Short Term Literacy plan – Citrine Class
Unit: Narrative – Myths and Quests – ROMANS
Assessment focus:
Word/Sentence
Level Learning
Intention
Main Learning
Intention

Success
Criteria/Targ ets
Duration: 3 weeks
Example of Direct Teaching
Week Beg: 15 th April 2013
Diff Activities
Focus group in bold.
Plenary
AFL

AFL
On whiteboards:
Your grandmother has given you a pink shirt for your birthday. You hate it. You don’t want to hurt her feelings but you don’t want to wear it.
On whiteboards; as quick as you can, write five good excuses why you can’t wear the shirt. Be as original and imaginative as you can!
WALT: give reasons for our own views on a text
Remember to:
 Put yourself in the shoes of
Ganymede’s father and
Jupiter
 Think of the reasons he may give for
Ganymede to stay/ leave.
 Discuss with your group/part ner
 Write on whiteboard
 Check and copy reasons into book neatly.
Show the children The Orchard Book of Roman
Myths – read blurb.
On world map show where Rome is (powerpoint file).
2000 years ago theThe Romans wanted their empire to rival that of the Ancient Greeks, so they
‘imported’ many of the Greek Gods and their myths.
Talk about what a myth is – an explanation story giving reasons why something has happened – it could be a natural phenomena or supernatural.
At first the gods still live on Mount Olympus in
Greece, but in time they moved to Italy and the
Romans built them an amazing temple The Pantheon.
Show picture of Pantheon in Rome (pp) . Explain that this building was a temple dedicated to all the gods of Rome. It was the biggest dome in the world for
2,000 years.
Read chapter 1 – The Olympians to set the scene.
This story leads up to Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome. It needs explaining that the King of the Gods is called Jupiter – this is not mentioned in the story. Pictures of the characters are on the
Powerpoint file.
Select children to come out and act out the story – teacher led using own words.
Jupiter sitting on golden throne surrounded by lesser immortals – holding statue of Victoria – Victoria on other side of classroom winning battles. Fama standing out on a rock with hundred tongues telling everyone what the king orders are.
Jupiter clicks fingers to summon wine. Hebe comes with cup, trips and spills wine all over King, he drops statue. Hebe runs away. Who else could do it?
Jupiter takes on the form of an eagle and swops around to find someone. Finds Ganymede who is beautiful. Eagle takes Ganymede without his father knowing. Father is the King of Troy. Jupiter proclaims that Troy should prosper for a time.
Nothing lasts forever apart from Heaven, the Gods
and Ganymede.
SN: working as a group led by
Jan, children discuss the story of
Hebe and Ganymede. What did they like, not like, why etc. Think about the father of Ganymede, each child to think of a reason
Ganymede’s father could have used to persuade Jupiter not to steal his son. TA to write ideas on whiteboard. Children to then choose two reasons and write in own literacy books.
LA: As SN, led by Kay.
MA: Working with a partner in group, discuss reasons, write on whiteboards, check and copy neatly into books.
MA+/HA: as MA, but also think and write 2 answers that Jupiter might have given to Ganymede’s father about the advantages he was giving him and why.
SN/LA/MA: choose children to read their reasons.
MA+/HA: choose children to read out
Jupiter’s reply.

AFL
‘The City Of
Stars’ – from
Talk for
Creative
Writing pack.
WALT: research a Roman God /
Goddess.
Remember to:

Display the list of gods and goddesses and their images. http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/roman/ Read about them and their characteristics as a class. Show how our days relate to
Roman gods. Explain that the gods and goddesses of Greek and Roman mythology were a troublesome lot. They were jealous and quarrelled a lot. They often stirred up trouble, with humans being the unfortunate victims. However sometimes they helped them. The
Romans believed in fate. They thought everything that was going to happen to you was already mapped out and ordained by the gods. They would consult oracles (a bit like fortune tellers) to try and find out what was going to happen to them in the future.
Children to choose a god or goddess they like to write about and draw.
Make a card about them.
Research what he/she looks like, draw a picture and fill in as much information as they can.
Share completed work.
WALT: Use and identify common
& proper nouns.
Remember to:
 Use a capital letter for proper nouns;
 Use alliteration;
 Use an adjective;
 Use a before a consonant & an before a vowel.
Word sort: how could you sort these words?
Dog Richard cow Leeds cat chair
December frost egg Wednesday donut dust Thames sand
Explain your rule. Add more words to the list.
C is for Clara, a clever cat.
SN: Supported by Jan
LA: Kay
MA:
MA+:
HA: Use a thesaurus to find more unusual adjectives.
Steph.
Share lists and celebrate unusual words.
AFL

AFL
Noun game.
Put following sentence on board:
As the banana chugged through the beans, she stared out of the cucumber.
Children identify nouns and then swap them for something more appropriate.
WALT: to use bullet points to identify the key points of a text.
Resources:
Copy of Chains of love pgs 16 and 17 - one per child
PP of story
My bullet points of end of story
Scanned image of Birth of
Venus.
Remember to:
 Read each paragraph carefully
 Highlight key words
 Say key point
 Write each key point starting a new line
 Start each new point with a bullet point
Reading the story Chains of Love, about the birth of
Venus.
In pairs, talk about the story. How did Anchises feel having to keep the secret? Etc.
Remind children of the work carried out last term about taking notes. What did they need to remember to do?
Key words – nouns and verbs usually.
Show a sentence on w/b: Slowly and silently, the unhappy boy with no shoes at his meagre lunch on the back doorstep. Gradually remove the words and get children to assess the resultant sentence as follows:
 Still makes complete sense
 Makes senses but sounds like notes (not complete)
 Makes sense but the meaning has changed
 Not possible
Together look at the story Chains of Love. Start to list the main events of the story on whiteboard in note form.
Demonstrate how to use bullet points for each new event.
Venus is born from a wave. Marries Vulcan. Unhappy falls in love with Mars. Vulcan catches them in a net.
Vulcan forgives Venus. Falls in love with a mortal man
Anchises of Troy.
Has a son Aeneas.
SN: Adult led, writing on whiteboard. Adult reads next section of story, discuss what next bullet point could be in as few words as possible.
Lots of discussion to agree the clearest form of words.
Children copy each bullet point as discussed in literacy books. (Jan)
LA As SN (Kay)
MA: Working in pairs, have photocopy of 16 & 17 . Read together and highlight key words before making bullet point notes in literacy book.
MA+: As MA group
(Emma focus on
Jenson, Jasmine)
HA: Independent
What type of words can we remove without loosing the meaning?
(descriptive words, the, a and an
(determiners).
Verbs and nouns stay
Children to compare their notes with my notes – Do they roughly agree?
Look at
Botticelli’s
Birth of Venus.

capital letter and full stop sit down.
Others remain standing.
If anyone has not used capital letter and full stop,
WHOLE class must rub out and do their sentence again!
Repeat as necessary!!!!
Full stop / capital letter game.
Write one word on w/b.
Children to write one sentence including that word. dog
All children stand up and show their sentence on miniwhiteboard
.
Those that have used
WALT: use drama to create ideas for a quest story.
Resources:
PP of Dreams of
Destiny
IWB notes of quest description and points flipchart paper felt pens
CAMERA
Remember to;
 Think of ordeals your hero could face
 Talk and share ideas
 Make notes on flipchart paper
 Set up a freeze frame scene to show what happens
 Choose one person to narrate your scene.
Read Dreams of Destiny (Chpt 3, pg 18)
Talk about the story theme of THE
QUEST which is very common in Myths.
Read the description on IWB notes of what a quest is together. Read the notes about quests.
With TP discuss each point about quests and relate to Aeneas’ story. Take feedback and discuss as a class.
What ordeals and perils (need to describe what this is) has Aeneas had to face in this chapter? Make a list on board (remind of conventions of making a list – commas!)
Fire, saving his father and son, losing his wife, the desctruction of Troy and storms.
In ability groups in the hall, using imaginations (!), children to improvise an ordeal that a hero in a story could face.
Encourage pinching ideas form other known stories –
Harry Potter etc.
Aim to collect lots of ideas that could be used by everyone.
Brainstorm using flipchart paper and felt pens.
Explain what a freeze frame is and then each group work together to create a freeze frame of what is about to happen to their hero.
Show rest of class, one person from each group narrates what is happening.
Keep each group’s flipchart notes for future reference.
Peer assessment of each other’s ideas.

AFL
Replacing nouns.
Didn’t do, as story was very long!
WALT: use imaginations to create monsters.
Remember to:
 Consider whether your monster will live in the sky, sea or land – this will help determine its features;
 Combine more than one type of animal / more than one head, like
Cerberus;
 Name your monster;
 Describe what it can do.
To Hell and Back: This chapter continues Aeneas’ quest. Re-visit the quest plan resource and ask children to look out for the elements in the story that help us decide it is a myth. Discuss the settings (sky, earth, underground).
Briefly discuss the role of magic objects in Myths (in this case the
Golden Mistletoe). They will explore this further in future lessons. Explain that the story of
Aeneas was written by Virgil in 29-
19 BC. It was called the Aeneid and was a poem in 12 books. Aeneas met many ordeals including monsters. Discuss the Cyclops, the
Whirlpool of Charybdis and The
Scylla. Show these images (and some other mythological monsters) on IWB and discuss.
To help with writing their own myth, children have fun drawing pictures of, and describing, monsters.
They can be entirely from their imaginations or a monster they have seen in a book/film/game, or a mixture of all. They must name their monster and use fantastic words and phrases to describe in detail what it can do (they also need to think about how the hero could escape from the dreadful creature).
Share ideas so far.
AFL

AFL
Hidden
Messages Game
– from Talk for
Creative
Writing.
WALT: Use an apostrophe to contract words.
M
Practise apostrophes to contract.
 WALT: infer and deduce characters’ feelings.
AFL
T
Alphabet list game – correct use of a and an.
WALT: create a story map & tell a story orally.
Romulus and Remus

AFL