Title of the book:Father (Year 5) Author/ illustrator Grahame Baker-Smith Publisher/Year: 2010

Features of the text:

Notes: Linguistic features. Use the New National Curriculum to focus on:

Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation / Questions/Pages you would

want to explore further and why

Genre:

Picture book

Structure:

Chronological order, Repeated narrative Father to son, son to own child, continuing repeated themes.

Implied reader - Intertextuality Greek mythology and war. Understand complexity of relationships. Symbolism of pictures. The history of aviation.

Narration:

1st person narrative, past tense until son is born and becomes the present tense. All writing uses capitalisation except the r added into FArTHER in the title. Font

style (typography) mimics handwriting, and size varies.

Poppies are significant imagery, referring to remembrance soldiers uniform

Layout:

Text changes from both pages to single pages across the book, pictures are mostly doubled paged and bleed. Some framing of pictures take place

Illustrations:

- Texture and medium of pictures varies across a single page, with photos and watercolour and animation all together.

- Colour is dull, low saturation and hue. except for occasional bursts of colour, especially the red poppies which are very striking.

- Illustrations reflecting thoughts are brighter than the reality

- Continuous narrative characters are portrayed twice in one place/picture

- Endpages throughout book there is reference to Greek mythology through the images used, this is portrayed in the end pages e.g. sundials, helmets,

Greek landscape

- Reflection on end papers shows a juxtaposition

- Blank space at the end of the book use of white space, and continuation of white space frames the image allows for inference.

- Pictures flow across the gutter

Characterization:

Path of poppies are symbolic to the path the father has laid out to the child after his departure.

Father is viewed as an important figure to the son with his dreams and his father as separate.

Eye-contact of the father- he does not look into his eyes, or at anything in particular.

Father shuts himself away.

Mum is present through-out the story, but only referenced in illustrations, only male characters are directly referred to in the text.

Setting:

Live by the sea, on top of a rock usual home setting.

Height of the house is symbolic of the fathers dreams.

Themes:

- Ancestry the idea of inheritance on a sub-atomic level passing on of the dream rather than physical belongings

- Dreams

- Obsession

- Complexity of relationships

- Life and death

- War

- Ambition flight as a metaphor for freedom and aspiration.

- Feathers

- Son signifies fresh start and new chapter in life.

Pure narration from one character, no dialogue

Use of ellipses to create a continuation of the text.

Drama Opportunities: Hot-seating Teacher in role. This activity focuses on the unexplored character of the mother, she is seen in the images but is never mentioned in the text throughout the story. The teacher will firstly play the role of the mother, and model to the children appropriate responses to their questions that help them delve into her role within the boys life. Role on the wall Exploring 3 different character profiles: the father; the son as a child; and the son as a father himself. Children will work in 3 groups, each focusing on one profile each. The aim of the activity is for the children to deepen their comprehension of the characters within the story. The children will draw a figure on a large piece of sugar paper and then inside the body they will write the characters thoughts and feelings, whilst on the outside they will write how they think the character is perceived by everyone else in the story. The children should use inference of the text as images as evidence to support their ideas. Thought Tracking Focus on the image below. The children will work in groups of 3, to recreate a still image of this scene. This will be developed through thought tracking where each child will verbalise an interesting thought for their character to demonstrate the emotions of the scene.

Literacy Opportunities (with a focus on grammar) : Grammar in context Inference in the absence of words - Relative Clause. The children will explore a hidden story within the book by looking at the collage page to the right. Each child will take it in turns spin the spinner and choose a relative clause, they will then build upon the story by saying a sentence containing that relative clause. Synonyms using a thesaurus. The class pulls all of the interesting adjectives from the story and creates a whole class list. The children will then use a thesaurus to find synonyms to replace the adjectives within the story. The purpose of this activity is to explore how different words can change the meaning and emotion of the text and therefore demonstrate the impact of finding the right word. Using the story as a context for narrative The children will write in role as the boy character exploring how he felt on the island and his relationship with his Father. Children will explore the themes within the story e.g. loneliness, isolation and living in a small and place.

Cross Curricular Opportunities: Art- Collage looking at the impact of light and dark. Using the national curriculum objective of the aim of use of sketch books to collect, record, review, revisit and evaluate ideas. Children could also draw the story of Icarus onto mosaics that could then be displayed across the school. Music- using instruments to recreate the sounds of the seaside in the specific scenes of the book that this is shown. To meet the national curriculum link of improvisation and composition of sets of music. History-study of the World War 1 links that are present in the book, in particular the battle of the Somme which highlights the relevance of the poppies and bright colours in the book and also gives the children an understanding of where the father has gone. The representation of ancient Greece can be relative in the topic of history as children can learn about Icarus, whose father created wings to fly to escape from Crete in a similar manner that the son may want to escape from the fathers dominating bossiness. The national curriculum link is the study of broader history as well the British heritage if the wars. PSHE-no statutory requirements in the national curriculum, guidance from relevant syllabus. Talk about the father and sin relationships. Discussing how we build and create relationships. Use of dialogic teaching for children to voices views and opinions. Design and Technology- the children could work as a whole to create wings o help fly. Consider the mechanism and the theory behind the product. The national curriculum aim is using mechanical systems for their own products. Science - consider the process of flying and how this is possible. The national curriculum reference refers to forces with the introduction of gravity, air resistance and mechanical forces. Geography- looking at the locality at Greece and the way that they live. How is that different to our housing and life's? Look specifically at Olympus and the changes between then now. The curriculum emphasises that this is important as children should be able to name and locate countries and regions. Modern languages- maintain the theme of Greek heritage look and food and labels of food and what this may be called in the Greek language. Children can meet curriculum objectives by presenting information, listening and engaging and understanding basic words. Physical education- focus on the page of the book that the son shows all the activities that he did with the father. Keep the theme of Greece to link activities to the famous Olympics. Score groups and measure what activities children like best. This meets the aim of running and jumping in the curriculum as well as taking party in outdoor activities.

Receptive Context: Before: Before the children are introduced to the book use an empty chair as a key focus add parts to the chair each day so the children can discuss as they appear. The chair on its own will represent the theme of isolation which will be later explored when reading the text. The chair will look like the chair on the front of the picture book. Greece introduced as a topic to the class, looking closely at the story of Icarus. Encourage children to recognise the close links between farther and Daedalus (Icarus' father). Display literacy texts orientated around the story of Icarus. Also due to the artistic influence of Ancient Greece within the text, display artwork of Ancient Greek buildings, Athens and Olympus, to reinforce historical and geographical links that exist within the book. Wings- the process of flight is also a key pictorial theme throughout the text, therefore one could leave feathers around the classroom prior to reading the text as a discrete way of discussing the theme of the book. During Book corner- book corner should be adapted according to the themes of Ancient Greece, Icarus and WW1. Continue with themes that are introduced prior to reading the book. After: When introducing new texts, look for comparative themes within those texts. Also notice themes in other curriculum areas.

Maths- collect the data of scores and likes and dislikes from activities in physical education. Ask children to create graphs and analysis data to meet statistical mathematical objectives.

Questions you could ask to develop comprehension: Where is the story set? How do you know? When is the story set? How do you know? Which words/ phrases tell you that the son had a turbulent relationship with his father? Could the father be described as a bully? Do you know another story where a child has to fill the position of an absent parent? Can you think of any authors who write about the theme of dreams? Why is there an r in the title FArTHER? What is the author trying to portray by the use of different colour? What do you think the author is trying to imply about the relationship of the characters by the text phrase I would sit on his lap until he remembered me? Why do you think that the boy took over his dads workshop and re-built the wings?

The words bossy dream are emphasised through an enlargement of the text type, this implies that the dream is very prominent in the Sons thoughts. The word bossy could describe how the Son saw his Father and suggests that their relationship was perhaps damaged by his Fathers strict and controlling ways. Furthermore this could imply that this dream of flight was never that of the Son, but he had it forced upon him by his Father.

In the Sons thoughts, his Fathers face is turned away from him and his eyes are directed towards the sky. This makes me think that Son feels like his Father always regarded his dream to fly as more important than him. This also suggests to me that the Son feels he was never good enough to meet his Fathers expectations.

The gold background suggests to me that the Father was a powerful man who ruled the life of his Son.

The ties around the Fathers waist remind me of DNA strands. DNA is a genetic force that is well out of our control, it is responsible for many traits that a person has. This implies that the Sons dream to fly hasnt been built of his own accord, but instead was fate, a part of his DNA, something that he was perhaps destined to do and something which he cannot control.

The father is seen here on a pedestal and raised up from the ground. This could signify that the son views him as having a position of power and his king like stance portrays authority and control. This implies that the son feels as though the father has reign over his life.

This image has direct links with Greek mythology and the country of Greece. It links to the story of Icarus who made wings but flew to close to the sun, the father is wearing a wreath crown and the pictures surroundings portray a typical Greek town.

The images are set over a double spread but there is a stark difference in the use of colour. The verso implies the dark and gloominess of the sons reality and the recto shows his vivid and bright dreams.

When walking on sand often foot prints are left behind. The use of sand in this image could raise the question of whether the father will leave prominent footsteps for the child to follow in his manner.

The cloud shapes that form could be perceived to be a thought bubble like a dream. But at this stage we are unsure of whether it is the sons dream or a bossy demand.

The son seems to slump in his stance and does not hold is head up high like his father who is a domineering character

However the surrounding image may look dark but the background sky of the text looks lighter. It could pose the question if whether the boy has good will and fortune coming his way without following the golden dream.

WHOSE

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Instructions 1. Create a spinner using split pins. Use images

above for game board.

2. All players place counters on the starting space (1)

& roll a dice to find out who goes first (highest

number )

3. The first player rolls the die. If an even number is

rolled they move two places, if an odd number is

rolled they move one.

4. Spin the spinner and use the word it points to in a

sentence that describes the picture on your space.

5. If they player cannot complete the task, then they

do not move that turn.

6. The winner is the first person to reach the finish.

WHOSE

WHEN

WHICH

WHERE WHICH

THAT

WHO

WHO

WHERE

Activity focus: relative clauses

This activity teaches children to join two sentences together using a relative clause.

Relative clauses are clauses starting with the relative pronouns who, that, which, whose, where, when. They are most often used to define or identify the noun that comes before them.

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