Two speaking and listening activities to introduce the theme of crime and punishment in the novel Holes by Louis Sacher. These could be individual lessons to introduce the class to courtroom processes, decision making skills, ethics and morality, and speaking and listening skills in general. The first is a group debate where a list of crimes must be ranked and the class must come to a group decision about which are the worst crimes and which are least offensive, or offences at all. They include having mixed-race relationships, so open a historical (and *sigh* still apparently current) dialogue about racism and equality, useful for citizenship and PSHE. The second is a role playing activity where students set up a courtroom and put a young man on trial for stealing a pair of trainers. There are 9 different roles, including the judge and students can either take one role between two or the non-role-taking students could be the jurors. All PowerPoints come withe clear outcomes, starters, task instructions and plenaries. All you need to do is print one A4 sheet of role cards and/or a list of the crimes for each student (A5 works fine for these). This is a really useful lesson which students find really engaging and interesting, particularly if they are into mystery solving! As an extension activity you could ask them to report on the trial or debate for a newspaper/blog/TV news programme. The non-speaking characters could interview those who took part in the trial and use those quotations in their reports. A court scribe could also be used during the trial to make sure notes can be reviewed.

This lesson uses UA Fanthorpe's poem Not My Best Side, which satirises the painting Saint George and the Dragon by Paolo Uccello, as a model for satirical writing about a series of paintings (also included on the Powerpoint). There are comprehension questions to go with each part of the poem and self-assessment criteria at the end. Makes for a good one-off lesson in any writing scheme, a Creative Writing club prompt, or as part of a scheme of work about fairytales or a PSHE lesson on subverting stereotypes.