The Highwayman

Want ideas to help brighten up your classroom? Visit Display Photos!

General Reading	Reading Fiction	Reading Non-Fiction	General Writing	Assessment
Writing Fiction	Writing Non-Fiction	Spelling	Punct'n/Grammar	Words
	Speaking / Listening	Literacy Displays	Share Your Ideas

The Highwayman

Subject: Literacy

Age Range: 7 to 11

Here are some ideas for teaching the poem 'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes:

Read the poem with the class. Stop at different places and ask the children to predict what might happen next.
Look at the images in the book. Discuss what the characters might be thinking / feeling at different points in the story.
Watch the video retellings of the poem shown below, and discuss how they are similar / different to the poem.


These videos are hosted by Youtube, which has a wide range of videos available. Some of these are great for schools to use, but others are not appropriate. At the end of this educational video, links to other videos may appear. Teaching Ideas is only suggesting the original videos shown. Please check the content of any videos before showing them to children.

Use the Interactive Study Resource to explore different features of the poem.
Hot seating - ask a child to take on the role of one of the characters. Ask him / her about events from the story, and get children to question the character about the events of the poem, and their role within them.
Freeze-frame different parts of the story. Ask children to pose different scenes from the poem. You can then quiz them about their role in the poem. You could also take digital photos which could be used to retell the poem using ICT (e.g. Powerpoint).

Thanks to Andrew Ross for recommending some of the above resources on Primary Teacher UK. If you have any more suggestions for using 'The Highwayman' in the classroom, add them to the comments.

Rate / Review this idea:

Teaching Ideas is kindly hosted by