Language Arts Tasks

Resilience: Success over time requires persistence.
12-13 Years (M2) Language Arts
greatlearning.com/imyc
Contents
Contents 2
Language Arts Task 1 3
2
Downloaded for use by Sekolah Cita Buana, Jagakarsa on 06 September 2017.
From Fieldwork Education, a part of the Nord Anglia Education family. © WCL Group Limited. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission.
Language Arts Task 1

Learning Goals
4.05 Be able to convey information, experiences, arguments and opinions clearly and confidently
when speaking to others
4.11 Be able to determine the theme of a text and its relationship to plot, setting and characters
4.16 Develop an understanding for how meaning is constructed using word choice, tone and timing
4.20 Be able to write informative or explanatory texts to examine a topic and share ideas in an
organised manner
4.27 Be able to recognise the devices used by an author to accomplish a purpose
3
Research activity
Read the following account by the cyclist Bradley Wiggins after his success in the Tour de
France:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/jul/22/bradley-wiggins-childhood-dream-
tour – Guardian article by Bradley Wiggins, describing what it felt like to win the Tour
de France.
Ask students:
Would you need to read Wiggins’ account in order to imagine what he would have felt
like after winning such a big competition? Why/why not?
Suggest to students that few people would find it difficult to appreciate Wiggins’
tremendous sense of achievement, even without reading this account. His success is based
on persistence and dedication, training for years in a regime that would be tortuous to most
of us. Even if we have not enjoyed (or even aspired to) success on this scale, we can all
relate to the notion of working hard over time to achieve something important to us, the
temptation to give up when things are tough, and the feeling of pride when we keep trying
and are able to see our goals through to the end.
Not everyone’s achievements are awarded with gold medals, world records and huge sums
of prize money. For lots of us, our achievements are personal, and the story behind them is
unknown, invisible to all but those who are directly involved. It is precisely because we all
experience these secret ambitions and internal battles that we can empathise so keenly
with the struggles of others. It is not always the grand heroes and epic narratives that move
us the most in literature; even on a modest, individual scale, stories of success and
persistence can still be gripping.
Ask students to think about their greatest achievement so far this year. They do not need to
tell anyone what this is (unless they want to). Ask students to consider the following
questions:
What did you achieve?
Why is this achievement important to you?
Would your achievement be meaningful to anyone else?
Did you have to overcome obstacles in order to succeed? Did you have to be persistent?
Would your friends, family or teachers agree with you that this is your greatest
achievement? If not, why not?
When students have had the chance to think about their own achievements, discuss the
following question:
How can the story behind an achievement help others to understand its significance?
Give each student a copy of the poem below and read this aloud with the class:
4
Timothy Winters comes to school

With eyes as wide as a football pool,
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.
His belly is white, his neck is dark,

And his hair is an exclamation-mark.
His clothes are enough to scare a crow
And through his britches the blue winds blow.
When teacher talks he won’t hear a word

And he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,
He licks the pattern off his plate
And he’s not even heard of the Welfare State.
Timothy Winters has bloody feet

And he lives in a house on Suez Street,
He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floor
And they say there aren’t boys like him anymore.
Old Man Winters likes his beer

And his missus ran off with a bombardier,
Grandma sits in the grate with a gin
And Timothy’s dosed with an aspirin.
5
The welfare Worker lies awake

But the law’s as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
And slowly goes on growing up.
At Morning Prayers the Master helves

For children less fortunate than ourselves,
And the loudest response in the room is when
Timothy Winters roars “Amen!"
So come one angel, come on ten

Timothy Winters says
“Amen Amen amen amen amen.”
Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen.
- Timothy Winters, by Charles Causley, 1970 (UK)
Ask students to highlight words or phrases that suggest that suggest difficulties and
obstacles in Timothy Winters’ life.
Ask students:
Can you identify any ways in which Timothy Winters demonstrates persistence in this
poem?
Do you think he will succeed in the future?
What are the obstacles that he will have to overcome to succeed? Will Timothy Winters
have to be more persistent than other children without the same obstacles? Would the
story of his success be more interesting than the story of the success of a more
privileged boy?
How does the jaunty rhythm of this poem influence your impression of Timothy
Winters? Why do you think Causley uses this rhythm?
In the last verse, why does Causley ask the angels to help Timothy? Or do the six ‘amens’
(meaning ‘so let it be’) suggest that his life is doomed to deprivation?
6
Recording activity
Students will imagine that they are filling in their leaver’s yearbook at school. The yearbook
has a ‘superlative’ section. What would Timothy Winters be voted as ‘most likely to…’?
Students will write their ideas on post-it notes and stick them around a copy of the poem on
a wall display board. Discuss their responses as a class.
7

Learning Goals
4.12 Be able to cite evidence that supports explicit and inferred meaning from the text
4.14 Be able to compare and contrastinformation from a variety of texts to understand how it affects
meaning and style
4.16 Develop an understanding for how meaning is constructed using word choice, tone and timing
4.17 Be able to write in a range of different forms appropriate for their purpose and readers
4.18 Be able to write narratives to communicate real or imagined events using descriptive details
and event sequences
8
Research activity
Note to teachers: All page numbers for Kestrel for a Knave refer to the Penguin Modern
Classics 2000 edition.
Read the first five sections of Kestrel for a Knave, by Barry Hines, 1968 (UK).
Here we are introduced to Billy Casper, his home and his job as a paperboy. After depicting
him arguing with his mother, Hines describes Billy with Kes for the first time (pages 9 -27).
While reading, ask the students to make notes using words, phrases or pictures of any
details from the text that will help them to describe Billy Casper’s life.
Ask students:
What evidence is there in these first sections that Billy’s life is not easy for him?
Billy lives in a northern English mining town and speaks, like all the other characters,
with a Yorkshire accent. Hines writes the speech phonetically (he writes it as it really
sounds, i.e. showing the characteristics of the accent). How does this help the reader to
picture Billy’s life?
In what ways is Billy Casper similar to Timothy Winters? What obstacles stand in the way
of both of the boys’ success?
How does the tone of Kestrel for a Knave compare to the poem? Do you think the author
wants you to feel optimistic about Billy’s future?
Tell the students that Billy Casper finds Kes, a kestrel hawk, which he trains. A farmer who
owns the building where Billy spots the kestrel hawk nest tells us that this is a difficult task.
Billy asks ‘Do you know anybody who’s kept one?’ ‘One or two, [the farmer replies] but
they’ve allus let ‘em go ‘cos they couldn’t do owt wi’ ‘em. They never seem to tame like
other birds.’
Show students the following trailer for the film based on the book, which contrasts Billy’s
experiences at home and in school with his free time outdoors training his kestrel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRYvUpsrqmg – Trailer for Kes, dir. Ken Loach, 1969
(UK).
(To watch a YouTube video in safe mode, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on ‘Safety mode: Off’, then select ‘On’
option)
Read pages 75–86 with the students. In this section, Billy’s English teacher, Mr. Farthing,
encourages Billy to tell the story of succeeding to train his hawk to the rest of his class.
Discuss the following questions with the students:
In what ways was Billy persistent when he was training his bird?
In what ways is the teacher persistent in getting Billy to talk about his bird?
In what ways do each of these characters succeed over time?
9
Think about Billy’s life at home and at school. Why do you think Billy persisted in
training his bird?
Tell students that, towards the end of the story, Billy’s brother, Jud, takes revenge on Billy
for not placing what would have been a winning bet on a horse.
Read pages 180–187 with the students. In this section, Billy finds out what has happened to
Kes and confronts Jud in front of their mother.
Read the last line of the story:
‘He buried the hawk in the field just behind the shed; went in, and went to bed.’
Tell students that at the beginning of the book, Billy woke up and got out of bed. The story
ends with Billy going to bed. Discuss the following question with the students:
When Billy wakes up the next day, how will his life be different after the death of Kes?
Billy proved that he could succeed when he was persistent; he managed to train Kes. Do
you think Hines is optimistic or pessimistic about Billy’s future?
Recording activity
Students will write an epilogue to the story.
Divide the class in half. One half of the class will work out a positive aftermath to the end of
the book; for example, Mr. Farthing is horrified at what Jud has done. He intervenes to ask
the Employment Officer (who first interviewed Billy in the section beginning on page 168)
to see Billy again and to guide him towards working with animals. He arranges a visit to a
wildlife park, boarding kennels, or an abandoned animal sanctuary. Billy is considered for a
future job. Would he rise to the challenge?
The other half of the class will write a more negative view. Billy is even more victimised,
sees life as even more cruel, perhaps he reacts against this by even more criminal
behaviour, perhaps joins a gang as a form of protection. What happens to him as a result?
Ask volunteers to read the finished products alternately and discuss the feasibility of each
version. Discuss with the students the following question:
Which of the versions show Billy to be the most persistent in overcoming the obstacles
he faces?
10

Learning Goals
4.18 Be able to write narratives to communicate real or imagined events using descriptive details
and event sequences
organised manner
11
Research activity
Tell students that they will now analyse the persistence of Charles (Chas) McGill, in the story
of The Machine Gunners, by Robert Westall, 1975 (UK).
Read the first chapter to the students. This introduces Chas and the first goal that he will set
out to achieve in the novel.
Ask students to create a spider diagram for the character of Chas, collecting aspects of his
life, personality, goals and any relevant background information that influences who he is,
what he wants to achieve, and why. Students can add to this as they read, noting down
actions, words or phrases from the text that support their points. An example is shown
below:
At the end of the chapter, ask students:
How does Chas compare to Timothy Winters and Billy Casper?
What is Chas going to try to achieve? Why?
Do you expect him to persist?
Do you expect him to succeed?
By the end of Chapter 5, Chas has managed to get the machine gun safely hidden, even
from the prying eyes of the police. As is pointed out in the book, he must be ‘some really
well organised kid, too. Finding it, going home for the saw, getting the gun home through
the streets and hiding it where his parents can’t find it. That takes some planning.’ Read to
this point with the students. Ask them to use the table below to note examples of:
Obstacles that Chas faces
Chas’ persistence
His success.
Some examples to get them started are given below:
Explain to students that, by the end of this section, Chas has achieved his first goal: he has
the machine gun and must surely now have beaten Boddser Brown to have the best
collection of war souvenirs. There is evidence, however, that Chas’ goals are changing as his
plan to get his hands on the machine gun unfolds. What have they read in the text that
would suggest this?
Divide the class into groups. Give each group print outs of the following extracts, taken from
the first section of the book. The print outs should have plenty of space around the text for
12
annotations.
After hearing about the death of the girl from the green grocer’s: ‘From the way his
mother hunched her shoulders, Chas could tell she was trying not to cry.’
‘He was wearing a white tin hat with a P on it and looking important, but he was still the
Fatty Hardy who had chased Chas off many a buildingsite before the War. Stupid.’
‘Then he stifled a yawn and ran his hands through his greying hair. Mr Liddell doubled
nights as Captain Liddell of the Garmouth Home Guard and found the experience wearing.’
During the air raid: '“Go on!’ screamed Chas. ‘Get the bastards, kill the bastards!’ Then
silence, blackness, nothing.”'
‘Bairns shouldn’t be let wander in the dark these days. Real wickedness, I call it,’ said Mrs
Spalding. Chas shot her a look of hate from the shadow of his bunk. She had fat knees in
ginger stockings, which kept straying apart so he could see she was wearing apricot
knickers.'
Mr McGill to Chas: ‘I sometimes think you’re a bit too free with other people’s property. Got
no sense of mine and thine, that’s your trouble.’ Chas said humbly, ‘Yes Dad.’ Mr McGill
cocked an eyebrow at such humble obedience, but he soon wandered off to poke at his
chrysanthemums.’
When Mr Liddell shows the picture of the machine gun to the class: ‘Chas knocked over
his bottle of ink. ‘Oh, hell!’ It went all over Cem’s trousers. Everyone turned to look,
including Cem. Stan’s moment of truth was completely ruined. Chas mopped wildly with a
hanky at Cem’s trousers. ‘That’s a picture of our gun he’s got. Watch your face.’ … ‘Stan knew
he was beaten.’
‘[Sandy of the Home Guard] was always there, and always busy: oiling rifles or
whitewashing everything with layer upon layer of whitewash. In the middle of all 1940’s
gloom and despondency, Sandy was simply and profoundly happy. If Hitler came, he would
die, as he had lived, in uniform.’
Ask the students to use the extracts to answer the following questions:
How are the different adults portrayed in this first section of the story?
How do you think Chas feels about the different characters?
The story is set during the Second World War, when Britain was under attack by the
German air force. Would you trust these adults to protect the country?
Chas has achieved his first goal: he has got the machine gun. What do you think he will
do next, given the apparent inadequacy of so many adults who are supposed to be
defending the country?
Why might this make him persistent in striving to achieve his goals?
13
Recording activity
Students will write Chas’ diary entry after his lucky break with the police. The machine gun
is safely hidden in the rabbit hutch and Chas has a chance to think about his achievement
and what he should do next.
Students will describe the success that Chas has had so far, how his persistence has paid off,
but also what he wants to achieve next and how he will need to keep up his persistence in
order to keep being successful over time.
14

Learning Goals
4.21 Be able to use writing to organise thoughts, experiences, emotions and preferences
15
Research activity
Read Chapter 6 with the students. Ask students to consider the following question:
How does Chas’ plan develop through the next section of the story?
Discuss Chas’ plans as they emerge in the story. Make sure that students know that Chas is
now aiming to put the machine gun to use to defend himself, his ‘Fortress’ and his country.
He is no longer simply in competition with Boddser for the best collection of souvenirs: he
wants to do something much more ambitious.
Read chapters 7–16 with the students. By the end of the first section of Chapter 16, Chas
and his friends have a fully functioning machine gun, mounted on a sturdy tripod, embedded
in concrete inside his ‘Fortress’. Ask students to use the following flow chart to note the
examples of persistence by Chas and his gang to achieve their goal.
Ask students:
Why does Chas feel he has to prepare to attack the enemy?
Who are Chas’ enemies? Does he have more enemies now than he had at the beginning
of the story?
16
Recording activity
Divide the class into groups. Each group will work together to produce an interactive single
player game based on the story so far of The Machine Gunners.
Their game will be based on the structure below:
The player will have to make a series of decisions, based on the events of the book
The choices offered will demonstrate the ways in which Chas succeeds in building the
‘Fortress’ because of his persistence; he does not choose the easy options
The consequences of the choices included in the game should show that his success
was dependent on his persistence and the actions he chose
The game will be created as a PowerPoint presentation, with the consequences of each
decision displayed on different slides
The player will click on hyperlinked buttons to choose their actions. These will direct
them to the slide that explains the consequences and presents the next set of choices.
Students will have the opportunity to play another group’s game, in order to compare
examples of Chas’ persistence and the outcomes of this.
17

Learning Goals
organised manner
18
Research activity
Read the final chapters of The Machine Gunners with the class.
Ask students to identify ways in which Chas and his friends do not succeed at the end of the
story. For example, their secret fortress is discovered.
Ask the students to then work in groups to:
Identify the failures of the adults in the story
Identify the achievements of the children
Explain to students that, throughout the book, there are references to the fact that Chas and
his friends are in many ways ‘no longer children’. Westall includes several scenes to show
how they are taking on the responsibilities of adulthood, perhaps before their time.
Ask students to give examples of plot devices, dialogue, descriptions and literary techniques
by the author that suggest the younger characters are caught between maturity and
childhood. Write their ideas on the board.
Possible responses include:
Chas makes a Churchillian speech when the German plane crashes after being thrown
off course by their gun fire, stating ‘A brave man has died’. However, in the next
paragraph he is cross that the plane crashing into the sea means no souvenirs for him to
add to his collection.
Rudi is struck by his Luger, with the safety catch off, lying on top of Nicky’s copy of the
Beano. He asks himself, ‘Were these children or soldiers’?
Ask students:
To what extent do you think that the persistence of Chas and his group is helping them
to become better adults than the actual grown-ups in the story?
Do you think this is a good example of success over time? Why/why not?
19
Recording activity
Divide the class into five groups. Each group will represent one of the following characters:
Chas
Nicky
Clogger
Audrey
Cem
Each group will write a letter to one other character of their choice in which they reflect on
their experience. In particular, they will talk about what they have achieved, how their
success over time was related to their persistence, and how they feel about what has
happened.
20

Learning Goals
4.12 Be able to cite evidence that supports explicit and inferred meaning from the text
4.14 Be able to compare and contrastinformation from a variety of texts to understand how it affects
meaning and style
4.19 Be able to write arguments to support claims using evidence from texts and research from
credible sources
organised manner
4.21 Be able to use writing to organise thoughts, experiences, emotions and preferences
21
Research activity
Through whole class discussion, fill in the Venn diagram below, comparing the three central
characters that students have considered in this unit:
Students should then work in groups to create a presentation analysing the similarities and
differences between the different characters. In particular:
Ways in which they all faced obstacles
Ways in which these obstacles required persistence to overcome them
Ways in which they could all be argued to have achieved success over time
Recording activity
Students will prepare for a debate on following proposition:
‘The more persistent a person is required to be, the greater their achievements are.’
22
INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE YEARS CURRICULUM
27-28 Clements Lane, London EC4N 7AE

+44 020 7531 9696
info@greatlearning.com
greatlearning.com/imyc
TheInternationalMiddleYearsCurriculum
The_IMYC
From Fieldwork Education, a part of the Nord Anglia Education family.

©WCL Group Limited. All rights reserved.

Language Arts Tasks

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Language Arts Tasks

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Resilience: Success over time requires persistence.

12-13 Years (M2) Language Arts

Language Arts Task 1

Timothy Winters comes to school

His belly is white, his neck is dark,

When teacher talks he won’t hear a word

Timothy Winters has bloody feet

Old Man Winters likes his beer

The welfare Worker lies awake

At Morning Prayers the Master helves

So come one angel, come on ten

- Timothy Winters, by Charles Causley, 1970 (UK)

Language Arts Task 2

Language Arts Task 3

Language Arts Task 4

Language Arts Task 5

Language Arts Task 6

27-28 Clements Lane, London EC4N 7AE

From Fieldwork Education, a part of the Nord Anglia Education family.

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen