- From ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’ by Arthur Conan Doyle

Worksheet 1b

Guided reading plan: Lesson 1

Teaching intention

To consolidate inference and deduction.

To stimulate questioning as a strategy to increase engagement.

To support the students in making predictions.

Introduction

Remind students that they are only working with the information given in Chapter 1 of The London Eye Mystery. They will be acting as literary detectives, inferring and deducing information, and drawing up a list of questions raised by the opening chapter.

Strategy check

Check that students understand the terms ‘infer’ and ‘deduce’.

Check that students understand both parts of the task. First, they should write down five things they have deduced from the text. For example: Ted has ridden the London Eye before; Ted has researched information about the London Eye; Ted is precise about numbers; Salim’s disappearance is the mystery referred to in the title; Ted is the one who solves the mystery.

The second part of the task requires students to come up with three questions they have after reading the first chapter. For example: Who are Kat, Salim and Ted? How does someone vanish from a sealed pod? What does Ted mean when he says his mind ‘runs on a different operating system’? How does Ted figure out the mystery?

Check that students know how to phrase effective questions. They could use ‘5Ws +1H’: who, where, when, why, what + how.

Independent reading

Ask students to silently read Chapter 1 of The London Eye Mystery.

Return to the text

Students work in pairs to come up with their list of deductions and evidence as well as their questions. They should share these with the group when complete, and a master list of evidence and questions should be drawn up.

Review

Ask the group how confident they feel about their role as literary detectives, making inferences and designing questions as they continue to read. Do they think this strategy will be useful? Ask them to make predictions about how they believe the rest of the plot will develop.

LESSON 2

Focus:Chapters 2–4

Narrative viewpoint/Language

Learning outcomes

Students will be able to:

Analyse the language used by the author to interest and entertain the reader

Skim the text to retrieve information

Identify the first person narrator

Engage

Put students into groups and hand out the card matching activity in WS 2a, where they will match up idioms with their meanings. Students should be able to complete these fairly quickly, and feed back to the class.

Remind students of the definitions of literal and figurative language, and introduce the term ‘idiom’ if they are not already familiar with it. Explain that figurative language adds richness and depth to a fiction text, while literal language is what is most often used in a non-fiction text. We all use both types of language regularly in our interactions with other people, and most of the time we are able to distinguish what kind of language is being used. Then go back to the expressions on WS 2aand ask students to imagine they were only able to understand these expressions literally. What would they believe each expression actually meant? They can create very amusing mental pictures!

Explore

Read Chapters 2–4.

Ask students whether they noticed anything about figurative and literal language in these chapters (they should have picked up that Ted is unable to understand figurative language so finds common idioms puzzling). Ask students to work in pairs and go back through the text, identifying examples of figurative language. They should use these to complete WS 2b, which also asks them to provide the figurative meaning of each expression as well as what Ted thinks it means. Some of the examples have been started for them.

Ask everyone feed back to the class.

Transform

Take students back to their role (from Lesson 1) as literary detectives. Explain that in these first chapters of the book, they have been given some clues as to Ted’s personality. He says that he ‘runs on a different operating system’. But what does this mean? In groups, ask students to find evidence in the first four chapters for the following statements:

Ted is unusually intelligent for his age.

Ted thinks clearly and notices small details.

Ted loves facts and knowledge.

Ted looks at things differently from other people.

Ted doesn’t like physical contact.

Ted finds it hard to read body language.

Review and reflect

Ask groups to feed back with the evidence they have found about Ted’s personality (they should keep this work for the next lesson). Then ask them to consider why Siobhan Dowd may have chosen to tell the story from Ted’s perspective. What does it add to the story to have him looking at things in such a logical way? Do they think it might help him solve the mystery of Salim’s disappearance? They should consider the humorous aspect to seeing things through Ted’s eyes, since his misunderstandings add richness to the story.

Also ask the class to consider Ted’s unique way of describing things. On page 20, Ted describes Salim: ‘he looked like his thoughts were not in the same place as his body’. This may not be an idiom, but is a kind of simile, and adds colour to our understanding of Salim’s character.

Homework

Ask students to think about idioms and figurative language in their everyday lives, and to listen for idiomatic expressions in conversation. They should each try to find three examples of this speech outside the classroom before the next lesson.

Worksheet 2a

Idioms

It cost an arm and a leg

It was very expensive

He’s in some hot water

He’s in trouble

It’s raining cats and dogs

It’s raining hard

He’s under the weather

He’s not feeling well

She’s buried her head in the sand

She refuses to face the truth

She let the cat out of the bag

She told the secret

I’m over the moon

I’m very happy

Let’s get the ball rolling

Let’s get things started

Worksheet 2b

Figurative language

In The London Eye Mystery , Ted has trouble understanding common idioms and figurative language. He takes everything literally, which can lead to some confusion. Look through Chapters 2–4 and write down all the examples you can find of figurative language, then complete the table with their meanings and what Ted thinks they might mean. Some of the examples have been started for you.

Example of figurative language

What it means

What Ted thinks it means

‘she was just a handful’

‘larger than life’

‘the spit of’ (the spitting image of)