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English Online. Every child literate - a shared responsibility.
Ministry of Education.

Learning task 3

Learning intention(s) We are learning to analyse the effect of using an innocent narrator.
KCs/Principles/Values focus Relate to others – work collaboratively; peer assess
Participate and contribute
Think – make connections; use graphic organiser as thinking tool; justify; infer; use background knowledge; predict
  1. Read aloud and ask students to re-read an extract from the novel, “ Once” by Morris Gleitzman. Do we have a first person or a third person narrator? Do we have a naïve narrator or a ‘knowing’ narrator? How do we know?
  2. Ask students to highlight a word or phrase in the extract which answers each of the following questions:
    • When is the story set?
    • What country is the story set in?
    • Where is the main character living at the moment?
  3. Ask students to discuss, in groups, the following questions:

    Why is he there?

    Does he know why he’s there?

    How happy does he feel about his life there?

    What is suggested to the reader about his life?

    Student should record answers on the table. Use the completed table as the basis for a discussion of the idea that when the narrator is innocent or naïve there are two levels of understanding

    • what the character him/herself understands
    • what the reader understands
  4. Ask students to list what the reader knows or understands that the narrator doesn’t.
  5. Discuss how the reader knows. This could lead to a discussion with students about the way that good readers make use of reading strategies such as Making Predictions, Using Prior Knowledge, Inferring, Making Connections between ideas in a text to help them understand the text. Students should use inference chart (Word 30KB) to show how they have made inferences from the text.
  6. Ask students to choose another text (or an extract from a text) already studied which has a naïve narrator. Select some quotes from that text and write them on the blank inference chart (Word 29KB) .Give chart to a peer and ask peer to complete. Ask students to discuss results with peer.
  7. For this second text, students should collaborate on making a list of what the reader knows or understands that the narrator doesn’t.

Published on: 26 Dec 2010




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