Planning the climax of 'A Kind of Spark' including flashbacks

English

Understanding the historical context of the Scottish witch trials

Exploring Addie's character

Using drama to explore a character 'low'

Adopting different perspectives

Planning the build-up of 'A Kind of Spark' including switches in perspective

Writing the first half of the build-up of 'A Kind of Spark'

Writing the second half of the build-up of 'A Kind of Spark'

Self-editing the build-up of 'A Kind of Spark'

Exploring a historical scenario linked to ‘A Kind of Spark’

Exploring Addie's speech in the climax of 'A Kind of Spark'

Writing the first section of the climax of 'A Kind of Spark'

Writing the next two sections of the climax, including a flashback

Writing the final sections of the climax, including a flashback

Self-editing the climax of 'A Kind of Spark'

In this unit, pupils finesse writing a build-up and climax with a focus on switching between the past and present tense to highlight a jump in perspective. In 'When The Sky Falls’: Narrative and Diary Writing', pupils will write a narrative climax and use it as the stimulus for writing a diary entry from a character's perspective.

In 'Beowulf’, pupils rewrote the build-up and climax of a scene from the end of ’Beowulf’, focusing on interspersing dialogue to convey atmosphere and advance the action. In this unit, pupils will finesse writing a build-up and climax with a focus on switching between the past and present tense to highlight a jump in perspective.

In this unit, pupils write a build-up and climax based on the text, 'A Kind of Spark'. They learn to switch tense to highlight a jump in perspective from narrative prose to an internal monologue and from present to past tense to indicate a flashback. These outcomes can be used for KS2 SATS writing.

'A Kind of Spark': narrative writing

Which of these are features of the sections where we write in role as Addie? 

Which of these are features of the flashback sections of our text? 

Addie looks at Maggie's name on her hand.

What is the 'trigger' for the flashbacks in the model story? 

The children laughed and trod on Maggie's food. 

Which of these sentences could be from the flashbacks in our narrative?

Which of the following describes how the mood changes in the sections written from Addie's perspective about her speech?

where the writer describes the setting and characters

where the problems are introduced and tension rises

where the highest point of the action and tension is

Which of these describes the 'climax' of a story? 

autistic people are more interesting that non-autistic people

she might have been treated like the witches in the past

we should pardon everyone who was convicted of witchcraft

Which of these are **not** arguments made in Addie's speech?

In the past, people who were different might have been accused of witchcraft. 

Because she's autistic, she experiences the world differently. 

We shouldn't forget the people who experienced this in the past. 

Which of these key arguments in Addie's speech comes first? 

What clues are there that the following sentence comes from speech as opposed to formal writing? 'And that's what I want to explain to you today.'

At what point might Addie be thinking the following piece of internal monologue in relation to her speech? 'People are really listening! Maybe they're being convinced ...'.

At what point did Addie notice the following in relation to her speech? 'I see that everyone is paying attention; they're watching and listening carefully now.'

Starter Quiz

Which of these describes the 'climax' of a story?