Teach Primary Issue 18.2

www.teachwire.net | 47 T E ACH RE AD I NG & WR I T I NG Loved this? Try these... v The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman v The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman v The Witches by Roald Dahl v All The Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Hahn v Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror by Chris Priestly Coraline posters for children to use as inspiration. Encourage them to include a tagline to advertise the film. The original movie poster included the line ‘An adventure too weird for words’. Some other examples to inspire children – can they guess which film they belong to? • It ain’t ogre... till it’s ogre ( Shrek ) • It’s scrumdiddlyumptious! ( Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory ) • An adventure 65 million years in the making ( Jurassic Park ) • He cooks. He cleans. He kicks some butt. ( Home Alone ) If you have the space, use pupils’ posters as a wall display. WRITE A BOOK REVIEW Start this exercise by looking at some real book reviews (there are lots of good ones on Amazon). Working as a class, talk about the structure of book reviews – how they will sometimes start with an interesting quote from the book, or the story’s overall message, to grab the attention of the reader. A review for Coraline could start with ‘Feel afraid – and do it anyway’, or, ‘Sometimes it’s best to leave closed doors shut’. Can children come up with some good opening lines for their book reviews? Go on to give some pointers on how to structure reviews, e.g. • Start with a couple of sentences explaining the story. • Say what you particularly liked and disliked about the story. Include your thoughts about your favourite character. Did the story hold your interest throughout? What was your favourite part of the story and why? • Tell readers whether you liked the ending of the book. Were you left feeling that the story had been brought to a satisfying conclusion? Explain why. • Would you like to read more books by Neil Gaiman? Also, read children the brief description from the back cover of the book (explain that this is referred to as ‘the blurb’) as a guide to get them started. Karen Hart is an independent drama teacher, author and freelance writer. task – if you win, you go free! Ask children to write their own short story on the theme of being brave. A model first line could be: ‘I was shaking with fear, my knees were knocking and my teeth were chattering, but I had to protect my friend from...’ Talk about the ending Do children think the ending worked well? As a class, can you come up with another ending that follows on from the moment Coraline makes it back to her real house? Maybe the Other Mother uses magic to make herself small enough to climb through the keyhole and back into Coraline’s house? TP Being brave In chapter five, Coraline tells the cat about the time her father deliberately attracted a swarm of wasps to give Coraline time to escape. Her father told her that it wasn’t really brave, because it was the only thing he could do, and so he didn’t feel scared. However, when he went back to retrieve his fallen glasses later that day, knowing the wasps were still there, he did feel scared. He said this was brave, because he was scared but did it anyway. • Do the children agree with this definition of bravery? • Do the children think Coraline told the cat this story to make herself feel brave before going to look for her parents? As a class, talk about creating a short story on the theme of being brave. Some ideas here could be: • You are at the park with your best friend. There is no one else around and a big dog runs into the park without an owner. The dog is barking and chasing your friend, who is terrified of dogs. Maybe you throw a stick to distract the dog, hoping it will run after it? Or perhaps you grab your friend quickly and bundle them out of the park, shutting the gate behind you? • Or, you could use a fantasy scenario, where you and your best friend are being chased by an angry troll. Maybe you could distract the troll by outwitting him, e.g. telling him there’s a giant coming this way whose favourite meal is troll on toast, to try and scare him away. Or perhaps the troll likes games, like the Other Mother in Coraline , and you could challenge the troll to a What’s behind the secret door? The magical doorway or portal into a mysterious world idea can be found in several well-known stories. Can pupils think of any books, films, or TV shows where they have seen this idea used? Some ideas could be: the doorway to the vanishing cabinet in the Harry Potter series; the wardrobe in the Narnia books; the door to the chocolate room in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ; the door to the magical garden in Alice in Wonderland ; the door to the magical garden in The Secret Garden . Ask pupils to write a short description of a mysterious door that leads to a magical world. Ask for volunteers to read their work to the class. Karen.Journalist