Monday 1 March 2010

The Highwayman

As part of our Literacy unit on Narrative Poetry, Year 5 have been reading the poem entitled 'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes. This is a tale of love, tragedy, revenge, jealousy and betrayal.










Firstly, we looked at the way that a highwayman dresses, in particular the hat and mask that were always worn to disguise their identity.



We used a Story Sack in which had been placed items relating to the poem. There were examples of red velvet and some lace; pictures of Bess and Tim; photos of pistols, a rapier and of King George's soldiers. This experience helped us to understand the poem better.





We looked very carefully at the figurative (descriptive) language used in the poem. We found examples of metaphors, similes, repetition, rhythm and rhyme.



The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,


The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,


The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor,


And the highwayman came riding-


Riding-riding-


The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.




We enjoyed some drama activities based on the text and wrote our own letters from Tim, the Ostler, to the highwayman. Why not come into 5V to see our display?


We really enjoyed this work and look forward to our next unit of work on Poetry.













4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like this website because it gave me a idea for a costume. And were learning about him to.

Anonymous said...

This is a good website, i liked how they used the story bag to describe the pictures

Anonymous said...

We just finished "The Highway Man"
love it

Anonymous said...

I have to think about what im going to do for my Egyptian Headdress