Tension in Chapter 5 and 6 from 'Boy' by Roald Dahl

In this lesson students are asked to explore how Roald Dahl describes his childhood in chapter 5 and 6 of his autobiography, Boy. It would ideal to use as part of a KS3 unit.

The lesson starts by asking students to discuss how tension can be created in fiction within a pair. There is a challenge task which asks students to think about how pace can also contribute. There are some slides which reveal some ideas that they could have thought about in terms of language and structure (a useful introduction to GCSE skills). Students are then to read chapter 5 and 6 which describe the fall-out Dahl and his friends suffered after the ‘Great Mouse Plot’ involving Mrs Pratchett!

Students are then to stick the attached sheet into their books which has quotes from this anecdote which demonstrate the tension that Dahl creates. Students are to annotate these in pairs and consider how he uses language and structural devices to do so. These tasks are linked to the GCSE reading skills AO1, 2, 3.

The plenary asks students to plot the moments of tension onto a line style graph. There is a template for this attached.

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

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