6.4.3 English and language arts
While many children could find it difficult to give a written response to a poem, a ballad, for instance, could be presented in another form.
Turning a ballad into a narrative
After having read, enjoyed and explored with the class, Henry Lawson's "Ballad of the Drover", the teacher can tell the class to write a narrative using the story-line of Lawson's poem.
The students can be given guidelines such as the following:
| Orientation: | time, place, characters, setting, events leading up to the complication (Note, Harry Dale is not the only character in the story.) |
| Complication: | "The river runs a banker All stained with yellow mud" |
| Events leading up to a resolution which must be imagined by the reader. | Harry, on his horse, plunging into the river with Rover and the packhorse beside him. Rover's attempts to save his mast, and drowning. Finally, the packhorse returns alone. |