Exploring Author Intention

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Boy Overboard is a fabulous fast-paced read, but it also covers the complex and sometimes controversial topic of refugees. While it might be tempting to stay far away from this - you don't always want extra controversy in the classroom - the topic can help to frame a deeper exploration of the book and the intentions of the author.

Who is Telling the Story?

In Boy Overboard, the narrator is Jamal, a young boy from Afghanistan who becomes a refugee on a boat to Australia.

The choice of Jamal as a first-person narrator is interesting for both the narrative and the message it gives the reader. We see the world through Jamal's eyes - the things he considers to be ordinary and the misunderstandings he has. We begin to understand why he and his family make the choices they make - we're given the opportunity to step into his shoes for a little while.

We can also explore why the author made Jamal the narrator. Was it to provoke empathy or sympathy for his situation? To make us wonder what decisions we might make in the same situation? Or is it a convention that the author has used repeatedly in his other books? How would it be different if he'd made a different choice? If he'd chosen another character to tell the story or had a separate narrator altogether?

How Do the Characters Respond to Events in the Story?

There are several different types of characters in Boy Overboard - named and nameless - and they respond to events in a wide variety of ways. Some are helpful, some make life more difficult and some are downright dangerous to our main character.

By offering a range of characters, what is the author telling us? Which of the responses does he want us to sympathise with? Which of the supporting characters does he want us to agree with? How does he want us to feel about all of his characters, not just the main ones?

Looking at the characters our protagonist interacts with can be a powerful insight into the intentions of the author. We are given a more complete view of the world in which they live and begin to assess if the author is being fair to the characters or not.

What messages is the author sending us - and should we trust them?

This is an important question for students to ask whenever they come across text which tackles complex issues. When students learn to question the intentions of the author, they begin to read more critically.

With Boy Overboard, the author is asking us to feel empathy for Jamal and the other refugees. But we should encourage students to read more on the topic - both fiction and non-fiction. This allows them to better understand the actions of those in the book - even if they don't agree with them - and to have a greater understanding of the messages the author is sending.

Students are facing a different media landscape to the one that existed when Boy Overboard was first published. These days it can be very easy to only engage with media which reinforces your view of the world. By encouraging students to explore the intentions of the author and how that might influence the reader, we can better prepare students to think about and form informed opinions on complex issues in the future.

Should Children's Authors Write About Controversial Topics?

When authors publish books including controversial topics, there are some people who feel that they have overstepped the mark, that they are introducing children to topics that are 'above them'. But what do your students think?

The latest freebie in the Galarious Goods shop allows students to explore this question through a persuasive writing task. This is a great opportunity to discuss books which might be seen as controversial - and why they are seen that way - and is the perfect accompaniment to a novel or book study or for banned book week.

Interested in Teaching Boy Overboard?

You can find the Boy Overboard Sample Pack here -  this free resource gives you activities you can use in your classroom and an introduction to the other Boy Overboard resources available at the Galarious Goods shop.

Other resources available include:
Boy Overboard Comprehension and Vocabulary
Boy Overboard Comprehension (the comprehension activities without the vocabulary)
Boy Overboard Research Activities
Boy Overboard Character Activities
Boy Overboard Whole Novel Activities
Boy Overboard Complete Bundle - All resources for a special discounted price!

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Introducing Boy Overboard

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Finding novels for small groups or whole classes to read can be a difficult exercise. Here I'd like to introduce a classroom favourite - a Morris Gleitzman book which tackles a difficult topic with a little side of humour.

Boy Overboard is the story of Jamal, a football (soccer) mad boy who lives in Afghanistan in the early 2000s. After his family fall in trouble with the Taliban, they are forced to flee - first to a refugee camp and then around the world. They're aiming to get to Australia - where Jamal hopes he and his sister will become famous football stars who will be able to return to Afghanistan as heroes one day.

Although this book deals with the refugee crisis while the Taliban was controlling most of Afghanistan, elements of this book apply to refugee situations across the world and across different times. No one in Jamal's family are happy to leave their home and they sacrifice many things to find safety and peace. People take advantage of them and other refugees along the way. And governments make decisions which can be hard to understand - especially when we get to know the individuals involved.

This is truly a great classroom read, either as a read aloud, for a whole class read or for small group work. The characters are interesting and worth exploring, the events of the story allow for exploration, the choices of the author can be discussed. It tackles a serious topic, but maintains the soft humour Morris Gleitzman is well known for.

Interested in Teaching Boy Overboard?

You can find the Boy Overboard Sample Pack here -  this free resource gives you activities you can use in your classroom and an introduction to the other Boy Overboard resources available at the Galarious Goods shop.

Other resources available include:
Boy Overboard Comprehension and Vocabulary
Boy Overboard Comprehension (the comprehension activities without the vocabulary)
Boy Overboard Research Activities
Boy Overboard Character Activities
Boy Overboard Whole Novel Activities
Boy Overboard Complete Bundle - All resources for a special discounted price!

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Where Do We Find Persuasive Writing?

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Understanding persuasive writing is a key skill for students - whether they're reading it or writing it. But where, in the real world, are they likely to come across it?

Advertising

The most common place we see persuasive writing is in advertising. Sometimes it's the short text of a television advertisement, telling us how much better our lives will be if we buy a particular product. Other times it might be the lengthier 'advertorials' - ads disguised as article - in newspapers or magazines.

Most advertisements focus on one side of the story only. They often don't acknowledge similar products and they only talk up the positives. They have a very strong agenda - to convince customers to buy their product.

Political Speeches

Like advertising, political speeches are selling something. However, instead of selling a product, they're selling a politician or political party or a policy they want people to approve of. Political speeches might acknowledge different points of view, but they will usually work to explain why their point of view is the best. Some political speeches will be followed by questions or a press conference - politicians end up constantly speaking in persuasive language.

Opinion Pieces

Traditionally opinion pieces were published in a paper form. In the past they might be as published leaflets or as letters to the editor. Newspapers often devoted particular spaces to commentary writers who would use their writing to express certain points of view. 

These days, a lot of opinion writing happens on blogs. Everyone is able to share their opinions through the internet, and a lot of people use that to create persuasive arguments about things they're passionate about - like politics, educational theory, best sports team or why someone should read a particular book.

Looking at persuasive writing with your students? Challenge them to find different pieces of persuasive writing in their world. How do the authors persuade the audience? What skills can they use in their own writing?

Want to bring more persuasive arguments into the classroom? Pick up the Persuasive Argument bundle at the Galarious Goods shop. Or, prepare for Christmas with the Australian Christmas Persuasive Writing Pack.

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Creating Lessons from Holiday Decorations - A Big List of Ideas

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It's time to decorate the classroom! Or to create fabulous decorations for your students to take home with them! But what other learning can you get from holiday decorations?

Find the Maths

• What angles can you find in a 5 point star? A 6 point star? 7 points?
• What's the circumference of the bauble? The diameter?
• What shapes can you find in holiday decorations?
• What nets do you need to create 3D decorations?
• What's the area of those nets?
• How many decorations do you need to decorate a classroom? To decorate a tree?

Find the Writing

• Write about why we need holiday decorations
• Write about the history of holiday decorations
• Write a procedure for making holiday decorations
• Write a short story about holiday decorations
• Write a newspaper article about how your class is decorated

Find the Engineering

• Which decorations are the strongest?
• How can you made decorations stronger?
• How do you test the strength of a decoration?
• Can you use decorations to make a machine?
• Can you make decorations move on their own?
• Can you create structures out of decorations?

Find the Creativity

• How can you portray decorations using paint? Pencils? Clay?
• What recycled materials can you use to create decorations?
• Can you create a dance about decorations?
• Can you create a play or a song about decorations?
• How can you use colour in your decorations?
• How can you use shapes in decorations?

Don't forget to leave your holiday ideas in the comments!

Looking for some maths and engineering ideas for Christmas Paper Chains? Find them in this resource pack!

Looking for more holiday ideas? Check out the Link up over at Teacher Karma!

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Surviving Christmas in an Australian Classroom

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Ah, Christmas. The students are tired. Admin are insisting that it's business as usual until 3pm on the last day. There's activities and performances and assemblies and you never get a full class for more than half an hour at a time. You've just found out you need to move your whole classroom across the school. Oh, and it's swelteringly hot!

Of course, what you need are Christmas or holiday themed activities which promote real learning - while fitting into the spaces of time you get in the classroom!

Bring on the Games

This is a great time for reinforcing everything you've taught during the year with a series of games. Your students will love you, they'll have a better chance of remembering things into the new year and then their next teacher will also love you! 

Short multiplication games, grammar games and spelling games are great for filling in the 5 or 10 minute gaps before you have to be somewhere. You could also hold a trivia quiz over the last few weeks, breaking the class into teams and covering all sorts of information from the year (things you've covered, books you've read, events you've attended plus general trivia).

Board games and adapted board games can work really well for those times when you're missing some of the students. 

You can also take the games outside to rejuvenate students. Use the first hour of the day when it's a little cooler, or find a covered or shaded place to play. 

Writing Tasks

Writing is one of those tasks which is wonderfully adaptable to any event or time of the year. Students can create their own creative writing prompts, create stories, poems, songs or plays about Christmas or the holidays. They can respond to articles in newspapers or online. They can write letters to family and friends or write reflections about the year they've had. 

Persuasive writing is now a big feature of Australian classrooms and an excellent technique to work on at Christmas time. Students can write advertisements or letters to the editor or they can respond to a persuasive text prompt.

Australian Christmas Persuasive Argument Writing Pack

Reading

Although the Christmas season might not allow enough time for a Christmas novel, there is enough time to examine Christmas picture books. Students can examine picture books based on old carols and stories or picture books which tell new stories. They can talk about the way Christmas is portrayed, the emphasis which is put on Christmas in the books (is it about Santa? Giving? Where Christmas is held? The food?) or how different Christmas books compare with each other. Alongside the reading discussion, there's plenty of room for accompanying writing and craft activities.

An Aussie Night Before Christmas Book Study

Maths Investigations

Christmas and holidays are great for maths investigations. You can plan for Christmas lunch (time table for cooking, menu planning for 4 people or 6 people or 8 people, working out the cost of ingredients and creating a budget.

Or you could create an investigation around wrapping presents - how can you wrap different sized boxes? How much paper will you need? 

Or look at patterns of Christmas lights. What patterns can you create? How does it change when you use different numbers of lights or colours?

There are so many easy to set up and easy to implement ideas to create real learning at Christmas time - even with the heat. And don't forget my Christmas freebie - available here!

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Three Connections to The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger's Apprentice #1)

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Although The Ruins of Gorlan (which I've discussed here and here) is set in a fictional world, there's still many connections to real world history and topics. Those connections are just waiting for you to explore in the classroom.

Medieval History

The world of the Ranger's Apprentice books is a rather modern version of medieval history. Conditions are a lot cleaner and nicer for our characters, but there are castles, fiefdoms, barons and knights and lots of connections to European medieval history.

Students can spend some time reading up on medieval history. They may like to research historical documents and images or they might like to spend some time reading medieval historical fiction (you can find some here or here). This allows for comparisons, for students to discuss why the author may have chosen a medieval setting and discussions about how realistic the world of the Ranger's Apprentice is.

Spies in History

One of the roles of the Rangers is to act as spies for the King. There's a rich history of spies throughout history and it's a topic students can definitely get their teeth into. Students might like to look at why spies are required, who some of the famous spies are and what impact they've had on historical events. They could look at how spies work and spies who work during war time. There's also many middle grades and young adult books on spies which can be connected to The Ruins of Gorlan.

Archery

As an apprentice Ranger, Will learns archery and is expected to become an expert with the bow and arrow. Archery is an activity which developed to allow people to hunt for food before becoming a weapon and, in modern times, a sport. Students can learn how archery works and where it appears in other books and media. Through archery you can also connect The Ruins of Gorlan to physical educations - you may be lucky to allow the students to experience archery or you could look at some accuracy and strength drills - and STEM - creating a bow, looking at forces, looking at records from archery competitions, examining how bows and arrows have developed over history.

This is just some of the many connections to The Ruins of Gorlan. You can find more in the Ruins of Gorlan Research Task pack, which encourages students to research connected topics. You can also purchase a comprehension and vocabulary pack, a character pack and an overall novel pack, or you can purchase a complete bundle and save.

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Lessons from Three Characters in The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger's Apprentice #1)

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In my last post I talked about The Ruins of Gorlan, the first Ranger's Apprentice book by John Flanagan and why I thought it would be a great read for the classroom. Here I'd like to spend a bit of time talking about some of the characters and the lessons they can inspire in the classroom.

Will

Will is an orphaned ward of Redmont Fief and knows nothing about his past. He's small, but nimble, and uses his climbing and hiding skills to get himself in and out of trouble. He aspires to be a knight, but is instead chosen as an apprentice to the mysterious Ranger.

The use of orphans in children's stories is a familiar topic, but it's definitely one worth revisiting with students. Why do authors choose to revisit the orphan storyline? What does it add to the story? How would the story be different if Will (or other famous orphans of children's literature) were not orphans? What similarities are there between Will's story and the story of other orphans?

Will's lack of knowledge about his past is also an interesting area to explore. Students could look into how family history shapes characters and how it shapes us as individuals. They could look at family stories and the narratives they create.

Horace

Like Will (and three of the other young characters in the story), Horace is an orphan and a ward. However, he gets his wish and is placed into battle school as an apprentice Knight. Despite having a natural ability with the sword, Horace finds the experience isolating and miserable - due to the behaviour of others and the lack of cultural knowledge he has around the battle school.

Horace's struggles at battle school are really interesting. On paper he's the perfect candidate, but he doesn't understand what the culture of the school is supposed to be like and has no one to ask about it. This leaves him open to abuse at the hands of older students. Students can investigate the idea of 'belonging' and 'culture' and talk about why it might be hard to be a new student at a school or a new immigrant to a country.

There's also opportunities to discuss bullying through this story - and how to deal with it. Horace doesn't deal with it particularly well and students might like to propose different ways he could have approached the situation.

Halt

Halt is the Ranger of Redmont Fief and Will's mentor. Little is known about him or his past, but he carefully guides Will to learn the skills necessary to become a Ranger. As Will gets to know Halt, he discovers that Halt has played a pivotal role in defending Araluen in the past - and that this experience will assist them in dealing with growing danger.

Halt's role as mentor is a familiar role in fiction and non-fiction stories. Students can compare mentors from different narratives and look at differences and similarities. They can also look at biographies and memoirs of notable people and identify mentors to real life people. Students may also like to identify the features of a mentor.

Find more Ranger’s Apprentice - The Ruins of Gorlan Resources at Teachers Pay Teachers.  

Comprehension and Vocabulary - Complete comprehension and vocabulary activities for The ruins of Gorlan

Character Activities - Activities covering a range of characters in The Ruins of Gorlan

Research Tasks - A series of research tasks which explore connected topics

Whole Novel Activities - Activities covering the whole novel

Or Buy The Bundle and Save!

Bundle (UK English) 

Bundle (US English) 

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Introducing The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger's Apprentice #1)

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Finding novels for small groups or whole classes to read can be a difficult exercise. Here I'd like to introduce one of my favourite books - a great coming of age story appropriate for 8-14 year old readers.

The Ruins of Gorlan is the first book in the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan. It takes us to the fictional world of Araluen - similar to medieval England - a world of castles and knights and the mysterious Rangers.

The hero of the story is Will, a young orphan who wants to be a knight. However, he is considered too small to join the battle school and is instead apprenticed to the enigmatic Ranger, Halt. We follow his training as an apprentice until an almost forgotten enemy appears to test Halt, Will and others around them

Although there are some fantastical elements to this book (those elements aren't really present in later books in the series) it is primarily an adventure. It's also an origin story - we see how Will enters training as a Ranger, how he is challenged through that training and asked to make decisions which will shape his future, how he interacts with his mentor and how he can apply his training in an unthinkable situation.

There's a lot in this book which can be used in the classroom. The fictional medieval elements allow research and discussion of medieval history. The characters in the story are challenged by a number of situations, allowing for some interesting discussions. The origin story element allows for comparisons with other texts like comic books, other first books in series and prequels. There's also incredibly rich vocabulary used throughout the book, allowing for word work and discussions.

Decided to teach The Ruins of Gorlan, but not sure where to start? Download this FREE RESOURCE - The Ruins of Gorlan: Introductory Activities to get you going.

Find more Ranger’s Apprentice - The Ruins of Gorlan Resources at Teachers Pay Teachers.  

Comprehension and Vocabulary - Complete comprehension and vocabulary activities for The ruins of Gorlan

Character Activities - Activities covering a range of characters in The Ruins of Gorlan

Research Tasks - A series of research tasks which explore connected topics

Whole Novel Activities - Activities covering the whole novel

Or Buy The Bundle and Save!

Bundle (UK English) 

Bundle (US English) 

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Five Quick Alternatives to Holiday Busywork

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With lots of holidays approaching, you might have made the decision to step away from holiday busywork. But planning integrated learning activities can take time - especially when they begin to grow and get overwhelmingly complex. And time for teachers is always a precious thing!

With that in mind, here's five easier ways to bring great holiday learning into the classroom.

1. Creative Writing Prompts

If you've been covering creative writing in your English classes, this is a perfect way to combine holidays and lessons. You can share one prompt for the whole class to respond to, give students a choice of four or five prompts or allocate a different prompt for each student.

Take it Further

• Challenge students to try a different creative format like poetry or a fictional memoir
• Ask students to work in groups or pairs - collaborative writing can create some interesting results
• Students can publish their work to create a class book or website

2. Persuasive Arguments

While persuasive arguments are often about big important subjects, students can also develop persuasive writing skills with smaller holiday related topics. 

Think about elements of the holidays which could be (or have been) changed. For example, students could write a persuasive essay arguing that trick-or-treating should involve non-food items only.

Take it Further

• Persuasive arguments can be essays, letters to the editor, advertisements or debates. Students can engage with them as part of a wider project - like creating a holiday podcast or a holiday newsletter or news website
• You can mix up presentation - students can turn their arguments into posters, blog posts, displays, newspaper articles or podcasts

3. Read About It

Picture books, short stories or text excerpts can be a great way of exploring a holiday through literature. As well as reading the story, students can discuss how the holiday is portrayed, if it feels realistic or connected to their own experiences and if the author has done a good job of portraying the holiday. They can also explore holidays in different parts of the world.

Take it Further

• Reading holidays texts can be done as a whole class or different groups can discuss different texts. Students can come together to compare different texts, creating images to show how they're different and alike.
• Students can create reviews or advertisements of the texts - turning them into images, videos, short articles or audio files.

4. Maths Investigations

Maths (or math) Investigations can easily be condensed or simplified if you're short on time. To do this, pick an element of your holiday - eg. valentines for Valentines Day. Then brainstorm some mathematical questions:

Any one of these investigations can be presented over one or two lessons. Or, if you have more time you can combine and expand them!

Take it Further

• Ask students to create their own mathematical investigations
• Brainstorm several investigations and set up maths centres. Or create a choice board allowing students to explore the maths investigations in their own time.

5.  Create a Maths Question

A lot of the time we give students maths problems and ask them to find the answers. But what if we turned that upside down and gave them the answer - then asked the students to develop a range of problems to match it?

This gives students an alternative way to look at mathematical processes and can help them understand how word problems or multi-step problems work.

It's easy to give answers a holiday feel. For example - the answer could be 720 Christmas Lights. Students can then create simple and complex word problems which match the answer.

Take it Further

• Students can share their questions with classmates, other classes or the wider community
• Challenge students to match their questions with what they're learning in class. Can they make an area problem? A chance and data problem? A problem involving fractions?

Although combining learning with the holidays can seem daunting - especially when you need to fit it around parties, parades, events and the excitement of a class of students - these quick alternatives can give you a great way to celebrate and learn.

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