First, groups should discuss the audience they will be aiming their poster at, and what might appeal to this audience. They should also decide where the posters will be displayed. They will then need to come up with a catchy slogan for their posters. (As a fun activity to revise the importance of slogans, ask the teams to compete in completing the quiz on WS 7b.)

Transform

Once they have decided on a slogan, students can start to design their posters. They will need to consider presentational features like font, image and placement as well as the content of their poster (interesting facts, persuasive language, details like price, timing and location). Remind them that they are writing with a specific audience in mind, and where their posters will be displayed will also have an impact on what they produce (for example, a tube advert could not work with large sections of unreadable text).

When the posters are complete, each team has the opportunity to present their idea and design. They will need to explain why they have chosen what they have, and how it will best sell the London Eye to their audience. Once all teams have presented their posters, the class could vote on which ‘campaign’ should be presented to the ‘client’.

Review and reflect

Ask students to think again about what they have learnt about London, and the Eye, and how these are appealing for a tourist as well as a reader. Return to the question of why this was chosen as the setting. Are there any other places Siobhan Dowd could have chosen, both within London or elsewhere? If they were writing a mystery story set in their own hometown, where would it take place?

Homework

Students read Chapters 16–19.

Worksheet 7a

Advertising campaign brief

Dear Team,

We have been asked by our new clients, the London Tourism Board, to create a campaign advertising the London Eye. This campaign could eventually include radio and television advertising as well as a series of newspaper adverts, but our first task will be to produce a poster. These are important clients, and it is important that we impress them with our first effort! To ensure we only present our best work, you will be divided into teams, and each team will design a poster and pitch your idea to everyone, with the best poster going forward to the client.

Before designing your poster, you will need to consider:

which audience you will be aiming the campaign at

where the posters will be found

what you think is the most important or interesting feature of the London Eye to persuade your chosen audience to visit it.

Your poster must include:

a memorable slogan or catch-phrase

price, timing and location

an attention-grabbing image.

It could also include:

facts to impress tourists

quotations from passengers.

Be creative and good luck!

Worksheet 7b

Famous slogans quiz

Do you recognize these famous advertising slogans? Fill in the names of the products they advertise below!

Because you’re worth it.

Taste the rainbow.

I’m lovin’ it.

Should’ve gone to …

Just do it.

Have a break. Have a …

Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s…

The world’s local bank.

It gives you wings.

Every little helps.

LESSON 8

Focus:Chapters 20–23

Perspective

Learning outcomes

Students will be able to:

Explore the theme of perspective in the novel and how it contributes to the development of the plot

Skim and scan the text to locate evidence

Empathize with characters

Engage

Show students OHT 8, which is an example of an optical illusion. Ask students what they see. Some will see a duck, while others will see a rabbit. Show them that the drawing is of both of these creatures, depending on which way you look at it. Introduce the term ‘perspective’.

Then draw on the board Ted’s version of an egg from page 161 of the novel (i.e. three rings, one for the shell, one for the white and another for the egg yolk). Again, ask students to guess what it is. When you have come to the right answer, read Chapters 20–23.

Explore

Tell students that perspective is an important theme in The London Eye Mystery. As the novel progresses, Ted realizes that objects, people and situations can look different from different locations, or from the point of view of different characters. For example, when he is in the London Eye pod in Chapter 17, he tries to imagine the trip from Salim’s perspective on the day he disappeared.

In pairs, students work to find as many examples of perspective in Chapter 20 as they can. These could include:

‘Salim or not Salim’: Until the boy’s body is identified, he becomes Salim in the minds of the family, but once they know who he is, his ‘identity’ changes.

cyclones and anti-cyclones

water going down a plug hole

direction of London Eye

glass half empty/half full

nemotodes, such as earthworms

Kat’s waterfall picture

Can they think of any more examples from the real world?

Transform

Explain to the class that in a novel, perspective is also very important when understanding that an event may be narrated by one character, but experienced differently by other characters. Refer them to Chapter 3, where Ted and Kat remember Aunt Gloria’s letter completely differently.

Remind students of the photographs Ted and Kat look at in these chapters. Explain that every photograph is taken from the perspective of the person who takes it – where they are standing and what is interesting and important to them. This is why Ted’s photographs look so different to everyone else’s – because he has a different way of looking at the world.

Then, working in groups, students create one or more ‘photographs’ – tableaux of Salim’s disappearance from the perspective of the different characters in the novel. You could demonstrate Ted’s point of view yourself, with the help of a few students, as this is a perspective we are already familiar with. But how would Kat remember it? How did Salim see the scene, the moment he got into the capsule? How does Aunt Gloria or Mr Spark remember it, since they were not actually on the scene? Encourage students to be creative.

Groups then perform their tableaux. While they are frozen, invite other students to walk around the scene and look at it from different viewpoints. Is there anything that they see differently?

Review and reflect

Students should now have a good grasp of perspective. Tell them that the ability to see a case from different perspectives as well as the whole picture (Ted’s bird’s eye view) is also an important trait of a good reading detective. Discuss how, in a novel, the reader not only has to understand the narrator’s perspective, but to interpret the views of other characters through their actions and speech, to gain a bird’s eye view of the plot.