At a glance Author profile: Roald Dahl G Teaching issue. Why Roald Dahl is such a good subject for a Literacy Hour author profile G Word and sentence level. Dahl’s extraordinary use of language provides a rich and inventive setting for Author profile: Roald Dahl language work G Fiction. Dahl’s stories contain all the ingredients for modern day fairytales G Non-fiction. The potent mixture of real life and fiction Book reviews G Favourite titles. Children from Lydney Church of England School, Gloucestershire, review their favourite Roald Dahl books Literacy Hour resources G New resources for literacy teaching Written by G Anne Faundez Literacy consultant G Pie Corbett Roald Dahl’s letter to his mother, written from his boarding school when he was nine years old. L L L L L L L L L L L L Teaching issue L Roald Dahl’s incredible popularity, his rich and varied writing and his unerring ability to see the world as children do, all Author make him an ideal subject for a Literacy Hour author study profile: Favourite author powerful - and his superb Roald Dahl is, without doubt, most storytelling is complemented, for children’s favourite author. In the most part, by Quentin Blake’s Roald Dahl numerous surveys into children’s exuberant illustrations. reading habits, his titles top the polls as the best-loved and most Fiction widely read stories. Dahl’s rich and Dahl’s stories are modern-day fairy varied work encompasses picture tales. His universe is one of books, storybooks, poetry and magical happenings, peopled by autobiography - and some of his characters who are obviously good Author profile books have also been adapted for or obviously bad. This polarization the cinema and theatre. of characters is reinforced by detailed descriptions, usually of Why Roald Dahl makes What is Dahl’s appeal? their physical attributes. His such an ideal subject for His stories entertain, offering a characters do not mature or an author study: freshness and excitement hard to experience a spiritual crisis Range of writing match. They are characterized by a through the development of the Fast narrative drive fast narrative drive and a flair for plot. On the contrary, their actions Rich, inventive language language. He catches readers from and responses to each other Humorous writing the first sentence, holding their trigger the events. Try using Dahl’s Larger-than-life attention to the very end. He taps characterization as a model for characters into children’s imagination and sees children to write their own Straightforward plots the world as children do - from a character sketches, focusing on Detailed descriptions perspective which is self-contained, details which evoke instant Modern-day fairy stories subjective and unambiguous in the sympathy or dislike. delineation of right and wrong. His plots are focused, stripped to Plots essentials, his characters larger The plots in Dahl’s stories are than life and his descriptions straightforward and linear, Dahl’s ability to see the culminating in satisfying, world as children do. unambiguous endings in which the ‘baddies’ get their come- ‘Matilda and Lavender saw the giant in green uppance. They provide breeches advancing upon a girl of about ten ample opportunities for who had a pair of plaited golden pigtails exploring essential hanging over her shoulders.’ ingredients of narrative - from introduction to build- up to conflict and conflict resolution. Key incidents are easily recognizable and can be charted through the use of simple storyboards. Viewpoint The viewpoint is crucial to the way we interpret the text - which means that a story can be read in different ways, depending on who is telling it. I L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L next page: word and sentence level work L Danny the Champion of the World Poetry is told by Danny in the first Dahl’s poetry is rich in rhyme, Moonlight is an important person narrative so that the reader rhythm and humour. Dirty Beasts element in Dahl’s stories. empathizes with Danny and sees and Revolting Rhymes will things from his perspective. A third encourage children to seek out ‘The wood was murky and very person narrative usually offers a poetry. It will also help them to still. Somewhere in the sky the neutral standpoint - providing an develop listening and oral skills. moon was shining.’ overview of all the characters and Sounds and word patterns are events. However in Dahl’s stories, almost as important as the content his third person narratives are of Dahl’s poems. Enjoyment often often more complex. He breaks comes from his fusion of them down with another, incongruous, disparate and anonymous voice - whose function unexpected images. Use the fairy is to disrupt the smooth unfolding tale characters in Revolting Rhymes of events and make the reader see as models to trigger children’s own things from a definite slant. Using alternative poems. asides and running commentary, the anonymous narrator introduces Wit beliefs, opinions, likes and dislikes Humour permeates all of Dahl’s which colour our view of the story. work and takes different forms. An Encourage children to try to unexpected turn of events, identify who is telling the story and exaggeration, absurd behaviour, to examine how this affects the wordplay, nonsense words, the way they see the characters. In grotesque and dark humour are their own writing, they can explore just some of the ways by which point of view by retelling a story Dahl holds his young audience. sweets and confectionery and from another character’s a burgeoning love of nature, standpoint. Non-fiction fully developed in later years in Dahl’s account of his childhood is My Year. His own strong, Comparing stories set out in his autobiography, Boy. individualist personality, an In Dahl’s stories, the main The events and situations which he integral part of all of his main characters are often children from describes here are the basis for characters, is rooted in personal one-parent families like Danny or themes which he develops in his experiences of growing up in a orphans as is James in James and fiction - punishment at the hands world dominated and frustrated the Giant Peach, Sophie in The BFG of grown-ups, a fascination with by adult values. and the narrator in The Witches. The child symbolizes innocence and a force for good, and is pitted against adults who embody negative forces - of evil, brutality, stupidity or simply incompetence. Recurring themes Night-time, especially the aspect of moonlight, is an important element in the books. Moonlight plays havoc with our senses and infuses the landscape with fluidity and soft shapes. It heralds a world of magic and dreams and is the perfect fantasy setting. It is in the moonlight that Sophie first Dahl’s characters carry lays eyes on the BFG while the the plot by their actions. main events of Danny the Champion of the World take ‘Mr Fox crept up the dark tunnel to the mouth place at night under the spell of of his hole. He poked his long handsome face the moon. out into the night air and sniffed once.’ L L L L L L L L L L L L L L Word Level L Roald Dahl has an extraordinary and inventive way with language. In his hands it sparkles with wit and assumes a Author life of its own - open to endless possibilities of meaning profile: Feel for language The BFG, one of the wittiest Roald Dahl delights in the sounds children’s books ever written, and music of words, their meaning exemplifies Dahl’s extraordinary Roald Dahl and rhyme. He enriches his fiction zest for language. The BFG has had with a whole vocabulary of little education, he claims. Besides, invented words - gobblefunk, he lives in a world of his own and uckyslush, lickswishy - whose models language to his own meanings derive from their purpose. His hearing is acute and sounds. His prose sizzles with so, naturally, his understanding of wordplay, giving his language a language is phonic-based to freshness, spontaneity and vigour. produce words such as langwitch His non-fiction writing, especially and vegitibbles. Some words and in My Year, is lyrical, fluid and phrases become muddled - a precise, with simple descriptions mixture of spoonerisms and of the nature he so loved. The malapropisms: curdbloodingling, richness of both his fiction and skin and groans, catasterous non-fiction makes them perfect for disastrophe, squeakpips, elefunt reading aloud. and squarreling. His explanations often culminate in Am I right or left? Wordplay Humour in Dahl’s work derives Onomatopoeia from his obvious relish for words. Dahl’s sensitivity to the richness of Dahl uses language to create language is most obvious in his use humour, often playing havoc with of onomatopoeia - the formation of our sense of logic and order. His words by imitating sounds. fiction is brimming with Prevalent in all his work, it is at its spoonerisms - transposing the most creative in the character of initial letters or syllables of two or the BFG, who constructs a whole more words, malapropisms - using new language from sound-words. a word in mistake for one sounding similar, and deliberate misspellings. Dahl’s relish for words and wordplay and zest for language. ‘The Enormous Crocodile laughed so much his teeth rattled together like pennies in a moneybox...Very quickly, the crocodile reached up and snapped his jaws at the Roly-Poly Bird.’ I L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L next page: poetry/fiction L He sorts the dreams he collects Alliteration aunts Spiker and Sponge - not into good and bad - soft, sonorous Alliteration, having the same letter forgetting the dim-witted farming words denote the good dreams, or sound at the beginning of trio Boggis, Bunce and Bean and, consonant-heavy, stressed vowels several words, adds spice to a text of course, the mellifluous, gentle and lumbering sounds describe the and heightens comic effect.