Toto 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 at telling a story in the first person.
Toto When a twister descends on their Kansas farm, Toto and his owner Dorothy are plucked into the air and sent to the mysterious Land of Oz. Toto and Dorothy are desperate to return home, so they set off with some new friends on a journey down the yellow brick road to find the only person who might be able to help them: the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. But what they find might surprise them. And, on the way, everyone will learn that what they think they are missing might have been there all along…
Themes and ideas Toto is a wonderful (and beautifully illustrated) retelling of the story of The Wizard of Oz, told through the eyes of Toto, Dorothy’s dog. When reading the whole text with a class it gives lots of opportunities for talk and discussion, including: Different characters’ perspectives Many children will be familiar with the story of The Wizard of Oz, either from the original book or one of the film or television adaptations. Telling the story through Toto’s eyes adds a new perspective to this familiar story.
Key discussion questions: • How does telling the tale though Toto’s eyes affect the story? • Do you think another character would have told the story differently? • Does Toto become more important in some scenes? Friendship and teamwork In the story, Dorothy and her friends keep each other going and overcome the obstacles in their way by working together. The sense of companionship (especially between Toto and Dorothy in this retelling) is central to the story. Key discussion questions: • Would the characters in the book get the happy endings they deserve without being friends and working as a team?
Using the resource This resource shares an extract from the start of the story where we meet Toto, Dorothy’s dog and our narrator. After reading the text, there are suggested discussion activities considering author’s craft and the use of first person and language choices to convey character. There is also a sheet with a storytelling challenge based on the extract. For Toto it focuses on telling a story 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 bookshop.
Illustrations © Emma Chichester Clark, 2020
Teacher’s notes for the PowerPoint Slide 2 Share the front cover and blurb to introduce the book and give context. Ask if anyone has read this book before. Does the blurb make you want to read on? 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 to talk to a partner and suggest what is happening in the extract. Ask the children: who could be telling the story? Is it a human? How do they know? (The tail!) Tell the children that the story is being narrated by Toto the dog. In this extract Toto is chasing a hat that has blown away in the wind. Remind the children that this story is told in the first person – Toto is talking to the reader. Working with a partner, ask the children to look through the extract and find examples of where Toto’s voice might be different to how a story is normally told through a third person narrator. The children might suggest: •
use of I and myself as pronouns
•
American dialect phrases (pretty darn pleased)
•
informal language (trotted back home; just about all over Kansas)
Slide 4 Ask the children to look through this section of text independently, looking for the same features as before: •
use of I and me as pronouns
•
colloquial phrases and informal language
They might also note that there is one long sentence, which helps it to sound as if Toto is very excited and the words are rushing out.
Illustrations © Emma Chichester Clark, 2020
Slide 5 Tell the children that they are going to practise trying to capture the voice of a character in their own storytelling. Ask the children 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 Toto in the earlier extracts. They can then try writing their first person scenes and share these with other people in the class. As an extension task, they might try writing the same scene in the third person and then reflecting on how this changes the story and the choices they need to make as a storyteller.