The Matron, Chapter 12 from 'Boy' by Roald Dahl

In this lesson students are asked to explore how Roald Dahl describes his childhood in chapter 12 of his autobiography, Boy. It would ideal to use as part of a KS3 unit.

The lesson starts by asking students to ‘think, pair, share’ about what it would be like to go to boarding school. They are then to read chapter 12.

There is an extract attached which students can stick into their book. There is a group task for students to do after reading the chapter where they are given 4 questions on the board and a challenge task. All questions are linked to the GCSE reading skills AO1, 2, 3 where they have to think about language, structure and the readers’ reactions.

There are slides with the text on for teachers to annotate on a smart board. There is a slide which demonstrates to students how they can structure an essay.

The plenary asks students to write an essay paragraph using the SQUID structure provided. There is a slide which demonstrates how students can peer assess each others’ essay writing skills.

This lesson, as my other Literature lessons do, includes:

Starter tasks which introduce the main idea of the lesson
Handouts of extracts/text
Differentiated tasks
Opportunities for pair and group talk within activities (‘Talk for Writing’)