This Lesson's Title:

Ballads about Relatives

four-line stanzas that explore a family member

This lesson was presented at the 2007 Pinon Poetry Festival by Northern Nevada Writing Project Teacher Consultant Heather Clark.

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book Family Reunion by Mary Quattlebaum. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Check out Family Reunion at Amazon.com.

Washoe County teachers, click here to search for this book at the county library.

Three-Sentence Overview of this Lesson:

After looking through Mary Quattlebaum's Family Reunion, student writers will focus on the two poems from the collection that are ballads.  Students will brainstorm family members and rhyming words they associate with them, and they will prepare to write ballads about those family members.  Students' goal should be a series of four-line ballads about one family member, or four or five short ballads about four or five different family members. Teachers: Click here to see the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait in this writing assignment is sentence fluency; fitting original words into the ballad's rhythm scheme is a great way to develop sentences that flow.  The support trait in this assignment is word choice; encourage your students to choose interesting words to rhyme with as they compose their four-line poems.