Possible Written Outcomes or Incidental Writing Opportunities
  • Fact File on a Greek God
  • Diary entry from a Greek Olympian/Theseus when he killed the Minotaur
  • Cartoon strip of the Minotaur Myth
  • Write own Greek Myth
  • Character description of the Minotaur
  • Greek poetry
  • Hero Wanted poster
/ Year 3
/ 1. Responding to the Text
  • Use front cover. Ask questions about where the story
might be set
  • Story map/timeline of events or mapping journey
  • Writer talk: Discuss use of speech/speech marks?
  • Writer talk: How is the text organised?
  • Features of a cartoon strip – short sentences, very little
Description, dialogue shown in pictures.
  • Writer talk: look closely at the language that adds
detail to the text and engages the reader. Find strong
verbs, effective adjectives, specific nouns and similes.
  • How does the author weave the story thread using the
cartoon style?
  • Draw a timeline of actions and report on how the author
speeds up time.
Hook
  • Watch video clip:
  • Storyteller session –read part 1 of the Greek myth, Minotaur and Theseus.

2. Capturing Ideas
  • Freeze frame role plays at different points
  • Breakfast TV style role play – interviewing Theseus, Aridane, King Minos – how the events of the story changed their lives
  • Explore characters’ feelings at different points in the story
  • Use dialogue from cartoon to write a playscript and act it out
  • Class performance of the story
  • Use plasticene to make Minotaur models
  • Design own labyrinth
  • Debate – was Theseus one of the first superheroes?
/ Sentence Games (use throughout unit)
  • Conjunctions game
  • Warming up the word - generating synonyms for aharacters’ feelings
  • Improve a sentence- focus on the grammatical elements that need consolidation or review
  • Topic sentence game - give topic sentence. Children suggest contents of paragraph
/ 3. Contextualised Grammar Teaching
  • Choosing relevant adjectives to describe hero and mythical
beast (zone of relevance)
  • Develop use of speech marks/inverted commas
  • Develop expanded noun phrases
  • Varying sentence structures for effect
  • Structuring topic sentences to open paragraphs or
Sections
  • Opening paragraphs using adverbials of time and place
and think about how this moves story on and builds tension
Guided Reading Possibilities
  • Read and explore other Greek myths.
  • Identify and discuss features of text type for final written outcome. Level of text can be pitched at each groups’ level, ensuring both access and challenge.
  • Watch and discuss Daedalus and Icarus:

4. Modelled Writing
Shared Writing
Guided Writing
Independent Writing
  • Produce own cartoon strip of the story
  • Write own story thread for their myth
  • Write own Greek myth based on the story of the
Minotaur and Theseus
MAKING LINKS ACROSS THE CURRICULUM
Geography
• Locate the River Tyne on a map
Research flying competitions from other cultures / PSHE
• How does hope help Dad and Lizzie?
  • What is your dream?
• How can you achieve your dream? / Science
  • Forces – how can things fly?
  • Living things - birds

Art/DT
Pattern and form in feathers
If you entered a human bird competition, what would your invention look like? / Useful Links