Researching Charles Darwin's life
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can tell the story of Charles Darwin's life up to and including his visit to the Galapagos Islands.
Key learning points
- Charles Darwin was a British naturalist known for his contributions to the theory of evolution.
- A biography is a non-fiction text so we must do research to gather factual information.
- A text map can be used to help us learn and remember the key events of someone's life.
- In the text map, pictures represent key events (and a few words and numbers can be used too).
- The more we rehearse a text map out loud, the better we will remember it.
Keywords
Biography - a non-fiction text written about someone's life
Theme - a central idea that the writer intends the audience to engage deeply with
Text map - a visual representation of a series of events, where pictures represent events
Common misconception
Pupils may think that the purpose of the text map is to learn a particular text word-for-word.
Although text maps can be used in this way, in this case we are trying to learn the series of events; pupils should re-tell the events using simple language, pointing to the relevant picture as they do so.
Teacher tip
Pupils should be given lots of chances to say their text map aloud so that it is over-learned. You may want children to work in pairs (or as a whole class) so that they can tell the text map taking turns for each picture, or you can tell it 'around the class' as a group once it's been rehearsed.
Licence
Lesson video
Loading...
Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Why could 'The Second World War' not be the subject of a biography?
Q2.Which of these is not a linguistic feature of a biography?
Q3.Which sentence is appropriate for use in a biography?
Q4.Match the types of fronted adverbial to the examples.
In addition,
After she left school,
As a result,
Q5.Which sentences contain a relative clause?
Q6.Which sentence has the brackets placed correctly to show the parenthesis?
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Why is research important before we write a biography?
Q2.Which of these facts link to the theme of Charles Darwin's visit to the Galapagos?
Q3.What fact is represented by this image from the text map for Charles Darwin's life?
Q4.What fact is represented by this image from the text map for Charles Darwin's life?
Q5.Which picture represents this fact? 'Darwin was very excited to visit the Galapagos so he could see an active volcano.'
Q6.Which of the following might we find in a text map?
To help you plan your 6 English lesson on: Researching Charles Darwin's life, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 6 English lesson on: Researching Charles Darwin's life, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 2 English lessons from the Charles Darwin: biographical writing unit, dive into the full primary English curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.