Activities for Raven Boy and Elf Girl: Fright Forest (Level 2)

Marcus Sedgwick learning resources

CFE Levels 2, 3 and 4

Activities for Raven Boy and Elf Girl: Fright Forest (Level 2)

Mythical creatures factfileLit 2-28a, Lit 2-14a, Lit 2-25a (if pupils make notes)

Marcus Sedgwick draws on many features of traditional fantasy and adventure novels, particularly in his cast of villains. Ask your pupils to find different examples of mythical creatures, and create a factfile on these creatures. There are various ways they could find out about mythical creatures;

• Borrow and read some novels featuring fairytale creatures (e.g., The Hobbit, The Dragon Whisperer, The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, A Tale Dark and Grimm, Five Children and It, Artemis Fowl, The Land of Green Ginger, How to Train your Dragon, Fungus the Bogeyman, The Little Broomstick).
• Gather some facts about mythological creatures here: and here: You might also wish pupils to use the Simple English Wikipedia, which has articles of various lengths on legendary creatures if you search for their names: Finally, Factmonster has lots of child friendly information here:
• Research some less well known creatures using this site:

You can ask your pupils what type of information they think should be in the factfile, and how it should be laid out: to help save time, we’ve created a suggested template, which you’ll find in the appendix at the end of this resource.

If you want to take this a bit further, your pupils could create Top Trumps for all the creatures, and invite younger classes in to teach them how to play. This TES resource provides a template for creating Top Trump cards:

Researching forestsLit 2-02a, Lit 2-28a, Lit 2-25a (if pupils make notes), Exa 3-01a (if pupils adapt into a play)

Raven Boy enlists the help of a number of forest animals: the badgers help him dig his way out of trouble, birds tell him how to get places and where to find food, and bees help him and Elf Girl escape from the three trolls.

Your pupils can think about other animals which could help Raven Boy and Elf Girl. Ask them to get into groups, and ask them to discuss different animals which would be able to help Raven Boy and Elf Girl if they need to do the following things:

• Dig a hole;
• Send a message to someone;
• Find their way around the forest at night;
• Defeat an enemy;
• Find something to eat.

Once the group has identified some animals, tell them that their task is to write a guide to these animals for Raven Boy and Elf Girl. They can then research the animal and present their findings as a leaflet.

Relevant information might include where you would be likely to find the animal, what its skills are, what kind of food you can give it in return for its help, and what kind of situations it could help with.

To help incorporate Expressive Arts, you could encourage pupils to write and perform a dramatic scene where Raven Boy and Elf Girl have to enlist the help of one of the forest animals to overcome a problem.

If you want to explore a local forest with your pupils, or just want to do a wider programme of activities around forests, the Forest Education Initiative has a large range of resources to help you:

Shared readingLit 2-16a, Eng 2-31a, Eng 2-19a (these 3 outcomes are included as pupils will need to understand the text before adapting it), Lit 2-03a, Tch 2-03a (if you use any ICT), HWB 2-11a, HWB 2-13a

Shared reading between older and younger pupils can be a powerful way to create a reading community in your school, by giving older pupils the responsibility of helping young ones to enjoy and discover stories.

When dealing with more complex texts like Fright Forest, older pupils can be challenged to find a way to make the story accessible to younger ones. Scottish Book Trust filmed a case study of shared reading in action at one primary school where pupils chose to adapt a text into a play to make it accessible to P2s:

Your pupils could choose to adapt Fright Forest into a play, but since it is a chapter book and hence much longer than a picture book, you could challenge your pupils to get into groups and adapt different sections of the novel. They could choose the following ways to share their sections with younger readers:

• Simply reading the sections out loud: this is an excellent way for older pupils to work on their talk skills by choosing how to pace their reading, what different voices to put on, which sections need to be read quietly and loudly, and what questions to ask the younger pupils as they read.
• Create an illustrated digital version of the story: you could get your pupils to draw pictures of the key scenes in each chapter. After this, their pictures can be scanned into a computer, and they can create a Powerpoint, or use a video editing program to create a ‘digital story’ (you’ll find a guide to Windows Movie Maker on our website: They can accompany their images with recorded narration, or alternatively show their presentation to the younger pupils and narrate it live.

Activities for Revolver (Levels 3 and 4)

Produce a booktrailer for RevolverTch 3-03a, Tch 3-04a, Lit 3-16a, Eng 3-31a, Eng 3-19a (other outcomes will vary depending on whether you use pre-existing images and sounds for the booktrailer, or if your pupils film and record their own content for the trailer)

Revolver is a particularly atmospheric and tense novel with memorable characters. Creating a booktrailer is a great opportunity for pupils to use their understanding of the novel’s key elements to entice others to read it.

Scottish Book Trust’s Booktrailer Masterclass series of videos provide a great introduction to booktrailers, and on the page you can also find an example booktrailer for Marcus Sedgwick’s novel The White Crow, as well as a video explaining how it was made:

Discursive writingLit 3-29a(CFE links for rap battles activities can be found within the resources mentioned at the bottom)

“If you’re going to explain it to him, you should explain both halves of it, not just one!” (p. 110)

Sig’s father believes he is right to keep a gun, despite the objections of Maria and Anna. He is so preoccupied with the ‘beauty’ of a gun’s mechanical precision that he fails to acknowledge that its primary purpose is a brutal and cold one.

There are many different inventions which have shaped our world but caused controversy: weapons, transport powered by fossil fuels, stem cells, the internet and even mobile phones. Your pupils can explore the debate around keeping a gun, or any of these other issues, in a discursive piece of writing.

If you want to explore discursive writing in an alternative medium, have a look at our resources on exploring debate through rap battles – this page includes blogs from two teachers who successfully used this approach, plus the resources they created to help you do it for yourself:

Tension in a narrativeEng 3-31a (if your pupils write a story),Eng 3-19a, Lit 3-11a, Lit 3-16a

Marcus Sedgwick’s prose style is often very economical, creating a taut and gripping narrative.

If you wish to investigate this in a critical piece of writing with your pupils, you can focus on the following points:

• How questions are raised in the novel’s opening section – why Einar chose to go across the ice, and why Wolff has come looking for Einar;
• How Sedgwick only gradually reveals the answers to these questions, using flashbacks throughout the story;
• How we are uncertain of Wolff’s intentions at the beginning, and how it gradually becomes clearer what he wants;
• How Sedgwick creates tension through his characterisation of Wolff as a man clearly capable of causing harm;
• How Sedgwick gives his character no chance to run, meaning his only chance of escape is to outsmart and overcome Wolff.

Alternatively, you could get pupils to write a story and try out some of these techniques for themselves. With only 800 words available, flashbacks may not be viable, but you could encourage pupils to draw on some of the techniques, using the suggested story structure below:

Opening – Set the scene: give the reader an impression of where the story is set and who the main character is

Introduce a source of conflict – introduce another character. Like Wolff, this character should be clearly painted as threatening, but their intentions and motive should not be revealed to the reader at this stage.

Rising action – there should be dialogue between the characters which escalates. For example, the antagonist character could begin by looking around and picking things up, then acknowledge the main character and begin asking questions.

Climax – gradually the antagonist’s motive becomes clearer, and the main character is faced with the dilemma of what to do.

Resolution – what happens in the immediate moments after the climax.

If you want to help your pupils explore their understanding of the character of Wolff through Art and Design, they could work on a painting of him, or alternatively, you could get them to produce something more abstract to convey their understanding of the character: have a look at this example of a cross-curricular project on character:

Enjoyment and Choice in Reading and Writing

Some pupils tend to have a preconception of ‘good writing’ as being highly descriptive and ornate. However, many writers feel differently – George Orwell’s rules for effective writing give food for thought:

Marcus Sedgwick’s prose in Revolver is relatively simple and economic in its use of description, being more focused on developing character and plot.

There are merits to both styles, and there are several ways you can encourage pupils to discover their preference:

• Word Budget – encourage pupils to allocate a word ‘budget’ or limit to each section of their stories. For example, they could allocate 25 words to describing setting at the start, and then 150 words to introducing character and conflict. Some may find this approach a little too contrived, however, and will respond better to simply being encouraged to cut things out at the redrafting process!
• Compare different styles – show the pupils the opening paragraphs of Revolver on a powerpoint, and then compare this with something very different. For a stark contrast, you could use the famous opening to Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Paul Clifford:

However, evocative description is often necessary and helpful to the reader. Discuss the following questions with your pupils:

-When might it be important for a writer to describe features of the setting in detail to the reader? For instance, if the reader needs to understand how frightening or jarring a particular scene is, or if the setting is unfamiliar to the reader (e.g., in a fantasy novel).

-When describing setting, does a writer have to try and capture everything? If they had to write a description of their classroom or another familiar place, what details would they include/leave out?

-Is it better for a writer to leave description of setting to a minimum, so the reader can picture things in their head?

Name and image of creature / Places you might find it / Behaviour
(What does it eat? Is it friendly to humans? Does it live in groups, or alone?) / Special skills
(Strength, magic powers, ability to fly, etc.)
Troll
/ Forests, caves, mountains / Some trolls live in small families, others live alone.
Rarely friendly to humans.
Have been known to steal human children and replace them with their own.
Fond of eating humans, goblins and dwarves. / No special skills of note.

Appendix – template for mythical creatures factfile