1. Language Arts: Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Handouts: * None
Homework: * “Write Your Own Poem,” due Friday, March 1, BOC, NLW ) Create poem using a rough draft on notebook paper ) Copy poem onto rubric handout ) Type and print out poem, 2 copies ) Create an authentic illustration Original artwork, collage, or photos
Assignments due: * None

2. Lesson Goal: Learn about epics, another type of narrative poetry.
Outcomes: Be able to . . .
Define the term epic.
Analyze an epic and identify its poetic devices.
Summarize the events in an epic.

3. Starter #1 What do we know about narrative poetry?
Narrative poetry tells a story. It has characters and a plot. The events usually play out chronologically as circumstances create a conflict. The conflict leads to a climax, which is followed by the falling action and resolution/conclusion (denouement).

4. Starter #2 There are a number of different types of narrative poems
Starter #2 There are a number of different types of narrative poems. Today we will read an epic poem and a ballad. What do you recall about an “epic”?
An epic is a long poem that chronicles (tells in chronological order) the story of a hero who must overcome life-threatening obstacles as he makes a long journey. Does this remind you of anything we learned about in another genre earlier this year?
In mythology, particularly Greek mythology, you sometimes have a hero figure like this. In fact, The Iliad and The Odyssey are two famous epics from Greek mythology, written in poetic verse. Those two works are the oldest pieces of literature that we can point to in the Western world, dating back to the 8th century B.C.

5. Starter #3 The epic poem we’re going to read, however, was written in the 1800s by a famous American poet named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The hero in his epic poem is a young Native American boy named (Can you guess?)
Hiawatha.
Longfellow’s epic is loosely based on legends he learned about from Native Americans in the upper Midwest, the tribes near the Great Lakes, particularly in Michigan. If you remember that his character is a legendary figure, it will help you to understand references throughout the poem that are mythological in nature (i.e. “Nokomis [Hiawatha’s mother] is the daughter of the moon”)
We won’t read the whole poem, which would take weeks. Instead, we will focus on one of the most famous portions of his epic, the “Song of Hiawatha,” which describes his childhood.
Turn in your Poetry booklets to the next to last page, the “Song of Hiawatha.”
For second reading of Hiawatha, show video clip with this link: