Year 5 Poetry Unit 2 - Classic narrative poetry

Teaching sequence phase 1

Note: Children working significantly above or below age-related expectations will need differentiated support, which may include tracking forward or back in terms of learning objectives. EAL learners should be expected to work within the overall expectations for their year group. For further advice see the progression strands and hyperlinks to useful sources of practical support.

Reading, investigating the text and capturing ideas (3 days)

Teaching content:

• Invite children to explore a setting: describe the woods, with the wind blowing through the trees, the moon shining down, creating long shadows on the ground, and the cobblestoned inn yard. Ask children to explore the scene with all their senses while you describe it to them; they will need to consider their movements, what they might see, what they might touch and how they would feel in this place. Collect their ideas on the IWB.
• Introduce the main character by projecting an image of the Highwayman onto the IWB. Ask children who this might be and what they notice about him. Introduce some of the language used to describe the Highwayman and ask children to speculate about what the phrases and words might refer to. Encourage children to explain their answers and refer to the clues they used to help them. Consider how the image of the Highwayman helped.
• Use the IWB file to introduce the objects from the story sack. What clues do they give about the text? What do the children know? In pairs, ask children to use the story sack, the visual image of the character and their exploration of the setting to consider the text they are about to read. They might wish to collect their predictions on a puzzles grid or in their reading journals to return to at a later point in the sequence. Share these ideas and ask pairs to explain how they arrived at their suggestions.
• Read the opening stanzas of the poem. Highlight the use of language to describe the setting and begin to investigate what this might mean. Explore the mood and atmosphere by asking children to choose the most appropriate words and place them in the centre of the zones of relevance board. Highlight and annotate words in the poem that support these opinions. Ask children to consider what they might see, hear and smell, and how they might feel in this place, and compare and contrast with the children's first ideas when exploring the setting through drama. Collect children's ideas on the IWB and link them to the words they used to describe the mood and atmosphere.
• During shared reading, investigate how the poet enhances mood; take examples of language and poetry techniques directly from the text and place them onto the IWB. Use tools such as annotate, highlight, redo and undo, drag and drop to identify and understand the use of figurative and descriptive language. Ask: How does Alfred Noyes use colour in this poem? Make a list of the poetry techniques used, collect examples and identify how these affect the reader.

Learning outcome:

• Children understand the differences between literal and figurative language and can use the text to explain the effects of imagery in a poem.