Reply To: Roald Dahl’s five books:The Twits etc
Summary for lesson 7:
What did we cover
– Discussed the homework tasks and what we did well on/could improve
– Reflected on last week’s lesson
– Summarised the first half of the book
– Did character studies (using illustrations by Quentin Blake)
– Worked through the questions for the first half of Matilda
– Discussed whether Matilda is ‘right’ in getting revenge on her father
Class report
I was very excited to get started on Matilda with the students, as they had expressed how much they were looking forward to these lessons last week. Matilda is a far longer and more
dense book than those we have studied before, so it will be an interesting challenge for the students.
We began our lesson by reflecting on what we have done so far, and discussed the fact that Matilda is slightly different to the other books we have looked at. One student in each group
then gave a summary of the first half. After this, we moved on to look at some illustrations of the characters and discussed what we could infer about them from their pictures; I was
delighted to see that the students were far more capable and confident in this exercise than they were the first time they did it (with Esio Trot). This shows that they are really taking
onboard the lessons and skills they are learning.
As we worked through the questions, we always had in mind the question ‘is Matilda right to do what she does’. In relation to this, we discussed how it is interesting that many of Dahl’s
books have characters that seek to ‘get revenge’. The students, as always, provided some great answers, and some really intriguing debates arose throughout the lesson.
We finished off by discussing the question of revenge; it was fantastic to hear so many different ideas and opinions, and I was particularly pleased to see the students engage in conversation with each other.
Home work for lesson 7:
Imagine you are Miss Honey. Write a diary entry from the day she first met Matilda.
OR
Summarise the first half of the book in 4 sentences.
VIPERS questions for lesson 8
