Robert burns biography timeline graphic organizers
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Poet Robert Burns was born in 1759.
In addition to being a poet, Robert Burns collected traditional Scottish ballads. To celebrate his birthday, introduce students to the ballad form. Share elements of the ballad with students. Ballads are a part of oral tradition. They celebrate a desirable attribute, tell a story, or herald a significant event, and they often contain a refrain. The metrical and rhyming structure of ballads can take many forms. Here is one type of ballad stanza, which follows a strict formula:
The second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme.
Line one has 8 beats
Line two has 6 beats
Line three has 8 beats
Read some examples of traditional Scottish ballads to familiarize yourself with their basic characteristics.
Next, have students brainstorm two lists: one should include qualities they admire in people they know, and the other should contain significant events that have happened recently. Have students choose one item from either list as a subject for a ba
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Robert Burns
Writing on the glass
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The second of our guest blog posts from students at the University of Glasgow focusses on Burns’s habit of engraving poetry into glass windows… and the potential parallels with how we use social media today!
We all have things we want to say, whether they be in public or private. Robert Burns, a poet known for his way with words, was not without this urgency to express what he felt was important to him. Often saying them in a manner that was not altogether lawful, one of Burns’s tendencies was to engrave windows with his own words, both in public and private places, as a means of expressing himself. Though it is not as common for people to carve their thoughts into nearby windows today, we still have the same urge to express our views. However, for our generation the ‘windows’ are the windows of the internet, through which a large portion of society can easily express their views from a distance.
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19th August 2011: 'Robert Burns: Shortbread Tin Icon, or Radical Subversive?' by Kevin Williamson
During the Edinburgh International Festival of August 2012 twenty two talks were given at Leith on the Fringe at the Out of the Blue venue. They were free and open to everyone
Name of speaker and subject:
Kevin Williamson on Robert Burns
Title of talk:
Robert Burns: Shortbread Tin Icon, or Radical Subversive?
Bullet points of what you would like to cover:
- The Framing of Robert Burns
- Robert Burns: Not In My Name
- The Scottish Terror
- A Fickle Man?
Suggested you-tube links, websites and / or texts where
further information may be found:
Wikipedia: Kevin Williamson
Free Librivox Audiobooks: Robert Burns 250th Anniversary Collection
Burns Country Archive
Wikipedia: Robert Burns
A few words about you and your passion:
When asked ‘What is it you do?’ I’m usually stumped. I don’t have a one-size label that fi