1. Warm Up 12/2
Create a chart (like the one below) in your journal. Leave at least four blank rows.
Fill out what you can 
THEME
Poem Type
Evidence of Poem Type
The Sunne Rising
The Passionate Shepard to his Love
Ballad of Johnny X
Ballad of Birmingham

2. Learning Targets To read example ballads.
To use the SIFT method to analyze these poems in groups.

3. Group Work Read your assigned ballad.
SIFT it with your group (15 minutes!)

4. Ballads
Based on these two poems, what are the components of a ballad?

5. Components of a Ballad
It is a short narrative, which is usually—but not always—arranged in four-line stanzas with a distinctive and memorable meter.
The usual ballad meter is a first and third line with four stresses—iambic tetrameter—and then a second and fourth with three stresses—iambic trimeter.
The rhyme scheme is abab or abcb
The subject matter is distinctive: almost always communal stories of lost love, supernatural happenings, or recent events.
The ballad maker uses popular and local speech and dialogue often and vividly to convey the story. This is especially a feature of early ballads.