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The Highway Man
Lessons 1
Talk about what a Highway Man was, look at the drawing and look at the information page or web link for more information.
Read through the poem (there are different forms available, some with pictures to help follow the story) and discuss what is happening in the story. You could make annotations around the edge if they wish to refer to later or highlight key parts.
Lesson 2
Re-reading and understanding the poem. There are differentiated activities to focus on the language used, and develop inference skills when discussing the poem.
Lesson 3
Reread the first 3 lines of the poem, close eyes and see if the children can visualise the setting as you read it through it again. Talk to them about the language and the type of images it conducted for them.
Children can then choose one of the three lines to illustrate the setting, using any media they like and then add their chosen line from the poem in pen decoratively.
Lesson 4
Try to define the ‘unfamiliar words’ if you haven’t already. Then, ask children to focus on the second verse of the poem, which provides a description of The Highwayman. Discuss what it tells us about him. They may wish to annotate the verse or underline key words. Using this description and drawing on what we already know about highway men ask them to make annotated drawings of him following the description in the text.
Lesson 5 – Grammar
As a little break from grammar, children can today finish any work from the week and then watch a short animated version of ‘The Highway Rat’, drawing comparisons between the narrative poem version. Enjoy!