To stimulate the brainstorming, suggest the students jot down thoughts that each character might have about his or her triumphs, failures, joys, and sorrows. Direct students to freewrite about their character for at least 15 minutes. Tell students to put their brainstorming and freewriting notes aside for a while so that you can familiarize them with the literary genre known as dramatic monologue. Usually, the reader learns about the character's personality through the words of the poem. Sometimes the reader learns more than the character may think he or she is revealing.
Students are probably familiar with the term monologue from plays.
Some scholars have said that a dramatic monologue is, in effect, a monologue without the rest of the play. Ask students to name previously read poems that, they now realize, are dramatic monologues or that they recall as having been so described. Alternatively, if students are not familiar with any of the following exemplars of British and American dramatic monologues, interject one or more of them into this lesson now. Now ask your students to once again take up their brainstorming and freewriting notes about Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin, or Mordred and use the notes as the basis of an original dramatic monologue by one of these characters. Writers can use for their creation any of the verse styles discussed in the preceding step.