Performance Poetry - The Commentator, Lessons 1-3, Y5/6

In 1927, BBC Radio broadcast a football match for the very first time (1:1 between Arsenal and Sheffield United). Sports broadcasting was so new that the Radio Times published a diagram of a football pitch that had been divided into eight numbered squares. While Teddy Wakelam (ex-rugby player) described what was happening, another voice called out the numbers that corresponded to the area of the pitch where the action was taking place. This allowed listeners, who were using the grid at home, to follow the match (possibly giving us the origins of the phrase, “back to square one”).

Although TV coverage now dominates media coverage, the voice of the football commentator (and co-commentators) remain at the heart of our enjoyment of the wonderful game.

The first three of five lessons with 52 PowerPoint slides are based on The Commentator, a fabulous poem written by Gareth Owen (who has kindly given permission for his poem to be used) as inspiration for children to write their own poem.

So whether you’re a fan of David Coleman, John Motson or Bianca Westwood, I hope you enjoy sharing Gareth’s brilliant poem with the children in your class and then creating some new commentaries which can either be performed to an audience or simply enjoyed by the writer and reader.

The structure of the lessons is as follows:
a) The structure and purpose of each verse;
b) Verb tenses used in the poem before the children have to create a variety of their own in multi-clause sentences;
c) Compare and contrast with a second poem written that follows a similar theme and structure;
d) Learning about modal verbs and adverbs with children writing their own exemplar sentences.

I hope that you enjoyed the first three lessons and invest in Lessons 4 and 5 where the children will learn how to plan, draft, publish and perform their own commentary poems at https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/resource-12870050

Other resources can be found at my shop at https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/RobLlewellyn