OVERCOMING CHALLENGES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

3©2019 The Roald Dahl Story Company Ltd /Quentin Blake.

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PREPARATION:

It is advised that extracts and CHALLENGE CARDSCHALLENGE CARDS for Tasks 1 and 2 are photocopied and printed for children to use in pairs. The words listed on the QUALITIESQUALITIES worksheet (Task 4 ) should be cut out and mounted around the classroom for children to find. Children can format their own PROFILESPROFILES for Matilda (Task 5 ) or, again, you can photocopy and print the templates provided.

BOOK THEME:

Bravery and Resilience / Making a Difference

LITERACY OBJECTIVE: To analyse the challenges that different characters face in the story (Matilda, Miss Honey, Bruce).

PSHE OBJECTIVE: To identify qualities required to overcome challenges and to achieve goals.

EXTRACT USED:The Ghost (pages 33–35), The Parents (pages 93–94), Bruce Bogtrotter and the Cake (pages 123–124)

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

STARTER ACTIVITY:

Ask children to consider: what challenges have they faced today? What challenges did they face this morning? On the way to school? During break-time? During class?

In pairs, children should choose one of these challenges and create a freeze-frame to portray how it made them feel.

Use the freeze-frames and discussion to come up with a class definition of the word ‘CHALLENGE’.

Then, before reading, tell children that they need to identify the challenges faced by the character in each of the extracts: Matilda, Miss Honey, and Bruce Bogtrotter. Read the three extracts aloud as a class.

1.

2.

3.

4.

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TASK 1: CHALLENGE CARDS

After reading, ask children to use the CHALLENGE CARDSCHALLENGE CARDS to match the different challenges to the characters.

TASK 2: RANKING CHALLENGES

Ask children to rank the CHALLENGE CARDSCHALLENGE CARDS from 1–8, in order of most difficult to least difficult, giving reasons for their choices. Note: be clear that there are no right or wrong answers. Another way of delivering this would be to split the classroom into sections: ‘Very Difficult’ on the left, and ‘Less Difficult’ on the right. Children should move within the space to an appropriate position when the teacher (or a class volunteer) reads out a card.

TASK 3: OVERCOMING CHALLENGES PART 1

How do each of the characters (Matilda, Miss Honey, and Bruce Bogtrotter) overcome the challenges that they face? Do they have an inner strength? Or do they receive help from others? Ask children to list their ideas with a partner.

TASK 4: OVERCOMING CHALLENGES PART 2

Children should try to find the different QUALITIESQUALITIES that you have placed around the classroom (see PREPARATION stage). Can they relate any of these qualities to the characters in the story? How? How do the characters’ qualities help them overcome their challenges to achieve their goals?

As an extension: Can children think of any additional qualities that the characters possess?

TASK 5: MATILDA PROFILE

Children should use everything they have discussed in this lesson and their knowledge of the story to complete a PROFILEPROFILE for Matilda – taking into account how she makes a difference by overcoming her challenges!

PLENARY:

Finally, ask children to set their own goal for making a difference in the world on one of Matilda’s empowering books. What do they want to achieve? What challenges might they face? How will they overcome these challenges? Ask children to share their MAKING A DIFFERENCE GOALSMAKING A DIFFERENCE GOALS with the class. They could even hang them around the room to create an inspirational classroom display!

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THE GHOST(PAGES 33-35)

‘Don’t you ever stop reading?’ he snapped at her.‘Oh, hello, Daddy,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Did you have a good day?’‘What is this trash?’ he said, snatching the book from her hands.‘It isn’t trash, Daddy, it’s lovely. It’s called The Red Pony. It’s by John Steinbeck, an American writer. Why don’t you try it? You’ll love it.’‘Filth,’ Mr Wormwood said. ‘If it’s by an American it’s certain to be filth. That’s all they write about.’‘No, Daddy, it’s beautiful, honestly it is. It’s about…’‘I don’t want to know what it’s about,’ Mr Wormwood barked. ‘I’m fed up with your reading anyway. Go and find yourself something useful to do.’ With frightening suddenness he now began ripping the pages out of the book in handfuls and throwing them in the waste-paper basket.Matilda froze in horror. The father kept going. There seemed little doubt that the man felt some kind of jealousy. How dare she, he seemed to be saying with each rip of a page, how dare she enjoy reading books when he couldn’t? How dare she?‘That’s a library book!’ Matilda cried. ‘It doesn’t belong to me! I have to return it to Mrs Phelps!’‘Then you’ll have to buy another one, won’t you?’ the father said, still tearing out pages. ‘You’ll have to save your pocket-money until there’s enough in the kitty to buy a new one for your precious Mrs Phelps, won’t you?’ With that he dropped the now empty covers of the book into the basket and marched out of the room, leaving the telly blaring.Most children in Matilda’s place would have burst into floods of tears. She didn’t do this. She sat there very still and white and thoughtful. She seemed to know that neither crying nor sulking ever got anyone anywhere. The only sensible thing to do when you are attacked is, as Napoleon once said, to counter-attack. Matilda’s wonderfully subtle mind was already at work devising yet another suitable punishment for the poisonous parent.

EXTRACTEXTRACT



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THE PARENTS(PAGES 93-94)

Miss Honey decided that if she was going to get anywhere with these people she must not lose her temper. ‘I haven’t told you all of it yet,’ she said. ‘Matilda, so far as I can gather at this early stage, is also a kind of mathematical genius. She can multiply complicated figures in her head like lightning.’‘What’s the point of that when you can buy a calculator?’ Mr Wormwood said.‘A girl doesn’t get a man by being brainy,’ Mrs Wormwood said. ‘Look at that film-star for instance,’ she added, pointing at the silent TV screen, where a bosomy female was being embraced by a craggy actor in the moonlight. ‘You don’t think she got him to do that by multiplying figures at him, do you? Not likely. And now he’s going to marry her, you see if he doesn’t, and she’s going to live in a mansion with a butler and lots of maids.’Miss Honey could hardly believe what she was hearing. She had heard that parents like this existed all over the place and that their children turned out to be delinquents and drop-outs, but it was still a shock to meet a pair of them in the flesh.‘Matilda’s trouble,’ she said, trying once again, ‘is that she is so far ahead of everyone else around her that it might be worth thinking about some extra kind of private tuition. I seriously believe that she could be brought up to university standard in two or three years with the proper coaching.’‘University?’ Mr Wormwood shouted, bouncing up in his chair. ‘Who wants to go to university, for heaven’s sake! All they learn there is bad habits!’‘That is not true,’ Miss Honey said. ‘If you had a heart attack this minute and had to call a doctor, that doctor would be a university graduate. If you got sued for selling someone a rotten second-hand car, you’d have to get a lawyer and he’d be a university graduate, too. Do not despise clever people, Mr Wormwood. But I can see we’re not going to agree. I’m sorry I burst in on you like this.’ Miss Honey rose from her chair and walked out of the room.Mr Wormwood followed her to the front-door and said, ‘Good of you to come, Miss Hawkes, or is it Miss Harris?’‘It’s neither,’ Miss Honey said, ‘but let it go.’ And away she went.

EXTRACTEXTRACT



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BRUCE BOGTROTTER AND THE CAKE(PAGES 123-124)

The Trunchbull stood with hands on hips, glaring at him. ‘Get on with it!’ she shouted. ‘Eat it up!’Suddenly the boy let out a gigantic belch which rolled around the Assembly Hall like thunder. Many of the audience began to giggle.‘Silence!’ shouted the Trunchbull.The boy cut himself another thick slice and started eating it fast. There were still no signs of flagging or giving up. He certainly did not look as though he was about to stop and cry out, ‘I can’t, I can’t eat any more! I’m going to be sick!’ He was still in the running.And now a subtle change was coming over the two hundred and fifty watching children in the audience. Earlier on, they had sensed impending disaster. They had prepared themselves for an unpleasant scene in which the wretched boy, stuffed to the gills with chocolate cake, would have to surrender and beg for mercy and then they would have watched the triumphant Trunchbull forcing more and still more cake into the mouth of the gasping boy.Not a bit of it. Bruce Bogtrotter was three-quarters of the way through and still going strong. One sensed that he was almost beginning to enjoy himself. He had a mountain to climb and he was jolly well going to reach the top or die in the attempt. What is more, he had now become very conscious of his audience and of how they were all silently rooting for him. This was nothing less than a battle between him and the mighty Trunchbull.Suddenly someone shouted, ‘Come on, Brucie! You can make it!’The Trunchbull wheeled round and yelled, ‘Silence!’ The audience watched intently. They were thoroughly caught up in the contest. They were longing to start cheering but they didn’t dare.‘I think he’s going to make it,’ Matilda whispered.‘I think so too,’ Lavender whispered back. ‘I wouldn’t have believed anyone in the world could eat the whole of a cake that size.’‘The Trunchbull doesn’t believe it either,’ Matilda whispered. ‘Look at her. She’s turning redder and redder. She’s going to kill him if he wins.’

EXTRACTEXTRACT



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CHALLENGE CARDS

CHARACTER CARDS

DISAGREEMENT WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY

ANGER FROM OTHERS

FEELING AS THOUGH YOU

ARE ALONE

DOUBT FROM FRIENDS AND

FAMILY

BEING BULLIED BY OTHERS

DOUBTING YOURSELF

IGNORANCE FROM OTHERS

NOBODY LISTENING

TO YOU

BRUCE BOGTROTTER MATILDA WORMWOOD MISS HONEY

CHALLENGE CARDSCHALLENGE CARDS



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RESOURCEFUL BRAVE

ADAPTABLE

COMMITTED

STRONG

BOLD

TALENTED

RESILIENT

QUALITIESQUALITIES



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WHAT HELPS HER TO ACHIEVE HER GOAL?

WHAT QUALITIES HELP HER TO ACHIEVE HER GOAL?

WHAT CHALLENGES

DOES SHE FACE?

HOW DOES SHE OVERCOME

THESE CHALLENGES?

MATILDA’S PROFILEMATILDA’S PROFILE



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MAKE A DIFFERENCE GOALMAKE A DIFFERENCE GOAL

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OVERCOMING CHALLENGES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

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