Bess, start to write the
story from her point of view.
Focus on the language
Working with a partner look at
the first verse of the poem:
Read it aloud again then talk in pairs
about the way the poet uses language.
 Highlight words and phrases that are
particularly effective.
 Discuss the way rhythm is used
 Think about the sort of atmosphere which is
created
Performing parts of the
poem
• Use the text version of the poem
• Working in groups of 4 you will be
asked to work on one verse of the
poem
• Prepare a performance of your verse
of the poem
Ways of performing the poem
To make the performance more interesting think about:
• varying loudness and softness
• having different people reading different lines or different
characters
• emphasising different parts by varying the number of voices
reading e.g. have 2, 3 or 4 people read particular phrases or words
• adding sound effects e.g. the wind
When each group has had time to practise their verse perform the
whole poem together
Implications for Teaching and Learning
(QCA 2004, 2005, 2006)
Children need to be able to:
• search text precisely to locate evidence (AF2)
• read text closely for accurate interpretation of implicit
meanings and support opinions by referencing to the text (AF3)
• make inferences in narrative texts including empathising
with characters and inferring feelings, thoughts, motivations and
changes over the course of the narrative (AF3)
• identify and comment on the structure and
organisation of texts, including grammatical
and presentational features at text level (AF4)
• identify the intended effect of particular
language choice (AF5)
• talk about writers’ purposes and viewpoints, and the
overall effect of the text on the reader
e.g. overarching themes, plot structures (AF6)
Which areas have you begun to address during these detailed
discussions of The Highwayman?
Read through the unit of work
and discuss with a partner
how you could use the unit
and the teaching
approaches in the
classroom
Acknowledgements
• Illustrations by Charles
Keeping from Noyes, A. 'The
Highwayman', Oxford
University Press, 1999. Used
with kind permission of B.L.
Kearley Ltd.