Year 9 Reading Activities
Introduction
The following resources provide a three-lesson study of three key areas of dramatic writing:
 How an actor’s choices influence how an audience reacts to a character (AF3).

The dramatic benefits of a non-chronological structure (AF4).
 How we know what a play is ‘about’ (AF6).
Each area is introduced and explored in whole-class work before students work independently on an Assessment Task.
Resources include detailed lesson plans, marking guidance and student resource sheets.
Timing
It is envisioned that these reading activities will be taught over three lessons of about one hour each, although you may wish to adjust timings to suit the needs of your class. The
Assessment Tasks are introduced discretely, one a lesson. It is suggested that each task is completed before moving on to the next one. This might mean that extra time needs to be given for task completion, either in the form of extra lessons or homework.
Framework Objectives and Assessment Focuses
Once you have completed the study with your students, they will have engaged with the following Framework Objectives and Reading Assessment Focuses:
5.1 – Developing and adapting active reading skills and strategies.
5.2
– Understanding and responding to ideas, viewpoint, themes and purposes in texts.
5.3
– Reading and engaging with a wide and varied range of texts.
6.2
– Analysing how writers’ use of linguistic and literary features shapes and influences meaning.
6.3
– Analysing writers’ use of organisation, structure, layout and presentation.
AF2
–
Understand, describe, select or retrieve information, events or ideas from texts and use quotation and reference to text.
AF3 – Deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts.
AF4 – Identify and comment on the structure and organisation of texts, including grammatical and presentational features at text level.
AF5 – Explain and comment on writers’ uses of language, including grammatical and literary features at word and sentence level.
AF6
– Identify and comment on writers’ purposes and viewpoints and the overall effect of the text on the reader.
1 Face: The Play Year 9 Reading Activities

LESSON 1
Learning objective:

To understand the impact of a non-chronological
narrative.
Resources:

Copies of Face: The Play.

Resource sheet 1: A shift in time.

Resource sheet 5: The Assessment Tasks.
Starter Share the learning objective with the class. Divide the class into pairs and give them four minutes to help each other to summarise the story of Face in the order in which events actually happened: in other words, in chronological order.
Introduction Hear some chronological summaries and encourage discussion around what the narrative has lost compared with the way it is presented in the script. Choose one time-shift moment from the play and use it to explore with the class some of the advantages it brings in terms of impact on the audience. You could use the extract in
Resource sheet 1: A shift in time .
Here are some aspects to explore:

The sudden shift in mood.
 The sudden shift in Martin’s mood from extrovert and excited to quiet and thoughtful (introspective).

The juxtaposition of two contrasting images of Martin: impressive, showing off at the club, then concealed and monstrous. (Emphasise the beauty and the beast contrast.)

Excited and optimistic, contrasted with still and defeated.
Development Introduce the first Assessment Task, which is also set out on
Resource sheet 5: The Assessment Tasks :
‘Choose two points in the play which shift suddenly from one point in time to another. Use these two points to help you explain the impact this time-shifting technique has on the audience.
’ (AF4)
Independent work
Ask students to complete the first Assessment Task. More-confident students can plan and write alone, but you may wish to pair lessconfident students for the planning stages of this task.
2 Face: The Play Year 9 Reading Activities

LESSON 2
Learning objective:

To understand that a character can be played in different ways, and these different ways will cause the audience to feel different things about them.
Resources:

Copies of Face: The Play.

Resource sheet 2: Does Natalie care?

Resource sheet 5: The Assessment
Tasks.
Starter Draw the class attention to Natalie’s final appearance in the play on page 93 ‘… Natalie approaches – is about to say something but thinks better of it. She leaves, watched by the other girls.
’ Ask students to work in pairs to act out this stage direction without words. Can they do it in more than one way?
Introduction Ask some volunteers to present their version of Natalie’s final appearance. Point out some differences of interpretation, and take suggestions on how this might impact on the audience’s feelings.
Ask what this moment suggests about Natalie’s feelings, and about how we should feel about her. Give the pairs three minutes to come up with some answers to this question.
Development Share the learning objective with the class. Point out that students have already learnt things to do with this objective in last lesson’s
Assessment Task.
Now show Resource sheet 2: Does Natalie care?
Look carefully at this dialogue and the dialogue that leads up to these lines.
Independent work
Use these two questions to focus discussion:

What would you want the audience to feel about Natalie at this point?

How should she act in order to evoke those feelings in the audience?
Ask students to complete the following Assessment Task, which is also set out on Resource sheet 5: The Assessment Tasks :
‘Imagine you are directing the play. Write a letter to the actor playing
Natalie, giving her advice about how she should behave and how she should make the audience feel at those three points.
’ (AF3)
More-confident students can plan and write alone, but you may wish to pair less-confident students for the planning stages of this task.
3 Face: The Play Year 9 Reading Activities

LESSON 3
Learning objective:

To understand how a story can be meant to teach the reader particular things.
Resources:

Copies of Face: The Play.

Resource sheet 3: Diamond nine template.

Resource sheet 4: Diamond nine statement cards.

Resource sheet 5: The Assessment Tasks.
Starter Share the learning objective with the class. Point out that Face has a
‘moral’ – or more than one – things that the authors want the reader to learn from Martin’s experience. Suggest these as examples of
‘morals’ of the story:
 Don’t judge others by appearances.

Be proud of who you are.
Put students into groups of three and give each trio nine post-it notes.
Give them ten minutes to write one different thing on each post-it that readers or an audience might learn from this play.
Introduction Show students Resource sheet 3: Diamond nine template and use it to explain to them how a diamond nine rank order exercise works.
Give the student trios five or ten minutes to diamond-rank their post-it notes.
Development Now hand to each trio Resource sheet 4: Diamond nine statement cards for them to cut up into a pack of fifteen cards. Ask them to compare their post-its with these new cards.
Now give them the instructions for the third Assessment Task, which is also set out on Resource sheet 5: The Assessment Tasks :
‘Work with two other students. Use your learning from the previous lessons to create a ‘diamond nine’ of what the play is about. You must use at least five of the statement cards in your diamond nine ranking.
You can add up to four of your own things that the play is abou t.’
(AF6)
Advise the class that they should take their time over this task: its purpose is to let them talk through their ideas about what the play is about.
Independent work
Students complete the third Assessment Task in their groups of three.
You may wish to group students into more-confident or less-confident groups and offer extra support to those groups that need it, or create mixed-ability groups who can offer peer-support as they work.
4 Face: The Play Year 9 Reading Activities

Level
AF2
AF3
(Task 2)
4
Some relevant points identified.
Comments supported by some generally relevant textual reference or quotation, e.g.
reference is made to appropriate section of play but is unselective and lacks focus .
Comments make simple inferences based on evidence, e.g. ‘The audience might think Natalie is selfish.’
Inferences often plausible, but comments are not always rooted securely in the text or they simply repeat narrative or content, e.g.
‘The audience won’t like Natalie if she ignores Martin on page
86.’
AF4
(Task 1)
Some basic aspects of timeshifts are identified, e.g.
‘We have to wait until a dramatic moment to find out about how Martin had his accident’ .
5
The most relevant points clearly identified, including those selected from different places in the play.
Comments generally supported by relevant textual reference or quotation, even when points made are not always accurate.
6
Relevant points clearly identified.
Evidence compared from different parts of the script.
Use of apt textual reference and quotation to support main ideas or argument.
Comments develop explanation of inferred meanings drawing on evidence across the text, e.g.
‘You know that
Natalie must be feeling guilty because earlier she told Martin off for judging people “by what they look like” (page 14)’.
Comments make inferences and deductions based on textual evidence, e.g.
in drawing conclusions about what the audience will feel about Natalie in the light of how she treats Martin.
Comments on how the play is structured show some general awareness of the play's stagecraft, e.g.
‘It's very effective to organise the play around shifts in time because it allows contrasting events to be put next to each other in a sad way’ .
Continued
Comments securely based in textual evidence.
Different layers of meaning identified, with some attempt at detailed exploration of them, e.g.
exploring what Natalie might be thinking when she expresses surprise that
Martin is returning to school (page 55) .
Comments consider how some events or words become more significant in the light of the whole script, e.g.
tracing how
Natalie’s belief that ‘You shouldn’t judge a person by what they look like’ (page 14) is gradually developed .
Some detailed exploration of how the play is structured around time-shifts.
Comments on how time-shifts contribute to the play's theme and its effect on the audience.
7
Evidence precisely chosen and applied to the point being made, e.g.
close analysis of impact of a single word, or, deft selection across a longer textual stretch to identify what the play is ‘about’ .
Ability to see the significance of something that Martin does in the light of what we know about what will happen to him later.
Comments begin to develop an interpretation of Natalie, making connections between insights, teasing out clues and predictions by weighing up evidence, e.g.
considering different ways of interpreting Natalie’s behaviour on page 86; exploring more than one prediction .
Some evaluation of how timeshifts support the play’s dramatic impact or its themes.
Some appreciation of the skill with which the play is structured.
5 Face: The Play Year 9 Reading Activities

Level
AF4
(cont’d)
AF5
4
Some basic features of use of language identified, e.g.
‘The doctor sounds calm and full of authority’ .
Simple comments on language choices, e.g.
‘Describing Marcia as “really nice” (page 27) makes
Natalie sound an ordinary sort of girl and quite kind’ .
AF6
(Task 3)
Main purpose identified, e.g.
‘It really makes us think about how we judge others’ .
Simple comments show some awareness of writer’s viewpoint, e.g.
‘The audience will probably feel mainly on
Martin’s side' .
Simple comment on overall effect on audience, e.g.
‘I reckon that the audience will mostly like Martin – or at least think he is worth sticking up for’ .
5
Various features of the play's time-shifts are clearly identified, with some explanation, e.g. “Using three Martins lets the narrative Martin choose the most dramatic moments from his past to keep it dramatic.”
Various features of language identified, with some explanation, e.g.
‘The
Headteacher speaks in a broken, hesitant way that makes him sound insincere’ .
Comments show some awareness of the effect of writer’s language choices, e.g.
‘When Natalie asks her quick, short questions – “You? School? Monday?!”
(page 55) – it shows she is surprised and the audience might think she doesn’t want
Martin to go back’ .
Zephaniah’s and Conlon's main purpose clearly identified, often through general overview, e.g.
‘Conlon wants the audience to feel a lot of sympathy for Martin even though he was partly to blame’ .
Viewpoint clearly identified, with some, often limited, explanation , e.g. ‘The audience will agree that you shouldn’t judge others by appearances because
Martin can achieve a lot even though he is very ugly now’ .
General awareness of effect on audience, with some, often limited, explanation, e.g.
‘You feel really sorry for Martin because people are as uncaring to him as he was before his accident. It’s like a punishment but he can’t undo what he did’ .
6 7
Some detailed explanation, with appropriate terminology, of how language is used, e.g.
to underline the doctor's authority and to contrast his character with that of the nurse’s.
Some drawing together of comments on how the writer’s language choices contribute to the overall effect on the reader, e.g. pointing out how different sorts of language make the characters of
Anthony and Mr Hewitt believable .
Evidence for identifying Zephaniah’s and
Conlon's purposes precisely located at word/speech level or traced through the play.
Viewpoint clearly identified and explanation of it developed through close reference to the text, e.g. ‘Vikki is not superficial and tactless; she really cares. You can tell that from the way that she shows her support at the gym competition’ .
The effect on the reader clearly identified, with some explicit explanation as to how the effect has been created.
Comments begin to develop precise, perceptive analysis of how language is used, e.g.
the impression we get of Natalie from her use of ‘them’ on page 44.
Some appreciation of typical features of language and how they affect the reader, e.g.
the contrast between the ways that different characters speak: e.g.
Martin and Dr Owens .
Responses begin to develop some analytic or evaluative comment on how Zephaniah and
Conlon convey their ‘messages’, e.g.
considering how the play’s structure influences our reactions to Martin’s story.
Responses begin to develop some analytic or evaluative comment on how viewpoint is established or managed across the play, e.g.
tracing how the audience's attitudes are consistent or varied in different parts of the play .
6 Face: The Play Year 9 Reading Activities

STREET VOICE 5
STREET VOICE 6
PAST MARTIN
NARRATIVE
MARTIN
DR OWENS
PRESENT MARTIN
DR OWENS
PRESENT MARTIN
DR OWENS
Pages 28
–29
7 Face: The Play Year 9 Reading Activities

PRESENT MARTIN
NATALIE
PRESENT MARTIN
NATALIE
PRESENT MARTIN
Page 56
NATALIE
PRESENT MARTIN
8 Face: The Play Year 9 Reading Activities

1
(Most important)
2 2
3 3 3
4 4
5
9 Face: The Play Year 9 Reading Activities

The idea of a diamond nine is to rank or order statements by how true they are: one ‘most true’ statement at the top, two ‘very true’ statements below, etc, down to the bottom card that is only ‘partly true’.
Here are statements for you to put into order. There are some blank cards so that you can add some statements of your own.
10 Face: The Play Year 9 Reading Activities

For all of the following tasks you will need to:

use evidence to support your ideas (AF2)

interpret evidence (AF3)

explore examples of the language that authors give their characters (AF5).
Assessment Task 1
The play does not tell the story in the order it happened: it shifts between the present and the past.
Choose two points in the play which shift suddenly from one point in time to another.
Use these two points to help you explain the impact this time-shifting technique has on the audience. (AF4)
Assessment Task 2
The character notes at the end of the play (see pages 98 –99) warn the actors and readers that Natal ie should not be thought of as ‘totally unfeeling’: she has ‘feelings of a complex and contradictory nature
’.
Imagine you are directing the play. Choose three different points in the play when
Natalie is on stage. Write a letter to the actor playing Natalie, giving her advice about how she should behave and make the audience feel at those three points. (AF3)
Assessment Task 3
Here are some things that the play might be about:
 Don’t judge others by appearances.

Be proud of who you are.
 It’s often people with real problems

Finding out about yourself.

Doctors and nurses are heroes.

When people believe in you then you who value life most.

People learn from their mistakes. can achieve anything.

Teenagers are reckless.

We are all champions in our own way.
 People shouldn’t accept lifts from

Girls are selfish and superficial. drunk or drugged drivers.
Work with two other students. Use some or all of the above statements to create a diamond nine of what the play is about. You must use at least five of the statements in your diamond nine ranking. You can add up to four of your own statements. (AF6)
Take your time over this task: its purpose is to let you talk through your ideas about what the play is about.
11 Face: The Play Year 9 Reading Activities