Synopsis: Create a buzz in your literacy classroom with these imaginative activities: represent the structure of a story as a skeleton, draw an emotion graph for your character, or use videos to engage with settings.

Review: This is the third in a series of age-related teaching guides to narrative fiction from the Primary English team at Canterbury Christ Church.

As the introduction suggests, the authors are all passionate advocates of literacy teaching which enables children to engage deeply and creatively with quality texts, and their book is brimful of tried-and-tested ideas for making that happen.

The guide is divided into sections on story structure, characterisation, setting, and themes and language, offering in a step-by-step approach over thirty ways to explore and engage with fiction in upper junior classrooms. Although it pre-dates the Renewed Framework, the book’s emphases on extended units of work, creative teaching through a range of media, and the integration of the skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing all fit perfectly with current literacy guidelines. Particular attention is given to the central place of talk, with lots of ideas for oral storytelling and explanation of a range of drama strategies, from conscience alley to forum theatre. Attention is also given to different methods of textual analysis, from diagrams to emotion graphs, reading journals to ‘role on the wall’, and to ways in which reading and telling can lead naturally into writing.

Many of the activities include examples of real children’s work to bring them to life. A great strength of the guide is its ongoing focus on real books. Repeatedly, the authors warn against a bitty diet of text extracts, and recommend instead a range of high-quality children’s novels (both classic and contemporary), short stories, traditional tales and picture books. Each activity includes a ‘Literature links’ section, suggesting texts which the strategy in question would particularly suit. Attention is also given to media texts, with ideas for using film adaptations of novels, Disney movies and comics. The book even includes attractively illustrated re-tellings of six traditional tales from a range of cultures (from Poland to Persia), so that teachers can put their ideas to immediate use.

With not a photocopiable worksheet in sight, this book offers teachers both new and established a wealth of creative and easy-to-understand approaches to working on fiction with their classes. Although specifically targeted at upper KS2, many of the ideas would be easily adaptable and the book would form an excellent basis for staff INSET on narrative reading and writing. I recommend it highly!

Also available:

Creative Activities for Plot, Character and Setting 5 - 7 years

Creative Activities for Plot, Character and Setting 7 - 9 years

2008-05-05