On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl
Learning Objective
• To read and understand the main ideas
and themes of the story
• To analyse the language used.
Love:
• Discuss with your shoulder partner:
Can you measure love?
Explain your answer.
What does love mean to
someone?
• If ‘love’ were a colour, it would be red because
it’s hot and passionate.
• If ‘love’ were a song, it would be…because…
• If ‘love’ were an animal, it would be a…because…
• If ‘love’ were a model of mp3 player, it would be
a…because…
• If ‘love’ were a day of the week, it would
be…because…
• If ‘love’ were a website, it would be…because…
• If ‘love’ were a celebrity, it would be…because…
• If ‘love’ were a high street shop, it would
be…because…
• If ‘love’ were…
Write your own Love Poem
• Use the pattern “If love were…” and
write a 6 line love poem to explain what
love means.
Success Criteria
• Start each line “If love were…”
• Write 6 lines
• You can use rhyme if you want
Listen Write:
• Listen to the information about Haruki
Murakami.
• Write down anything you can remember.
• Compare with your shoulder partner.
• Answer the questions.
Haruki Murakami:
• Born in Kyoto, Japan but grew up in Kobe.
• He won a literary prize for his first novel, Hear the wind sing,
this encouraged him to keep writing.
• He has also translated the works of several American authors
into Japanese.
• He spent four years in America teaching at the University of
Princeton.
• As he grew up, he spent a lot of time listening to rock and Jazz
music and reading American authors.
• He identifies more with western culture rather than the
traditional culture of Japan.
• Many of his stories combine normality and surrealism and focus
on loss, destruction and loneliness.
• Other themes are: old and young, past and present, the unlikely
crossings in life and the connections between people.
Questions:
Think, pair, share:
Write in full sentences1. What has influenced Murakami’s
writing?
2. What are the main themes of his
writing?
3. How do you think this links to the story
‘On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One
Beautiful April Morning?
The 100% Perfect Partner
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgkR
sis3yGY
• (Watch to 1.39)
What would be your ideal
partner?
PREDICTIONS
• Write a paragraph explaining what you
think happens next – we are only halfway through the story.
The Fairytale Ending?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flub8vnfFi
I&feature=fvst
Which statement is most
accurate?
1. The reader is left confused at the end of
the short story.
2. The reader has to read the story more
than once to see the message the author
is trying to get across by including the
fairy story.
3. The reader is left feeling sorry for the
narrator because he can only imagine his
100% perfect relationship as he missed
his chance
Which statement is most
accurate?
1. Murakami is just trying to show off by
putting a fairy story within his short
story
2. Murakami is using the fairy story to
make a point about how people should
not waste opportunities in life
3. Murakami believes that a 100% perfect
relationship can only exist in a fairy
story
Write a paragraph in response…
• Why does Murakami include a
fairytale in his writing?
Read the Story
Success Criteria
• Read the story by yourself
• Make annotations as you read
What do we learn about the narrator?
Quote from the Story
What this shows about the
narrator
…on a narrow side street in Tokyo’s
fashionable Harajuku
neighbourhood..
- what I’d really like to do – explain
to her the complexities of fate that
had led to our passing
This shows he’s a bit of a dreamer
and doesn’t think about the sensible
things in life.
This shows us that he’s
intelligent and well read and
wants us to know it.
TASK
• Read each statement.
• Choose a colour for each statement.
• Colour the parts of the fairytale that
match the techniques.
Colour
Comments
Typical opening of a fairy story makes the story
sound magical and childlike.
Repetition of particular words and phrases to describe the boy
and girl shows how perfectly matched they are.
Repetition of a word which suggests that the meeting between
the boy and girl is something so amazing it is beyond nature and
is something orchestrated by fate, or possibly by God.
A word suggesting that the relationship between the boy and girl
is out of this world. Also a ‘modern’ word indicating the age of
the couple.
The turning point in the story when a hesitation means the boy
and the girl doubt their perfect relationship which leads to the
heartbreak at the end of the story. Repetition of ‘tiny’ may
indicate the pointlessness of their concern.
Links the fairy story to the rest of the story as the girl is walking
from the east at the start of the story and the boy from the west.