Wednesday, December 12: The first AR test for the MP must be done.
Wednesday, December 19: Ballad is due- typed, illustrated, looking good.
Wednesday, December 19: Read ballad to the class
We will be studying ballads and narrative poems in the days to come. The students will learn what is expected of them over the next few days.
We will be looking at these and other examples:
"The Charge of the Light Brigade"
"Ballad of Birmingham"
"The Nightmare Before Christmas"
and some others as needed
As of now, the requirements for the ballad look like this:
Long enough
Tells a story
Consistent rhyme scheme
Neat and illustrated
Read your ballad to the class with energy
I am going to have the students shoot for 200 syllables. Depending on their line length, they should try to divide their story into 8 stanzas of four lines each. The poem below is one we will read. It has approximately 234 syllables. I am having the students use a syllable counting site to make it easy, but they must put their syllable count at the end of each line.
Model piece for this assignment
“Ballad of Birmingham”
(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963)
"Mother dear, may I go downtown (8)
Instead of out to play, (6)
And march the streets of Birmingham (8)
In a Freedom March today?" (7)
"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren't good for a little child."
"But, mother, I won't be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free."
"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children's choir."
She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.
The mother smiled to know that her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.
For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.
She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
"O, here's the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?"
