To engage with a text

Key Stage 2

English

Into the Forest by Anthony Browne

﻿Hi there, my name's Mr. Byrne-Smith, and today we're starting a brand-new reading unit. This unit makes use of "Into the Forest", which is a text by Anthony Browne. In today's lesson, we're going to learn a bit about the author, and we're going to engage with the text for the very first time, so we're going to read some of it together. Let's make a start. It's going to be lots and lots of fun. This is the agenda for today's lesson. First, we're going to introduce the author and the book, and we're going to chat about those. Then, we're going to do some pre-vocabulary. This is vocabulary that's going to help us throughout the lesson. Then, we're going to read the text, at least some of the text, before finally summarising what we've learned. In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper, a pencil and then, of course, your brain, which you must not forget. Pause the video now if you need to get any of these things. Let's introduce the author and the book. The book we're looking at today is called "Into the Forest", and it's by Anthony Browne. Anthony Browne is a prolific children's author, which means he's written an awful lot of very popular books. He has more than one string to his bow though. He's also an illustrator. He's a fantastic illustrator, and he illustrates the majority of the books that he writes. Anthony Browne is what we might call an author illustrator, basically, because he does both. Other books by Anthony Browne include "What If...?", and a whole series of books around a character called Willy. Anthony Browne really likes to make use of apes in his books, so characters that are aped, gorillas perhaps, chimps sometimes. This is a theme that you see running throughout a lot of his books. I wonder if you know any texts by Anthony Browne. I wonder if you can think of any that contain apes. Let's think about the book we're looking at today. This is the cover of the text that we'll be using for the rest of this unit. It's called "Into the Forest", and as we've discussed, it's by Anthony Browne. The first thing I'd like you to do is have a think about what the front cover tells us. What clues does the front cover give you about the story? Front covers are really important because they are your first insight into a story and sometimes its characters. So we need to use them carefully to help us understand what's going on. I'd like you to pause the video now and have a think about what this front cover tells us about the story. Pause the video now. Okay. When I looked at this front cover, a few things sprung to mind. The first thing I thought was this child looks as though they're going on a real adventure. So I think, perhaps, this story might include some sort of adventure. I then noticed that the forest they're disappearing off into looks quite spooky and scary. So I feel if they are going on an adventure, it's not one that will necessarily be plain sailing. That means that I think a few things might go wrong before the end. After all, that's often what makes a really good story, so I hope that's what we have in store. Now we're going to look at fairy tales as a genre. "Into the Forest" is a type of text and a type of story which falls under the fairy tale category. Or at least, it has lots of themes which are similar to those found in fairy tales. Before we dig deeper into our text "Into the Forest", we're going to think about the type of features that are found in fairy tales. I'd like you to think carefully about how you might represent these ideas. A mind map is a really good idea. That's what I'm going to go with. You might prefer to write a list of things that you might find in fairy tales. If you have one nearby, perhaps you want to go off and get it for scanning through for a few examples of fairy tale features. I don't mind. It's up to you. Pause the video now and have a go. Okay. I've made a mind map. We're quickly now going to run through some of the features that I think are contained within lots of fairy tales, not all fairy tales but these are common features found within many. The first is an element of fantasy or make believe. Fairy tales often make use of this kind of magical fantasy, which brings the stories alive in a way that traditional tales don't. They teach us a lesson. There's often, what you might call, a moral at the end of each story, which means we're being taught something. Fairy tales are really good at doing this. They're really good at teaching us some sort of lesson by the end of the story. Enchanted settings, so when you consider the settings of many famous fairy tales, lots of them are enchanted, which is to say slightly magical. Clear story structure, fairy tales traditionally follow a very clear story arc, which means they start and finish in a very traditional sense the way you'd expect. The arc typically looks like this. Next, we have the characters. We often find imaginary or magical characters, for example, witches. This point joins quite nicely, I think, with the enchanted settings point I made a second ago and the fantasy make believe element found in fairy tales. These three, I think, link together quite nicely. Next, we have this big theme. This is a theme, which means it's a big idea, it's a big idea that's found often within fairy tails, good versus evil. You often have this balancing act throughout a story, throughout a fairy tale, of good versus evil. Finally, I thought I'd include three examples. Here we have one, two, three examples. I wonder if you can figure out what these icons represent. I haven't included the names. I wonder if you recognise these very well-known fairy tales. Pause the video and have a quick think. Okay, so we have Cinderella. I think the one in the middle is probably Rapunzel, tall tower, Rapunzel's kept at the top. Then, we have what looks like Jack and the Beanstalk. Let's go through some pre-vocabulary that's going to help us for the rest of the lesson. The first word we're going to look at is terrible. Now we're going to do a quick my turn your turn. That means I'd like you to repeat the word after me, terrible. Terrible is an adjective which means extremely bad or serious. Here, I've put it in a sentence. The weather was terrible yesterday, which is to say it was extremely bad or serious. Now in this instance, I think the word terrible means extremely bad. The weather was terrible yesterday. That doesn't necessarily suggest that the weather was really serious or especially dangerous. But it does suggest, I think, that the weather was extremely bad. The woman committed a terrible crime. Now in this instance, I think the crime committed by the woman was both extremely bad and serious, a terrible crime. I'd like you to see if you can come up with a sentence now in your head that makes use of the word terrible. I'd like you to pause the video now and have a go. Okay. I've created a scale here. We have terrible at the top, and our job is to put it somewhere on this scale which ranges from worst to best. I've already put some adjectives on. We have awful quite close to the worst then bad in the middle and good quite close to best at the top. Your job is to decide where you think terrible fits. Does it fit towards the worst end or towards the best end? What kind of adjective is this, and how serious is it? How bad is terrible? Pause the video now and have a think. Okay. I decided that it should probably go here between awful and bad or, arguably, here right down below awful, the worst of the four. I think there's no doubt that terrible has some strength to it. It is definitely worse than bad. So I would say it's somewhere either side of awful. Perhaps, it's the same as awful. Perhaps, they're equally bad. The next word we're going to look at is poorly. My turn your turn, poorly. Poorly is another adjective which means unwell or ill. Here, I've put the word into a sentence. She was feeling poorly, so she went to bed. If we were to check that with our definition unwell or ill, does that make sense? She was feeling unwell or ill, so she went to bed. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes perfect sense. I'd like you to have a go at putting this word into a sentence of your own. Like you to do this in your head, formulate it in your head and then say it out loud. Pause the video now. Okay. Time for us to read the text. Before we read the text, it's important to remember that some texts make use of pictures. The text we're looking at today by Anthony Browne is a picture book and, therefore, contains lots and lots of pictures. As I mentioned earlier, Anthony Browne is a very capable author illustrator, which means that he both writes and draws aspects of his stories. Our job, as the reader, is to think very carefully about what he's trying to portray, what he's trying to get across to us, in both his writing and his drawing, which is hard, but it's really important. Actually, when you practise and practise, it brings the story alive. Authors think very carefully about every single word that they include in their writing. They think about the word choice. They even think about the order in which the words come. The same is true of illustrators. They think ever so carefully about every pen stroke they make when drawing their pictures. Their choices are thought about carefully, so we're going to think very carefully about what they mean. One night, I was woken up by a terrible sound. There's our drawing on the side which I'm going to give you a few seconds to look at just so that you can take it all in. The next morning, all was quiet. Dad wasn't there. I asked mum when he was coming back, but she didn't seem to know. Again, I'm going to give you a few seconds to think about that picture and what's contained within it. I missed dad. The next day, mum asked me to take a cake to Grandma who was poorly. I love Grandma. She always tells me such fantastic stories. There are two ways to get to Grandma's house, the long way around, which takes ages, or the short way through the forest. "Don't go into the forest," said mum. "Go the long way round." Once again, just a few seconds to take in these pictures. But that day, for the first time, I chose the quick way. I wanted to be home in case dad came back. Okay. There's the final picture on this section of the text. Now I'm ever so sorry to pause it there. I know how annoying it is when you just get into a story and all of a sudden it gets paused. However, this is the part of the story we're focusing on first. And in the next lesson, we're going to unpick it bit by bit. We're going to get to grips with what's going on, and then, we're going to read on. So I promise you it's going to be worth it. Okay. Let's summarise what we've read so far, and what we've learned so far. We're going to do this using a game of true or false. I'm going to read you three statements. Your job is to tell me which of these are true and which of these are false, and they're based on the story we've just gone through, so there's nothing here that you're not capable of tackling. The child had a good night's sleep. Breakfast was strange and quiet. The child's mother gave him biscuits for Grandma. I'd like to pause the video and have a careful think about those. Are they true, or are they false? Okay. The child had a good night's sleep is false. We know that's not false. They were woken up by a strange sound in the middle of the night. We even got a peek out the window of what was going on. We saw what looked like a storm. Breakfast was strange and quiet. Yes, this is true. We were told as much, and we also saw that the breakfast table looked a bit peculiar. There certainly was an empty space where, perhaps, dad would normally have sat. The child's mother gave them biscuits for Grandma, false. If you were looking carefully and listening carefully, you will have noticed that the child's mother gave them a cake for Grandma rather than biscuits, tried to trick you with that one, but I've got a feeling it probably didn't work. Okay. Congratulations at the end of the lesson. In today's lesson, we have introduced the author and the book. We've done some pre-vocabulary which has helped us read and understand the text. Then, we have summarised the key information from the lesson. So well done for all of your hard work. You completed your lesson. The next lessons to come are all to do with this same text, and it just gets better and better. It's a fantastic book so please come back for more. Bye.

To engage with a text

To engage with a text

Lesson details

Key learning points

Licence

Video

Lesson appears in

UnitEnglish / Into the Forest by Anthony Browne

English