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Edwinstree Middle School

Reading Journal

Name:

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Weekly Guide

Come into school prepared to discuss your

reading

Cool Chilli: Essential Reading. Plus explore

specific pages (see below)

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

Read

Chapters 1

& 2

Read

Chapters

3 & 11

Read

Chapter

14

Read

chapter

16 & 19

Medium Chilli

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

Read up to

and

including

chapter 5

Read up to

and

including

chapter 10

Read up to

and

including

chapter 14

Read to

the end.

Hot Chilli: Also explore A Midsummer Night’s

Dream focussing on the relationship between

Prospero and Puck – you could ask your teacher

for a copy of Puck’s lines

Explore another novel which uses the time-

shift technique

Read some more of Shakespeare’s sonnets

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Further ideas to choose from

Cool Chilli including

essential learning

Medium Chilli Hot Chilli

Regularly take notes

about

Nat, Arby and

Shakespeare

Answer the chapter

questions (verbally

or written)

Write your own

questions

(Use The Reading

Detective in the

Linking Literacy

Passport)

Explore the setting

of Elizabethan

London by reading

specific pages (see

below)

Find further pages

which explore

Elizabethan London

Research

Elizabethan London

using the internet

and books

Write a summary of

a chosen chapter

Write predictions Write an alternative

ending

Collect new words

and find their

meanings

Write sentences for

new words you have

found

Use new words in

your own writing

Draw a detailed

picture of settings

using evidence from

the text

Create a new front

cover

Write a book review

Find three facts out

about

Susan Cooper

Write a fact file

about Susan Cooper

Write a biography

about Susan Cooper

Look out for key moments (see below) – make some notes

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Chapter Summary

1 Nat is an actor in Arby’s ‘The Company of Boys.’ They are rehearsing

two of William Shakespeare’s plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and

Julius Caesar. They will fly from America to perform in London’s New

Globe Theatre. We discover that Nat is an orphan; he lives with his

aunt Jen.

The main character, Nat, is about to embark on a journey. What do you think he

will learn?

2 Nat arrives in London with the acting company. Nat stays with the

Fisher family. Nat reflects: “There was something strange about

Arby.” (page 25) When they first met, Arby was recruiting young

actors, Arby seemed excited when he found out Nat’s name: Nathan

Fields. Whilst walking in London Nat experiences a ‘strange giddy

feeling’ (page 27). Nat visits the New Globe Theatre.

What is Cooper suggesting about Arby?

3 Nat’s dream.

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What other time-shift stories do you know? How are they similar/ different?

4 Nat begins to realise that he has woken up in Elizabethan England.

Harry talks to him and explains that he was worried that he was

coming down with the plague. Master Burbage took Nat through the

streets of London to the Globe theatre, where he is to act.

How does Cooper make this new setting come alive?

5 Modern England: Nathan, from the past, is taken to hospital

suffering from bubonic plague.

Why is this an important chapter?

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6 Nat is taken around the Globe. Nat meets the other actors and

William Shakespeare. Nat finds out that they are to perform A

Midsummer Night’s Dream to Queen Elizabeth I. Nat discovers that

the younger actors were apprentices. Nat makes an enemy, Roper, who

enjoyed trying to hurt him whilst sword fighting.

Why does Roper dislike Nat? Which other character felt like this in chapter 1?

Why does Cooper include these characters?

7 Nat is given the job of opening a trap door in a play: The devil’s

revenge. Roper signals falsely and gets him into trouble. Nat is taken

to see the bear-baiting.

Why do you think that Bear-baiting was so popular in Shakespeare’s time?

8 Roper and Nat head for another fight, which was stopped upon the

arrival of Shakespeare. Shakespeare is impressed by Nat’s tumbling.

Shakespeare shows kindness to Nat. Nat explains what had happened

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to his parents. Shakespeare explains his deep sorrow for the loss of

his son Hamnet.

How are the feelings of Shakespeare and Nat similar? Why do you think Cooper

left it until now to tell her audience this information about her main character?

9 Modern England: Nathan, from the past, is fighting for his life.

Do you think he will survive?

10 Nat goes to live with Shakespeare. Nat remembers that his father

had also been a writer. Roper chokes on a piece of apple and Nat saves

his life using the Heimlich manoeuvre. Nat jumps into the part he was

playing. Roper in in his debt. Shakespeare is made to deliver a political

speech through his play, this frightens him.

Nat reflects that roper hasn’t really changed. Do you think Roper has learned a

lesson?

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11 Nat becomes frightened. Shakespeare gives Nat a sonnet.

“The Shadows flickered away with him and left the room.” What is the

significance of this quote?

12 Modern England: Nathan, from the past, wakes up; the antibiotics

have cured him and asks to go home.

Why do you think Nat’s aunt is denied her request to see Nathan?

13 Nat and Shakespeare are nervously waiting as they are expecting to

perform to the Queen of England.

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How does Cooper create tension?

14 Nat somersaults and plays his part of Puck well. Shakespeare plays

Oberon and together they wow the crowd.

Why do you think Cooper chose A Midsummer Night’s Dream to be the

Shakespeare play they performed?

15 Nat meets Queen Elizabeth, who had enjoyed his acting. Nat becomes

frightened and confused when he thinks about the future.

Shakespeare says goodbye.

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Do you think Nat would have stayed in the past if her were given the choice?

16 Nat dreams again. This time of his father.

Why do you think Nat dreams of his father?

17 Nat has returned to his correct place in time. He wakes up in hospital.

As he gets used to the real world he finds that he misses Elizabethan

England. Nat and Arby argue, and Nat realises how much he misses

Shakespeare and in despair runs off through the streets of London.

Why do you think Arby was so angry?

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18 Nat opens up to Gil and Rachel; they say they believe his tale. Nat

reasons what happened between him and Nathan Field from the past

and they check out some facts in history books. Arby appears and

recites Nat’s poem. They reflect on its meaning.

What is the significance of the poem?

19 Aunt Jen mentions how proud Nat’s father would be; they talk about

him. Nat discovers Arby’s real name: RB – Richard Babbage. Arby and

Nat talk about Shakespeare and the role Nat had played in keeping

him alive. Arby explains how Shakespeare had never forgotten him and

had even written him into his last play The Tempest as Ariel the spirit.

What was Arby’s role in Nat’s time-travel?

Why do you think Cooper chose King of Shadows as her novels title?

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Pages Descriptions of Elizabethan England

You could draw pictures of the images

Look out for any further descriptions

44 Toilet

46, 47, 50 Clothing

47 Speech

48 Housing

49, 78, 187 Food

51, 52, 53 Streets

66, 78 Sounds

69+ 80 Actors/ The Globe

85-88 Bair-baiting

112, 156 Thieves

150, 157 The Globe/tickets

151 Money

157 Drunkenness

181 The Queen of England

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Whilst reading, make notes about Nat. Focus on his feelings and the developing

relationship with Shakespeare. Include page numbers

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Whilst reading, make notes about Arby. Focus on his role in the novel and his

initial relationship with Nat. Include page numbers

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Whilst reading, make notes about Shakespeare. Focus on his feelings and the

developing relationship with Nat. Include page numbers

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Pages Look out for these key moments – make some notes

What do you see? What do you think?

What do you wonder? What do you feel?

97, 98 Shakespeare finds out about Nat’s parents

98 Shakespeare tells Nat about his son Hamnet

137 Shakespeare gives the sonnet to Nat

217 Nat confronts his deep sorrow

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Sonnet 116 Given to Nat by Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be

taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

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Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of

May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a

date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course

untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his

shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

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Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the

sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts

are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her

head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and

white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more

delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress

reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing

sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on

the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as

rare

As any she belied with false compare.

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