Born to Run This is one of sixteen resources that you can use with your class to celebrate Michael Morpurgo Month in February, or to explore books from the world famous author at any other time of the year. Each resource is built around an extract but also shares some of the key themes from the complete story that make the book such a rich and enjoyable text to share with your class. The extracts can be read with the class using the accompanying PowerPoints, and there are teacher notes and pupil challenges to help children develop their own story-writing skills. This activity looks at how skilful writing can depict characters as multilayered, showing their different sides.
Born to Run “There was something inside the sack, squeaking and squealing in terror. Patrick didn’t think about it. He leaped into the canal.” For Best Mate, being rescued is only the start of his adventures. From unwanted burden to favourite companion, and from pet to champion race dog, this remarkable greyhound proves that it’s not just cats who have more than one life. Cast aside, kidnapped or living rough on the streets, Best Mate can always find a way to survive. But will he ever find a real home?
Themes and ideas Born to Run tells the exciting story of a greyhound who moves from owner to owner, adventure to adventure. The book provides many opportunities for discussion around a number of different ideas and themes: Names Our hero is given different names over the course of the book: Best Mate, Brighteyes and Paddywack, but he remains the same dog with the same personality.
Key discussion questions: • How important are the names we give to things? • Would you be the same person if you had a different name? • If you could choose your own name, would you keep yours or change it to something different? Caring for animals In Born to Run, the greyhound has a number of different owners. Some are kind and some are not. Key discussion questions: • Why is it important to be kind to animals? • Why do you think some people are cruel to animals? • What could other people do to help?
Using the resource This resource shares an extract from the story, describing a gas attack in the trenches. After reading the text, there is a set of short teaching activities considering how skilful writing can depict characters as multi-layered, showing their different sides. There is also a sheet with a storytelling challenge based on the extract. For Born to Run it focuses on writing in the first person. This could be used as a short classroom activity or as homework to consolidate the learning from the teaching session. After reading and discussing the extract, hopefully some children will be inspired to read the book itself. You could read it aloud as a class novel or direct children to where they can find a copy to read themselves: the book corner, school library, local library or a local bookshop.
Illustrations © Michael Foreman, 2007
Teacher’s notes for the PowerPoint Slide 3 Read the extract aloud together (either with the teacher reading aloud and children following, children reading together as a class or children reading together in pairs). Tell the children that Patrick has lost Best Mate, the greyhound whom he loves. Ask the children to imagine how Patrick might feel and suggest what he might do next. Ask the children to make predictions about what might have happened to Best Mate and where he might be. Draw children’s attention to who is telling the story in this section: it is a third-person narrator who describes what has happened. Slide 4 Read aloud again, and then ask the children: who is speaking here? (It’s Best Mate.) Discuss with children that this part of the story is told differently, in the first person with Best Mate telling his own story. Ask the children: is this before or after Best Mate has been caught? Explain that it is afterwards, but Michael Morpurgo has chosen to tell the scene with Best Mate remembering back to when he was caught, rather than telling it in the third person as it happened. In pairs, children can reread the extract and summarise what might have happened to Best Mate. Then share the next slide. Slide 5 Explain to the children that Best Mate has seen a man called Mr Boots who he knows and has run over to him because Mr Boots often gives him a biscuit. Read aloud again, and then ask the children to summarise what has happened to Best Mate. Ask the children: why might Michael Morpurgo have chosen to tell this moment in the story in Best Mate’s own voice, with him remembering
Illustrations © Michael Foreman, 2007
back? If necessary, prompt the children by asking:
• How might this section be different if it wasn’t in Best Mate’s voice? • Would it have the same effect on the reader? • Would the reader know exactly how Best Mate felt? Slide 6 Tell the children that they are going to practise using the first person in their own storytelling. Ask them to think of a moment in a story which is exciting. It might be a new story that they have invented, or a retelling of a moment in a story they know well. In pairs, children can tell the exciting moment to each other, trying to use the first person consistently. They can also use the ideas drawn from Born to Run in the earlier extracts. Children can then try writing their first person scenes and sharing these with other people in the class. As an extension task, they might try writing the same scene in the third person and reflecting on how this changes the story and the choices they need to make as a storyteller.