Objectives
Following successful completion of this lesson, students will be able to:
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Overview
A narrative poem is one that tells a story. Narrative poetry is much like a short story in that it has many of the same short story elements. Narrative poems often have exposition, rising action, conflict, climax, falling action, and resolution. The only real difference is that narrative poems are written in poetic form. Great examples of narrative poetry that you may have read during your years in school are Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
Free verse poetry is poetry without a definite pattern of meter or rhyme. Free verse poetry became popular in the 20th Century as poets began tossing aside the rules or conventions of early poetry. Many poets like writing free verse because they are "free" to ignore rules about form and structure.
In this lesson you will examine a popular narrative poem, view a video interpretation of the poem, and read an analysis. You will also examine some popular free verse poems. In the culminating project at the end of this unit, you will write your own narrative and free verse poems.
