Get your students warmed up to the narrative form by creating a class poem. Remind them that it should include the elements of character, setting, climax and resolution. Provide an opening sentence and introduce the rule that the last words in every two sentences must rhyme. For instance, you might start with, “The doctor said I am mighty sick.” One of your students could add, “Last night I was bitten by a nasty tick.” The second student provides another sentence to which the third student adds a rhyme completing the couplet. Continue building the poem as a class until it reaches both climax and resolution.
Generate a list of familiar songs and have students work in teams to analyze them for their narrative qualities, using a checklist that includes all the elements of narrative poetry. As a writing exercise, your students can either select a favorite song from the list they just analyzed, or use a familiar song like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as a jumping-off point for writing a narrative song. Have students work in groups to generate original pieces using the song's structure and rhythm.
Nonsense verse draws even your reluctant readers into the narrative form. Think of a Shel Silverstein poem such as “Jimmy Jet and his TV Set.” It has a defined character, setting, climax and resolution. Similarly, “The Owl and the Pussycat” provides light reading within the narrative form, and Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" captivates and entertains students of almost any age. Have your students identify the narrative elements in these poems and select one as a model for creating their own nonsense verses. As a class, brainstorm characters and settings that could work within the form's framework.
Ballads typically tell their stories with two ingredients appealing to students: larger-than life characters, and strong rhyme and rhythm patterns. Because ballads were typically sung or read aloud, they make dynamic choral reading. Consider reciting ballad-songs like “John Henry” or the “Streets of Laredo." Well-known poets such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Langston Hughes, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and G.K Chesterton all wrote some ballad-poems that are also very accessible to young readers.