Twist in the Tale Short Story Planning 3 week Unit

This is a 3-week unit which I have planned to support my pupils to write a short story, with a twist in the tale, for the BBC 500-word competition. It is a challenging unit as pupils learn to plan backwards so they decide upon the ending first. Pupils decide upon a theme for their short story and plan where they are going to place this throughout the short story. I have set my short story loosely around an old Fairground which allows pupils lots of scope to decide upon what happens in there or did happen in there when it was open. My class love this unit as it allows them to be creative and cunning when they write their twist in the tale.

I have listed the learning objectives for all of the lessons below. Also, I have included all of the worksheets, PowerPoints, links and resources you will need to teach this unit straight away.

Stage 1 - Stimulate and generate- Learning outcomes
• To understand the key features of a short story
• To understand themes in stories
• To decide a theme for my short story

Stage 2 - Capture, Sift and Sort- Learning outcomes
• To write an engaging setting
• To improve a piece of writing by using fronted adverbials
• To write engaging character descriptions
• To create an engaging character
• To write a twist in the tale
• To write a climatic ending with a twist in the tale
• To write a list of escalating emotions to build tension
• To use dialogue in story to give clues about the characters

Stage 3 - Create refine evaluate- Learning outcomes
• To plan and organise my ideas to effectively support my writing
• To revise, edit evaluate and improve my writing

Stimulate and generate = This usually starts with a hook to interest the class where the class realise who they are going to write for so they have a clear purpose and audience. Activities can include reading excellent model texts, drama or researching more about the author or the content of the book.

Capture, sift and sort = This is the part of the unit where pupils look at key features, practise skills they will need in order to complete the final piece or new learning for objectives they have not learnt yet.

Create, refine, evaluate = This is where you bring all you have learnt together and plan the final piece before you write it and then edit it to improve the piece. This can include self, peer or teacher led reviewing.