Spotlight on Year 5 Writing

Year 5 have enjoyed studying Alfred Noyes’ famous poem, ‘The Highwayman’, this term. The children learnt about some of the old-fashioned language used to evoke the period of time when highwaymen were as ‘common as crows’. They studied the story and what it could teach them about England in the past. They wrote emotive letters as if they were the Highwayman writing to Bess, the Landlord’s daughter. Their letters made use of repetition, figurative and emotive language as well as some more common features, like paragraphs and semi-colons.

“The Highwayman was good. I liked that it was dramatic and I enjoyed publishing my work.” – Arlo, 5AC

“I liked the poem. At first, the poem was romantic and nice but towards the end it got kind of scary and then it had a happy ending. It was my first time writing an emotive letter. At first, I didn’t know what to write but I felt proud of myself after finishing my letter.” – Sesait, 5AJ

“I felt that the poem was very emotional, which set us up for writing emotive language. I found the emotive letter a tiny bit difficult, for example the repetition. However, when I finished I was happy with my work. I tried my best and it felt good afterwards.” – Daniel 5AJ