Literacy week 6

Day 1: Reading

Read chapter 1 of 'The boy at the back of the class'. It is available at The Boy at the Back of the Class - Chapter 1

Answer the following questions:

1. What is usually the best thing about starting a brand-new term?
2. Whose fault is it that the astronaut ruler gets broken (according to the narrator)? Do you agree, and why/ why not?
3. Why does the narrator dislike maths? Use evidence from the text to support your answer
4. Why does the narrator hide snacks and chocolate bars from Tom?
5. How does the author show us that Josie is a good Best Friend?
6. Why doesn’t Michael care when people make fun of him?
7. What does Mum say about people without imaginations? What do you think she means by this?
8. List 3 reasons why Mrs Khan is a better teacher than Mr Thompson.
9. Why is everyone scared of Mrs Sanders?
10. Why does the narrator feel sorry for Ahmet as soon as he is led to the empty chair?

Day 2:
In chapter one the narrator talks of their love of comics. The narrator also gives a lot of details about their 3 best friends. Using the descriptions given in chapter one, draw Josie, Micheal and Tom as if they are characters in a comic book.

Day 3:
Using the character descriptions in chapter one as inspiration, right a character description for your three best friends. Remember that a detailed description allows readers to create an image of what that person is like. Just as the authors description of Josie, Micheal and Thomas gave you enough detail to draw them as a comic book character.

Try to include descriptive devices such as noun-phrases, similes, metaphor, personification and hyperbole.

An example about Miss Stavish's best friend:

Beth is like no-one else I have ever met. Her sarcasm can often seem quite harsh, some say that she has an acid tongue her comments are so cutting. Yet Beth's loyalty as a friend is fiercer than a dogs. She is hard faced around strangers. Never letting anyone she does not know see her emotions. Resulting in her looking like she is disinterested most of the time. However when she does smile it is wider that the grand canyon with sparkling white teeth so straight they look like they drawn with a ruler. Freckles are dotted all over her fair skin which is the perfect compliment to her luscious, long auburn hair. Her style is very much like her attitude; always put together. Never anything out of place. Her shoes always match her top and her trousers are always iron with a perfect crease down the middle.

Day 4: 
Today's work will lead in to tomorrows task. The more detail you have today the easier the task tomorrow. Today we would like you to keep a detailed diary of your day making sure to make detailed notes on description of where you were, what happened and what emotions you were feeling.

Day 5:
Today we would like you to use your notes from yesterday to create a comic of your day. Miss Stavish has created an example of one of her days where she shows how you can get varied openers and complex, detailed sentences into a comic. You can draw the comic yourself or Miss Stavish used a free trial on pixton.com to create hers.