Poetry is a major area for pupils creative and imaginative historical writing. Pupils writing historical poetry can draw upon a wide range of poetic modes, for example haikus, sonnets, blank verse. Poetry is an excellent vehicle for public presentation, with pupils reading their composition to their class members. To use a specific poetic genre the children need to assimilate a mental ‘model' or schema of its generic structure: its mode or channel in relation to the authorial position - tenor - historical content, field, and overall context - culture.

Case Study 9: The End of Roman Britain examines a class's composition of a poem using an Anglo-Saxon poetic register. The poem's field, its historical content, is the impact of the end of Roman Britain in the fifth century AD upon a Roman town and its population. The tenor is writing the poem from the viewpoint of...