Shakespeare and More
English Unit / Lord of the Flies
William Golding
Written Outcomes:
Two short narrative scenes
and
An essay: What makes a good leader?
and
A personal response to Lord of the Flies / Resources:
Lord of the Flies by William Golding[1]
Duration: About four weeks / Unit Objectives:
Over the course of the unit pupils will be given many opportunities to:
Develop positive attitudes to reading by increasing their familiarity fiction from the English literary heritage
Discuss similar themes occurring across stories and expressing preferences
Discuss and summarising main ideas and identify key supporting details
Discuss how authors use language, including figurative language, in the books they read, and considering the impact on the reader
Participate in conversations about books that are read to them and those they can read for themselves, building on their own and others’ ideas and challenging views courteously
Plan, draft, write, edit and evaluate written work to produce outcomes of a high standard
Identify the audience for and purpose of the writing, selecting the appropriate form for their own writing
Select appropriate grammar and vocabulary, understanding how such choices can change and enhance meaning
Session / Learning Objectives / Lesson Content & Organisation / Differentiation & Assessment
1 / To read and discuss fiction from the English literary heritage
To infer characters' feelings, thoughts and motives from their action and dialogue / Without too much introduction, read the book until ‘if it really is an island’ (p.10).[2]
Discussion[3]- Who are these two boys we’ve just met? What are they like as characters? What do they make of each other? Take feedback from class.[4]
Read until ‘and there was silence’ (p.15). What is the conch? What does it do? Whose idea is it to blow it? What are Ralph and Piggy doing respectively in this scene?
Continue reading about the arrival of the choir until ‘his name was Simon.’ (p.18) Who are these new children? Who’s in charge? Why does Jack want to be called Merridew? Who does Ralph identify with? How do we know?[5]
Continue reading until the vote has been held- ‘and held up the conch for silence.’ (p.20) What’s happened here? How does Jack feel? What does Ralph do to smooth over the situation? What does this tell you about him?
Continue until ‘back to the platform’ (p.22). How does Piggy feel? How would this relate to his life at home, before they came to the island? What is the relationship between him and Ralph now?
Between lessons 1&2, finish the chapter.
2 / To read and discuss fiction from the English literary heritage
To infer characters' feelings, thoughts and motives from their action and dialogue / Recap the end of the chapter as a class. Discuss: fun and sense of adventure, Jack and the pig- what happened and how did Jack feel?
Read until ‘the assembly was silent’. Discuss the beast. Is there such a thing as the beast? Who thinks there might be? Who doesn’t? Does Jack’s contribution help?[6]
Continue, reading Ralph’s speech (ending on ‘Make a fire!’ p. 37) Discuss: Is he a good leader? Why? What does he do to give the children hope? Does he believe what he is saying?
Read the fire scene, up until ‘you got your small fire all right.’ (top of p.44)
In groups of 3-5, pupils work together to answer one of 5 key questions:[7]
- What is the relationship between Jack and Ralph like now?
- What is the relationship between Jack and Piggy like now?
- What is the relationship between Piggy and Ralph like now?
- How are the rules working?
- Who is in charge of the boys?
They then feedback to the class.[8]
3 / To consider how authors use language, including figurative language, in the books they read, and considering the impact on the reader
To use key terminology relating to specific language features- similes and metaphors, and personification / Pupils are given extract from the story describing the fire.[9] Working in pairs or groups, children locate and highlight evidence in the text that demonstrates descriptive language. Considering:
-Similes and metaphors
-Personification
-Details drawn from sight, sound, scent and touch-
-Beautiful language
-Anything else that catches their eye
This can be recorded in a frame or in books. They then feedback to each other, sharing what they learned from the extract.[10] These can be shared with the whole class.
Read the rest of the chapter aloud.[11]
4 / To read and discuss fiction from the English literary heritage
To infer characters' feelings, thoughts and motives from their action and dialogue / Discuss character of Jack. How do we know what he is like? Pupils are given extract of the opening of Chapter 3.[12] Working in pairs or groups, children locate and highlight evidence in the texts that describes Jack as a character. They can collect direct evidence from description and make inferences from his words and actions. This can be recorded in a frame or in books.[13] They then feedback to each other, sharing what they learned from their extract. These can be shared with the whole class.
Read until ‘together again’ (p.56) Discuss: what’s happened? Have Jack or Ralph changed? Do they want the same thing? Why might Jack be so keen to catch a pig?
Between lessons 4&5, finish the rest of the chapter.
5 / To read and discuss fiction from the English literary heritage
To infer characters' feelings, thoughts and motives from their action and dialogue / Read from start of Chapter 4 to ‘broke into a trot’ (p.63). Discuss: how did Maurice feel about getting sand in the littlun’s eye? What made him feel this way? What memory?
Continue until “Roger’ (p.65) Discuss: why is Roger not hitting Henry? But what does the fact he’s throwing stones at all tell you about him?
Explain to class that William Golding rarely describes a character, but instead tells you about them through their words and actions.[14] This is going to be the class’ homework task:
Write a short paragraph about any boy on the island. Their actions and words should try to give a snapshot of their character.
Pupils write their plans and share with partners. First draft to be completed for the next lesson.
6 / To develop written work, tailoring improvements to needs of the reader
Success Criteria to include:
Organise texts into paragraphs to distinguish between different information
Use adverbs and conjunctions to establish cohesion within paragraphs
Clarify meaning and point of view by using varied sentence structure / Collect homework in and give brief feed back.[15] Children to swap work with partners, read and then give a summary of what they think the character is like from their actions.
Whole class teaching of one or more key elements of English.[16]
Provide pupils with opportunity to edit their writing, making necessary changes to spelling, grammar, presentation etc. Pupils may add additional content or improve clarity, but this is not essential at this point. While pupils are feeding back to one another and editing their own work, the teacher will work one-to-one with pupils identified as needing support.
Work is collected in for detailed written feedback.[17] / Target questions at different groups/individuals to ensure participation
The teacher can focus their attention on different individuals and groups, stretching more able children or supporting those who have struggled with the task.
7 / To develop written work, tailoring improvements to needs of the reader
Success Criteria to include:
Organise texts into paragraphs to distinguish between different information
Use adverbs and conjunctions to establish cohesion within paragraphs
Clarify meaning and point of view by using varied sentence structure / Pupils read copies of one pupil’s work that is strong, along with teacher feedback.[18] Discussion: What are the effective strong/effective elements and the areas to strengthen?
Process is repeated with a less-developed piece of work. Analyse strengths and share in table groups. Individually identify one area where improvements could be made. Discuss as class. Pupils consider own work. Are any of the points made about other pupils’ work applicable to their own? Pupils decide on changes they can make and share in groups.
Pupils edit and then redraft work.
Before lesson 8 read from p.65 until ‘The mask compelled them.’ (p.67) Briefly discuss the painting of faces and how this makes the boys feel.[19]
8 / To consider and empathise with literary characters / Read to the end of the chapter 4.
In groups, children will discuss the current relationship between the main protagonists. Each group is given either:
Jack and Ralph
Ralph and Piggy
Jack and Piggy
To discuss how they feel about each other and the evidence for this from the book.[20] They can then feedback to other groups, so everyone has considered each relationship.
Between lessons 8&9 read until ‘a gesture of disapproval.’ (p.84)
9 / To discuss how authors use language, including figurative language, in the books they read, and considering the impact on the reader / Read until ‘Jack sat down, grumbling.’ (p.87) Discuss: what is Ralph trying to do? What is his relationship like with Jack? Is the conch still keeping the rules alive?
Read until ‘biguns joined in.’ (p.94). Discuss: what does this tell us about life on the island? The relationship between the boys? What is fear doing to the group? Why does Percival state his whole address? Why does this make him cry?
Read until ‘He says it comes out of the sea.’ (p.94) and then stop.[21]
10 / To discuss books and characters, building on their own and others’ ideas
To plan written work, organising ideas and key phrases / Discuss with the class the notion of a good leader. What attributes does a good leader need? Collect suggestions and add to these if necessary.[22]
What makes a good leader?
Tell class they will be writing an essay, like a secondary school pupil. Share the title.
Discussion: How can they use the characters from Lord of the Flies to answer this question? Collect names of characters that help to lead the boys. Accept all suggestions.
Divide children into groups and allocate each a suggestion. As a class you’ll probably want to discount suggestions other than Ralph, Jack, Piggy (and perhaps Simon or Roger at a push). Ask them to think about each character (actions, what other characters say, quotes) and compare to the traits they identified earlier. How good a leader would their character make? These can then be presented to the class and comparisons can be made.
As a class, write a plan for what would be in a great answer. They could argue for one particular character. Another possible structure is:
I could be argued that Jack…
Others would argue that Ralph…
In my opinion, …
Rehearse some of the vocabulary of persuasive writing as a class, provide resources for quotes, useful phrases etc.
Homework: First draft of essay.[23]
11 / To develop written work, tailoring improvements to needs of the reader
Success Criteria to include:
Organise texts into paragraphs to distinguish between different information
Use adverbs and conjunctions to establish cohesion within paragraphs
Clarify meaning and point of view by using varied sentence structure / Collect homework in and give brief feed back.[24] Children to swap work with partners, read and then give feedback to one another.
Whole class teaching of one or more key elements of English.[25]
Provide pupils with opportunity to edit their writing, making necessary changes to spelling, grammar, presentation etc. Pupils may add additional content or improve clarity, but this is not essential at this point. While pupils are feeding back to one another and editing their own work, the teacher will work one-to-one with pupils identified as needing support.
Work is collected in for detailed written feedback.[26] / Target questions at different groups/individuals to ensure participation
The teacher can focus their attention on different individuals and groups, stretching more able children or supporting those who have struggled with the task.
12 / To develop written work, tailoring improvements to needs of the reader
Success Criteria to include:
Organise texts into paragraphs to distinguish between different information
Use adverbs and conjunctions to establish cohesion within paragraphs
Clarify meaning and point of view by using varied sentence structure / Pupils read copies of one pupil’s work that is strong, along with teacher feedback.[27] Discussion: What are the effective strong/effective elements and the areas to strengthen?
Process is repeated with a less-developed piece of work. Analyse strengths and share in table groups. Individually identify one area where improvements could be made. Discuss as class. Pupils consider own work. Are any of the points made about other pupils’ work applicable to their own? Pupils decide on changes they can make and share in groups.
Pupils edit and then redraft work.
13 / To read and discuss fiction from the English literary heritage
To infer characters' feelings, thoughts and motives from their action and dialogue / Recap where the story was left. Read through the rest of the chapter, stopping where appropriate to ensure the class are following and to ask questions and discuss what is happening. As a class, discuss: Where are the characters allegiances now? Have they changed as people? Is this what the class thought would have happened at the start of the book?
Read the start of chapter 6 until ‘sank and bowed again.’ (p.104). What has happened?
14 / To discuss how authors use language, including figurative language, in the books they read, and considering the impact on the reader / Pupils are given extract from the story describing Samneric seeing ‘the beast’.[28] Working in pairs or groups, children locate and highlight effective language that creates the sense of pace in the text. Considering: