Teach Primary Issue 19.6

Further ideas for all types of writing can be found in The Book of Dragons by Pie and Melanie Corbett. Get your copy now at tinyurl.com/tp-BoD TEACHING NOTES Any unit on dragons will involve children inventing their own species – hedge dragon, fire dragon, storm dragon, or even the rather small but popular pet, the pocket dragon! Of course, these units are not really about dragons at all – that is just the vehicle for teaching children how to express themselves in different forms. Your pupils may decide they’d rather write about unicorns, elves, goblins, ogres, trolls or gnomes, and they all work, too. Dragons sighted! Begin the unit with a hook, based around the idea that the local area has been attacked by a swarm of dragons. Ask the children to write an appeal, seeking a ‘dragon whisperer’ to tame the dragons. To help them, show the model text ‘Goblin Attack News Appeal’, on the previous page. As a class, brainstorm all the awful things that a dragon invasion might bring. This will mean that everyone has plenty of ideas for their ‘dragon appeal’. These could be written, performed and filmed. Once the children have appealed for help, they could switch roles and write formal letters of application, seeking the new role of ‘dragon whisperer’. Their letters should aim to persuade the local council that they have the skills to be given the job. Survey says... Once captured and tamed, the dragons are given homes locally as pets. The local council decides to carry out a survey and find out information about the dragons. Spend time reading and rereading the model poem, ‘The Dragon Survey’. Read through it several times and discuss. Start by getting the children to feed back any specific ideas or lines that they liked or disliked, explaining why. Focus on anything that is puzzling or needs further explanation. It would be fun to create a response poem as a similar list, answering the questions. This could be written or just used as an oral warmup. Encourage children to avoid straightforward answers and to surprise the reader (see Fig.1 ). To help pupils write their own survey, spend time inventing all sorts of questions that might be asked. Generate lots of different ideas for the sorts of areas that questions might focus on, e.g. travel, cooking, education, forests, fish, sports, hobbies, shopping, etc. List question starters from the model such as – would, should, could, why, where, when, what, how, will, does . It adds to the fun, if you make the questions as varied and unlikely as possible. Before writing, get the children to carry out interviews in pairs. Did you know...? The third part of this unit starts with the local TV station interviewing different dragons and their owners to find out ‘what the dragon knows’. Of course, everyone knows that dragons are ancient creatures, many of them several hundred years old. Indeed, they have lived for so long that they have become very wise... Read and discuss the model poem, ‘What my pet frost dragon knows’. Make lists of the sorts of things that might be included – and raid the poem for those question starters – how, why, where, when, what, whether, if, should, could, will, does , etc. Here is the shared writing that the last class I worked with on this quirky unit wrote with me: What my pet frost dragon knows How the north wind carries the first flakes of winter south. Why the holly is still green when the earth turns to iron and its berries paint red tears. Where the sun goes when it eases its tired body over the horizon. When King Arthur will awake and ride out from the Earth. What the difference is between greed and gold. Why the river snakes towards the sea and the salmon swims in watery shadows. Whether the ant or the rat will take over the Earth. What shape the clouds will take as they wander by forever mutating. If the anaconda has a greater squeeze than a starving belly… Does your dragon hold a driving licence? My dragon needs no licence to soar over the Pennine hills, swooping and looping the loop. Is it signed to a well-known football club? Man United were interested but unfortunately, in a burst of over-excitement several players were incinerated. Has your dragon been on Strictly Come Dancing? No way! But she did appear in Bake Off and had a Hollywood handshake for a quality crème brûlée. Will your dragon be made available in all bookshops? Will your dragon be made available in all bookshops? Fig. 1 T E ACH RE AD I NG AND WR I T I NG www.teachwire.net | 81