Sparrow 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 lesson looks inventing rich, multi-layered characters.
Sparrow “There was only one creature on this earth who really knew Joan. He was a sparrow, just an ordinary sparrow… He was her best friend on this earth, maybe her only friend, too.” A young girl faces an impossible task, to save her beloved France from tyrants. To free her country, Joan will lose everyone she has ever loved. But she listens to her heart and believes in her calling. Many years later, a girl called Eloise has a very special dream about her heroine, Joan of Arc.
Themes and ideas Sparrow is a wonderful reimagining of the story of Joan of Arc which weaves Joan’s story together with the tale of a modern-day French girl. The book provides many opportunities for rich discussion, drawing on a number of different ideas and themes: Stereotypes and preconceptions As a young girl who has grown up in the countryside, Joan struggles to be listened to and taken seriously by other, more powerful characters in the story. Ultimately, her
self belief and persistence pay off and she fulfills what she sees as her destiny. Key discussion questions: • Would Joan’s journey through the book have been easier if she was a man? • Would she have been listened to more quickly if she had been older or if she had been from a rich family? • Do you think this situation is unique to Joan’s time or would a similar thing happen today? Retelling stories from the past In Sparrow, Michael Morpurgo takes a real story from the past, the story of a historical character who really lived, but he adds new elements to help tell the story. As he says in the author’s note, Belami the sparrow and the story of Eloise were added to “come close to Joan and will, I hope, enable my readers to do the same”. Key discussion questions: • How do you think the story of Eloise helps the reader to understand the story of Joan of Arc? • How would the story be different if these elements weren’t there? Of course, other themes and ideas might emerge from reading and discussing the book: religion and faith, leadership, as well as the chance to learn about a famous character from history.
Using the resource This resource shares an extract from the story, describing before and after a battle. 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 Sparrow it focuses on inventing a rich, multi-layered character and then describing them and their actions. 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 bookshop.
Teacher’s notes for the PowerPoint Slide 2 Share the front cover and blurb to introduce the book. If you are reading the whole novel as a class, the activities in this resource begin in chapter 6, so read up until this point first. If you are using the resources as an introduction to the text, then tell children that you are going to look at two extracts from chapter 6 of the book. Joan has grown up in the countryside, a normal girl until she hears voices from three saints, telling her that it is her destiny to save France from the invading English. She journeys to see the Dauphin, who eventually listens to her and allows her to lead the fight. The army are reluctant to allow a girl to lead them, so they begin the attack without her. They are losing when Joan rides to join the battle. Slide 3 Read aloud together (either with the teacher reading aloud and children following, children reading together as a class or children reading together in pairs) and then ask children what is happening in the scene. Check children understand the meaning of any unfamiliar words (particularly standard, as this is important for them having an image of Joan riding into battle, standard above her bringing hope in the next section). Ask the children to read through the extract again in pairs, finding evidence of how Joan feels to have been left out of the battle. If needed, you could prompt them by asking: •
How do her words to herself show how she feels?
•
What about her actions?
•
How about the words used to describe movement (jolt, clattered, sparks flying)?
Discuss why Michael Morpurgo might have chosen to use these techniques to show Joan
is angry and desperate to join the battle, rather than stating this explicitly. Discuss why Michael Morpurgo might have chosen to tell this scene in the present tense (captures the sense of excitement and action – something is happening now; puts the reader right at the heart of the scene; the reader can emphasise with the characters as it feels like it is happening right now). Slide 4 Introduce this extract as the next part of the scene. Again, read aloud together (either with the teacher reading aloud and children following, children reading together as a class or children reading together in pairs) and then ask children what this section of text is describing (Joan joining the battle, the French being inspired to attack again and them ultimately winning and storming the fort). Ask the children: what does this scene tell the reader about Joan and her character? Ask the children what the impact of Joan joining the battle was. How did the French army feel before she arrived? How did her arrival change things? Ask the children to suggest how they think Joan would feel after the battle. What do they think she will do next? Slide 5 Introduce this extract as the next part of the scene. Again, read aloud together then ask children to summarise what happened after the battle. Ask the children: is this what they expected Joan to do next? What do Joan’s actions tell the reader about her character? If necessary, prompt them by asking: What do we learn from her public actions (sparing prisoners, caring for the wounded, banning looting)?
What do we learn from her private actions (weeping for the dead, going to confession)?
and what she must do. This richness helps to make her a real, three-dimensional character.
Point out that Joan is a complicated character and here Michael Morpurgo shows her contradictions: she is both brave and keen to win the battle, and personally upset at the loss of life.
Ask the children to invent a new character – either from history or from their own imagination and think how they could make them conflicted or multi-layered.
Slide 6
Once they have thought of their character, they can describe them to their partner, both explaining what they are like, but also describing their actions (as Michael Morpurgo does in Sparrow).
Ask the children to think about Joan of Arc in the extracts they’ve read. Point out that she is complicated and conflicted in what she wants
Then, they could write a character study of their character, or write a story featuring them.
Tell the children that they are going to use an idea from Sparrow in their own storytelling.