'Whale Rider': narrative writing
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Why this why now
This unit builds on pupils' knowledge of successful narrative writing from the Year 4 unit, 'The Happy Prince': narrative writing'. The unit centres on analysing parts of the film 'Whale Rider' to understand characters and how emotive scenes develop. When pupils are writing, there is an emphasis on using accurate punctuation when using direct speech sentences to build characterisation. A range of Year 4 sentence structures and show-not-tell devices are also taught. This unit prepares pupils for narrative writing in the Year 5 unit 'How to Train Your Dragon': diary and narrative writing'.
Prior knowledge requirements
- A narrative can be structured as an opening, build-up, climax and resolution.
- Each part of a story has a specific purpose and intended effect on the reader.
- The intended effect on the reader is achieved through careful vocabulary choices.
- Adjectives describe nouns and adverbials modify verbs.
- There are three main types of sentences: simple, compound and complex
- These must be punctuated accurately with a full stop, capital letter and a comma where needed.
- An adverbial complex sentence consists of a main clause and an adverbial subordinate clause.
- Speech first in a sentence must be punctuated with inverted commas (with a comma, question or exclamation mark before the closing inverted commas).
Threads
Why this why now
This unit builds on pupils' knowledge of successful narrative writing from the Year 4 unit, 'The Happy Prince': narrative writing'. The unit centres on analysing parts of the film 'Whale Rider' to understand characters and how emotive scenes develop. When pupils are writing, there is an emphasis on using accurate punctuation when using direct speech sentences to build characterisation. A range of Year 4 sentence structures and show-not-tell devices are also taught. This unit prepares pupils for narrative writing in the Year 5 unit 'How to Train Your Dragon': diary and narrative writing'.
Prior knowledge requirements
- A narrative can be structured as an opening, build-up, climax and resolution.
- Each part of a story has a specific purpose and intended effect on the reader.
- The intended effect on the reader is achieved through careful vocabulary choices.
- Adjectives describe nouns and adverbials modify verbs.
- There are three main types of sentences: simple, compound and complex
- These must be punctuated accurately with a full stop, capital letter and a comma where needed.
- An adverbial complex sentence consists of a main clause and an adverbial subordinate clause.
- Speech first in a sentence must be punctuated with inverted commas (with a comma, question or exclamation mark before the closing inverted commas).
Reading, writing & oracy
'Whale Rider': narrative writing
In this unit, pupils write a range of narrative outcomes based on the film 'Whale Rider'. They analyse sections of the film carefully, from which they write an opening, an emotive scene and a resolution. Pupils also practise using speech punctuation accurately in their narratives.
15 lessons in unit
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