Chapter 3, Mrs Pratchett from 'Boy' by Roald Dahl

In this lesson students are asked to explore how Roald Dahl describes his childhood in chapter 3 of his autobiography, Boy. It would ideal to use as part of a KS3 unit.

The lesson starts by asking students to discuss Dahl’s villains and what they have in common. There is a challenge task which asks students to think about the complexities of what a villain is. Students are then to read the last couple of pages of chapter 3 (extract attached here) about Mrs Pratchett who owned a sweet shop.

Students are then asked to discuss a list of questions on the board within a group about the extract. All questions are linked to the GCSE reading skills AO1, 2, 3 where they have to think about language, structure and the readers’ reactions.

The plenary asks students to write an essay paragraph about Mrs Pratchett, using the SQUID structure provided. There is a slide which demonstrates how students can peer assess each other’s writing.

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 (a separate document is attached with GCSE style Language paper 1 style questions)
Opportunities for pair and group talk within activities (‘Talk for Writing’)