Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz (Walker Books) Alex Rider is not your average fourteen-year-old. Raised by his mysterious uncle, an uncle who dies in equally mysterious circumstances, Alex finds himself thrown into the murky world of espionage. Trained by MI6 and sent out into the field just weeks later, Alex’s first mission is to infiltrate the base of the reclusive billionaire suspected of killing his uncle. Filmic and fast-paced (the novel was later made into a feature film), Stormbreaker is a riot of an adventure story in the vein of James Bond and offers teachers and children the opportunity to explore the structure of a successful adventure story in detail. Overall learning aims of this teaching sequence: . To explore, in depth, characterisation and settings in an adventure narrative. To explore the motivations and actions of characters. To explore key themes in a longer narrative. To explore similarities and differences between a written and a filmed text. This teaching sequence is designed for a Year 5 or Year 6 class. Overview of this teaching sequence. This teaching sequence is approximately 4 weeks long if spread over 20 sessions. Writing Outcomes Teaching Approaches . Reading Aloud . Diary entries . ‘Tell Me’ - Booktalk . Letters . Writing in Role . Reflective first person narratives . Visual Approaches . Character profiles . Debate and Argument . Notes for class discussion and debate . Shared Writing . Text for graphic novel adaptation . Story Mapping . Written comparisons . Drama and Role Play . Roll on the Wall Resources Copies of the Stormbreaker Notebooks for each child (see the resource at the bottom of the teaching sequence) Stormbreaker film (released 2006). Graphic novel of Stormbreaker. ©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE. Teaching sessions Session 1: Reading Aloud Reading aloud - Reading aloud is one of the most important ways that children are motivated and supported to become readers. It is essential that children experience hearing texts read aloud in the classroom as a regular part of each school day. Reading aloud slows written language down so that children can hear and absorb the words, tunes and patterns. It enables children to experience and enjoy stories they might otherwise not meet, enlarging their reading interests and providing access to texts beyond their level of independence as readers. Read aloud the first sentence: “When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it’s never good news.” (NOTE: It might be best if you don’t share the title of the novel with the children beforehand). Discuss in pairs/whole class, how this opening line impacts on the reader/listener. What predictions does it set up for them about what genre this is e.g. might this be a thriller? Do the students think they will enjoy reading this book? . Hand out the Stormbreaker Notebooks and ask the children to note down their initial responses on p2 of the notebook. Continue reading aloud up to bottom of p10 ‘…so sorry’, and ask the children to listen for any indications this might be a thriller. Collect together on a flip chart or board the indications this story is going to be a thriller on the board (you may need to reread the chapter to this point again in order for the children to collect the clues they are looking for). Before reading on, discuss with class what they think might have happened to whom, using the information in the text (be aware some of the children may already be familiar with the book or the film). Continue reading to the end of the chapter. Ask the children to discuss, in pairs, what questions they have that are unanswered by the first chapter. Ask the children to add their questions to their Stormbreaker Notebooks. Sessions 2 and 3: ‘Tell Me’ – Booktalk, Writing in Role, Drama and Role Play: Hot Seating ‘Tell Me’ – Booktalk is an approach to discussing texts that supports all readers and writers and is particularly useful for those children who find literacy difficult, developed by the author and educationalist Aidan Chambers. In its simplest form, the approach is based around asking children ‘Tell me’ about four key elements of a text, likes and dislikes, puzzles they have, and connections they make, both within the text and from other sources. Drama and Role Play - Role play and drama provide immediate routes into the world of a story and allow children to explore texts actively. Through drama and role play, they are encouraged to experiment with the 'what if?' of the text and make it their own. Writing in Role - When children have explored a fictional situation through talk or role-play, they may be ready to write in role as a character in the story. Taking the role of a particular character enables young writers to see events from a different viewpoint and involves them writing in a different voice. In role, children can often access feelings and language that are not available to them when they write as themselves. Read aloud up to the end of Heaven for Cars. Ask your class to consider the questions Tell me, what do you like about the story so far? What do you dislike about the story so far? What puzzles do you have about this chapter? (add to the children’s puzzles and questions from the previous session). What connections can you make with other novels or films? Ask the specific questions: Who do you think the men in the yard are? Who might these people work for and what is their aim? What does Alex think has happened at this point? What does he suspect? What should he do now? . As the children to recap in pairs on the events leading up to Alex’s escape from the wreckage yard. Ask them to formulate questions they would like to ask Alex at this point in the story. Ask one of the children to hot seat the role of Alex and ask the other children to pose the character of Alex their questions (you could have several children take the role as Alex, leading to a range of different potential answers). In Session 3, ask the children to take the role of Alex and write a short secret journal entry about events up to this point, after he has been shot at and escaped from the wreckage yard (there is a page allocated to this in the Stormbreaker Notebook). Read aloud the chapter Royal & General before the next session. Sessions 4 and 5: Drama and Role Play – Conscience Alley, Role on the Wall Conscience Alley - Conscience Alley is a useful technique for exploring any kind of dilemma faced by a character, providing an opportunity to analyse a decisive moment in greater detail. Role on the Wall - Role on the wall is a technique that uses a displayed outline of the character to record feelings (inside the outline) and outward appearances (outside the outline) at various stopping points across the story. Read aloud to the end of the chapter So What Do You Say? to the line ‘There was a long pause’. Ask the children to discuss in small groups whether or not they think Alex trusts these people and whether they think he should. Ask them then to consider individually the advice they would give to Alex at this point. Should he? What should he do? What do the methods chosen by Blunt suggest about him as a character and the organisation he represents? . Asking one child to act as Alex, and the others to form two lines down the room, ask the character of Alex to walk down the centre of the line and for everyone else in turn to whisper their advice for what he should do at this point. When Alex gets to the end of the conscience alley, ask him what his decision is going to be and what has made his mind up about this. Ask the children to consider what Alex would be thinking, and to write a short reflective piece, in role, on his thoughts on what he has been asked (p4 of the Stormbreaker Notebook). Read to the end of the chapter and ask the children how they would feel if they were Alex at this point, pressured into making this decision, and what might happen as a result of him deciding to go along with Blunt’s plan. In Session 5, ask the children in small groups to discuss the character of Blunt – What do we know about him so far? What do we think of him as a character? Reread the sections of the previous two chapters in which we are introduced to Blunt and we see him acting and speaking. Ask the children to fill in the roll on the wall for Blunt in their notebooks, with comments about both his physical appearance and his character, backed up by evidence from the text. Sessions 6 and 7: Writing in Role, Debate and Discussion, Reading Aloud Debate - debating ideas calls for a more formal and objective response to the story and helps children begin to analyse how the writer has made us feel this way. Teachers can structure debates inviting 'for' and 'against' arguments around particular statements arising from a book. Read Double O Nothing aloud. Hold a short class debate about the issue of asking children to do the work of an adult. Is it ever acceptable to put a child in danger? Split the class into two groups and ask one group to prepare arguments.