£5.00 (inc. VAT)
KS: Upper KS2
Year Group: Year 6
Literary Theme: Journeys & Migration
Author(s): Brian Selznick
Diary entry, journalistic writing, flashback narrative, speech, discussion, letter, film critique
Biography
17 sessions, 3+ weeks
This is a three-week plus Writing Root based upon The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Children will use many of the key grammar requirements of Y6 and have opportunity to apply them by writing a missing flashback chapter exploring Hugo’s experience of living Uncle Claude, as well as researching the about the famous film director George Méliès and writing a biography about his life.
ORPHAN, CLOCK KEEPER, AND THIEF, twelve-year-old Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric girl and her grandfather, Hugo's undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy. A cryptic drawing, a treasured notebook, a stolen key, a mechanical man, and a hidden message from Hugo's dead father form the backbone of this intricate, tender, and spellbinding mystery.
Also a blockbuster motion picture, The Invention of Hugo Cabret is part novel and part wordless picture book. In fact, Brian Selznick became the first author to win the prestigious Caldecott Medal (usually awarded to picture books) with this unique offering. Reading like a movie on paper, children will be challenged to fill the gaps by creating their own narratives and dialogues using the wonderfully detailed and atmospheric illustrations. Links can also be made with the history of cinema and historical figures such as Georges Méliès.
Film, cinemas, clocks, inventions, automatons, moving pictures, France, Paris, power of imagination, determination
Date written: October 2015
Updated: November 2020
A Spelling Seed is available for The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
This is a spelling seed for the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Below is the coverage from Appendix 1 of the National Curriculum 2014.
Spelling Seeds have been designed to complement Writing Roots by providing weekly, contextualised sequences of sessions for the teaching of spelling that include open-ended investigations and opportunities to practise and apply within meaningful and purposeful contexts, linked (where relevant) to other areas of the curriculum and a suggestion of how to extend the investigation into home learning.
There is a Spelling Seed session for every week of the associated Writing Root.
cemetery, desperate, definite, forty, profession, interrupt
Words ending in –able and –ible, ably and –ibly
Words ending in –ent, –ence/–ency
View The Invention of Hugo Cabret Spelling SeedA Home Learning Branch is available for The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
This is a Home Learning Branch for The Invention of Hugo Cabret. These branches are designed to support home learners to access literature-based learning using a selection of books we love from Writing Roots. They include purposeful writing suggestions, links to the wider curriculum so that texts can be used across other subjects, key questions as well as spelling or phonics investigations.
View The Invention of Hugo Cabret Home Learning Branch
