S2 Homework Task - December
The Novel
S2 Homework Task - December
Checklist
Section A
Activity 1
Importance of novels
Activity 6
Setting
Activity 2
Genre
Activity 7
Conflict
Activity 3
Theme
Activity 4
Character
Activity 5
Plot
Section B
Activity 1
Submit Study Cards
Learning Intentions:
Curriculum for Excellence
‘Experiences and Outcomes’
• I can make notes and organise them to develop my thinking,
help retain and recall information, explore issues and create
new texts, using my own words as appropriate.
LIT 3-15a
• I can recognise techniques used by the writer to create
character/setting.
• I can recognise and comment on the relevance of theme in a
text.
LIT 3-19a
• I can use strategies and resources to spell my words
accurately, including specialist vocabulary.
• I can use punctuation to make the meaning of my sentences
clear.
LIT 3-21a
• I can accurately structure and arrange my sentences to
make their meaning clear.
• I can use paragraphs, and show a straightforward
relationship between them.
LIT 3-22a
Section A – A Close Look at The
Novel
There are 7 activities to complete in
Section A.
1. Why novels are important.
2. Genre
3. Theme
4. Character
5. Plot
6. Setting
7. Conflict
As well as looking closely at the novel you
are studying in class, you are also
learning the skill of good note-taking.
You should use ‘study cards’ to record
the information that you are being
asked to think about and write down.
This month we are looking at why novels can be
such an important part of our lives.
Section A - Activity 1
In a short paragraph write down why you think that novels are
important.
Genre
Genre:
A type of writing
characterised by
similarities in form,
style or subject
matter.
Example Genres
• Fiction
• Non-Fiction
•
•
•
•
Thriller
Gothic
Realism
Romance
Genre characteristics
•
•
•
•
Recognisable setting
Stereotyped characters
Typical plot
Certain style of language
•
•
•
•
Fantasy
Science Fiction
Horror
Autobiography
Favourite Children’s Book:
The Hard Boys – ‘The Tower Treasure’
Favourite Genre:
Detective
Jonny Evans
Manchester United FC
(click to watch clip)
Favourite Book:
‘Dracula’, by Bram Stoker
Favourite Genre:
Horror
Joey Barton
Q.P.R.
(click to watch clip)
Section A - Activity 2
Note down what genre the novel that you are reading in
class belongs to.
Is this a genre that you particularly enjoy? Why?
Theme
Theme:
The central idea or ideas
explored by a piece of
literature.
Example Themes
•
•
•
•
•
Change versus Tradition
Desire to Escape
Empowerment
Evils of Racism
Love
•
•
•
•
•
Pride and Downfall
Reunion
Class Struggle
Darkness and Light
Isolation
•
•
•
•
•
Growing Up
Honour and Valour
Casualties of War
How Power Corrupts
Selfishness
“Cowards die many times before their
deaths/The valiant never taste of death but
once.“ (Julius Caesar)
Mandela was imprisoned for
27 years during the
*apartheid years before
This is a version of Shakespeare’s Complete Works and was
being released in 1990.
smuggled into the Robben Island jail, and includes notes
added by Mandela and other prisoners it was shared with.
He went on to become the
country's first black
president.
The theme of this quotation
suggests the need for
individuals to show bravery
in the face of tyranny.
Apartheid ("the status of being apart") was a system of racial
segregation enforced through legislation by the National Party (NP)
governments, who were the ruling party from 1948 to 1994, of South
Africa, under which the rights of the majority black inhabitants of
South Africa were curtailed and white supremacy and Afrikaner
minority rule was maintained
Section A - Activity 3
Note down what theme(s) are contained in the novel that you are reading in
class.
Think about why the writer chose to write about this particular
theme – can you relate it to current events in your life?
Character
Character:
An imaginary person
represented in a work of
fiction.
Character properties
• Appearance
• Looks
• Dresses
• Thoughts and Conversation
• What the character
says/feels
• What other characters
say about the
character
• Actions
• What the character
does/does not do
• What others in the
story do to the main
character
• Good Characters are:
• Believable
• Consistent
• Multi-dimensional
(not stereotyped)
• Memorable
• Grow or change over
time
Harry Potter
Harry James Potter is the title character and the
protagonist of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The
majority of the books' plot covers seven years in the life
of the orphan Potter, who, on his eleventh birthday,
learns he is a wizard. Thus, he attends Hogwarts School
of Witchcraft and Wizardry to practice magic under the
guidance of the kindly headmaster Albus Dumbledore
and other school professors. Harry also discovers that he
is already famous throughout the novel's magical
community, and that his fate is tied with that of Lord
Voldemort, the internationally feared Dark Wizard and
murderer of his mother and father.
Favourite Book:
‘Philosopher’s Stone’
Wayne Rooney
Footballer (Man. UTD)
“Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark
cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny
for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he
really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of
Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he
was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and
bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together
with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley
had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked
about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his
forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had
had it as long as he could remember, and the first
question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia
was how he had gotten it.”
Extract from The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Anne Frank
The Diary of a Young Girl (also known as The Diary of
Anne Frank) is a book of the writings from the Dutch
language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in
hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi
occupation of the Netherlands. The family was
apprehended in 1944 and Anne Frank ultimately died of
typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The
diary was retrieved by Miep Gies, who gave it to Anne's
father, Otto Frank, the only known survivor of the
family. The diary has now been published in more than
60 different languages.
Wednesday, 5 April 1944
My dearest Kitty,
For a long time now I didn’t know why I was bothering to
do any schoolwork. The end of the war still seemed so
far away, so unreal, like a fairy tale. If the war isn’t over
by September, I won’t go back to school, since I don’t
want to be two years behind…When I write I can shake
off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are
revived! But, and that’s a big question, will I ever be able
to write something great, will I ever become a journalist
or a writer?
I hope so, oh, I hope so very much, because writing
allows me to record everything, all my thoughts, ideals
and fantasies…
So onwards and upwards, with renewed spirits. It’ll all
work out, because I’m determined to write!
Yours, Anne M. Frank
Favourite Book:
‘Diary of a Young Girl’
Natalie Portman
Actress
*The Secret Annexe: the place where Anne hid with her
family
Although Anne was a real person, her
‘character’ remains as such that it
speaks to us about the power of the human
spirit in the face of such evil.
Section A - Activity 4
Note down the main character(s) from your class novel. Describe your
character(s) using a ‘character sketch’ diagram. (See next slide).
Who was your favourite character and why?
Did you find yourself identifying with any of the characters?
In what way?
Plot
Plot:
The events that make up a
story, whether related in
sequence or through cause
and effect.
Plot properties
•
•
•
•
•
•
Exposition (opening)
Rising Action
Climax
Falling Action
Denouement
Happy/Unhappy ending
Plot Examples
•
•
•
•
•
•
A Hero’s Quest
Adventure
Escape
Love
Discovery
Revenge/Rivalry
JAWS
The shark is killed
Brody paddles back
to shore
Section A - Activity 5
Summarise or produce a timeline of the plot of your novel.
or
Setting
Setting:
The time and place in
which the action of a
narrative takes place.
The Hobbit
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its
abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and
children's book by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was
published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim,
and follows the quest of home-loving hobbit Bilbo Baggins
to win a share of the treasure guarded by the dragon,
Smaug. Bilbo's journey takes him from light-hearted, rural
surroundings into more sinister territory.
Chapter 1 – An Unexpected Party
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a
nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and
an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with
nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbithole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted
green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact
middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a
tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with
panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided
with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats
and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel
wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into
the side of the hill—The Hill, as all the people for many
miles round called it—and many little round doors
opened out of it, first on one side and then on another.
No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms,
cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had
whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, diningrooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the
same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand
side (going in), for these were the only ones to have
windows, deep-set round windows looking over his
garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the
river.”
The Pedestrian
"The Pedestrian" is a short story by author Ray
Bradbury. This story was originally published in the
August 7, 1951 issue of The Reporter by The
Fortnightly Publishing Company. It is included in the
collection The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953).In this
story we encounter Leonard Mead, a citizen of a
television-centered world in 2052. In the city, roads
have fallen into decay and people only leave their
homes during the day, staying home at night to watch
TV. It is revealed that Mead enjoys walking through the
city during the night, something which no one else
does. On one of his usual walks he encounters a
robotic police car. It is the only police unit in a city of
three million, since the purpose of law enforcement
has disappeared with everyone watching TV at night.
The police car struggles to understand why Mr. Mead
would be out walking for no reason and decides to
take him to the Psychiatric Center for Research on
Regressive Tendencies.
“To enter out into that silence that was the
city at eight o'clock of a misty evening in November,
to put your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to
step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in
pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr.
Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do. He would
stand upon the corner of an intersection and peer
down long moonlit avenues of sidewalk in four
directions, deciding which way to go, but it really
made no difference; he was alone in this world of
A.D. 2053, or as good as alone, and with a final
decision made, a path selected, he would stride off,
sending patterns of frosty air before him like the
smoke of a cigar.
Sometimes he would walk for hours and
miles and return only at midnight to his house. And
on his way he would see the cottages and homes with
their dark windows, and it was not unequal to
walking through a graveyard where only the faintest
glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind
the windows. Sudden gray phantoms seemed to
manifest upon inner room walls where a curtain was
still undrawn against the night, or there were
whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomblike
building was still open.”
Example Settings
•
•
•
•
Future Earth (or Space)
Historical
Present Day
Fantasy Land
Setting properties
• Physical
• Time
• Societal
Section A - Activity 6
Note down where and when your novel takes place.
Note down why the author has chosen this time and place
– what has it allowed him/her to do with their character(s) and theme?
Does the writer’s setting remind you of place that you remember fondly?
Perhaps it is somewhere you dislike?
Conflict
Conflict:
The struggle that takes
place within a character’s
mind or between a character
and exterior forces (usually
between the protagonist and
the antagonist).
To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in
1960. It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer
Prize, and has become a classic of modern American
literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on the
author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as
on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936,
when she was 10 years old.
The novel is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite
dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality.
The narrator's father, Atticus Finch, has served as a moral
hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for
lawyers. One critic explains the novel's impact by writing, "In
the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the
most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its
protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image
of racial heroism."[1]
Favourite Book:
‘To Kill a Mockingbird’
UK’s Best Loved Book
(2011)
“You never really understand a person
until you consider things from his point of
view... Until you climb inside of his skin
and walk around in it.”
Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning
English author William Golding about a group of
British boys stuck on an uninhabited island who try
to govern themselves with disastrous results.
Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to
throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry,
perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare
not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the
taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child
was the protection of parents and school and
policemen and the law.
"Which is better--to have
laws and agree,
or to hunt and kill?”
Favourite Book:
‘Lord of the Flies’
Steven King
Author (Horror)
(click to watch clip)
Example Conflicts
•
•
•
•
•
Man versus Man
Man versus Self
Man versus Society
Man versus Technology
Man versus Nature
Conflict properties
• Usually a protagonist versus an
antagonist/enemy/villain
• Struggle to succeed or defeat
Section A - Activity 7
Note down the conflict(s) in your novel and why they occur.
Note down how the conflicts have an impact on the characters
and on the novel’s plot.
Does the novel begin with the conflict? Or is the conflict left until nearer
the middle, or at the end of the novel (the climax)?
End of Section A
Section B –
Submit your study cards
Section B - Activity 1
End of Section B
S2 Homework Task - December
Checklist
Section A
Activity 1
Importance of novels
Activity 6
Setting
Activity 2
Genre
Activity 7
Conflict
Activity 3
Theme
Activity 4
Character
Activity 5
Plot
Section B
Activity 1
Submit Study Cards