Posted on: 14/09/2022
There are a lot of big changes for children to deal with in a new school year – some exciting, some daunting: new teacher; new routines; new things to learn and of course new books to read. Whilst thoughtful, planned book choices throughout the year are vital for a school’s curriculum to succeed in engaging children, the very first book children experience in the year and the way it is brought to life can be of particular importance in setting the tone.
We've always had 'Engaging Starting Point' at the outset of our Teach Through text pedagogy but we've spent quite a lot of time thinking about the purpose of this recently and for us the discovery of something new here is the engagement and so we've decided to rename this part of the sequence as 'Discovery Point'.
We draw heavily on Drama-in-Education techniques in the Literary Curriculum and we use Mantle of the Expert (MoE) throughout our sequences to support immersion within the text, but this is mostly relevant at the point of discovery where the teacher guides the creation of a fictional world to help children assume the roles of 'experts'. The MoE technique was devised and developed by British drama-in-education guru Dorothy Heathcote. It is reliant on a problem or task being discovered and so the children become a team of experts using imaginative role-play to explore the issue. The enquiry process is key as is the sense of empowerment from assuming a role and it often leads to purposeful outcomes, such as posters and warning signs as well as aiding immersion into text which supports outcomes that require inference such as letters or diaries. We believe using this to support a book-based approach is crucial for children to have a 'buy in' immediately and an opportunity for everyone to have an opinion on something and enquire about the mystery or discovery presented. An old coat left in the classroom is a wonderful hook for The Unforgotten Coat but what makes the discovery engaging are the polaroids of scenes left in the pockets.
We love seeing teachers create these points to bring the context of the book to life for children, getting them excited about the fictional world to come. It often doesn’t take much to get the imagination bubbling: a mysterious suitcase (surely every school should have a mysterious suitcase!), some unearthly footprints, hazard tape, but it could be as simple as the arrival of a letter or a word appearing on the board.
The best discovery points create a sense of resonance - an event that can be recalled - and this can begin to render a clear context. This in turn creates a space for children to rehearse some key vocabulary, sentences and themes within a text. Discovery points heighten children’s sense of audience and purpose so that, when they put pencil to paper, they know exactly why they are writing and who they are writing to.
The Literary Curriculum now has over 200 literary texts and at least 175 unique significant authors which children can experience as they move through school – each planning sequence has an inventive way to bring the context or theme of a text into the classroom. We have outlined a few of our discovery points below and we hope that these may give you some inspiration when planning that first crucial lesson.
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak Reception (Reception)
This book is such a gorgeous classic and is sure to transport children into the worlds of their imagination. In this planning sequence, mysterious and wild footprints are found in the classroom, a clump of fur and a sack of objects all with the same initial sound for children to discover and sound out. Once children have been read the beginning of the book, they can form their own “wild rumpus” by stomping, swinging and dancing. Let the children become Wild Things, with you as their leader. Command the wild things to Roooaarrr! Command them to gnash! Command them to roll their terrible eyes and show their terrible claws! Now command that they say sssssss and then ahhhhhhh. Children rehearse their initial phonemes to make the sounds of the “wild rumpus.”
Cave Baby by Julia Donaldson and Emily Gravett (Year 1)
A great book to start the year and a springboard into discussions about classroom rules and routines. Children arrive to find a mysterious cave on the wall of the classroom with some strange, ancient drawing around it. Children have a go at creating their own stone age cave paintings once the teacher has modeled drawing their own. Children can have a go at drawing the outline of different ancient animals like a woolly mammoth or a saber-tooth tiger with crayon/charcoal on sugar paper. After break, the teacher can discover that someone has carelessly painted and scribbled on his/her cave drawing. Who could this have been? What advice could we give this mysterious stone-aged scribbler?
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Lauren Child (Year 2)
In this sequence of lessons, children compare the Lauren Child text with two other different takes on the classic Goldilocks story: Me and You by Anthony Brown and Goldilocks and Just the One Bear by Leigh Hodgkinson. Children arrive in the classroom to find a table neatly set at the front with tablecloth, spoons and three bowls of porridge…except the bowls have been emptied and the porridge eaten. On checking the CCTV footage and interviewing witnesses, the children ascertain what this porridge-thief looks like and create wanted posters to pin around the school.
Leon and the Place Between by Angela McAllister (Year 3)
This is such a visually striking book about a group of friends who visit a magic show when the circus comes to town. What better way to start the year than creating a circus vibe in the classroom! Play some circus music and hang up some bunting. In groups, children record all the sights and sounds that they experience in their mind’s eyes which will lead to a rich setting description.
Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold (Year 4)
This is a unique book in that the story it depicts was originally stitched together on a quilt which is on display at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. It is a story that explores the theme of freedom and empowerment. Children arrive to the word "Freedom" on the board and begin by discussing what this means to them and consider whether there are some people who are less free than others. Children can write a paragraph or compose a class/individual poem with the repeated reframe “Freedom is…” and perform this. Why not turn the classroom into a New York-style poetry café?
The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gernstein (Year 5)
This is such an adventurous story to kick off the year with! Children will learn about the life and times of the incredible circus performer Phillippe Petit and his death-defying stunt: tightrope walking between the Twin Towers. Before children begin writing, they come to the hall and lay out pieces of string or rope on the floor. Children can role play tightrope-walking across the hall – along with other circus activities - after which they can watch clips of his extraordinary life. Children can record adjectives and phrases about how they felt while pretending to tightrope walk.
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Year 6)
The Arrival is a wordless graphic novel that explores the experiences of someone who is forced to leave their country to seek out a better life in another. The story’s poignant opening depicts the protagonist packing his suitcase and saying goodbye to his family. He leaves origami birds for his little girl and often sends these as missives back to her at different points in his journey. Before children begin the story, they discover a suitcase in the classroom. In the suitcase, place clues about the story to come: a family photo, a fedora hat, some tickets and origami birds. Children make predictions and ask questions about the text to come. They can create their own origami birds and on them write about the history of their own families. Do they have arrivals in their family or are they the arrival?
We hope this gives you some ideas for discovery points and highlights the importance of them in bringing a book to life for children. Children will remember these experiences and in turn this will contribute to the quality of their writing and how they view the purpose of writing. If you plan to do any of these or other Literacy Tree engaging starting points, we’d really love to hear about them. You can share them on Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #TeachThroughaText and tag us @theliteracytree
Posted in: Curriculum
