Teachers’ Notes
By Carol Magee, MA, PGCE
Contents
Introduction to the Resource
Introduction to The Blackhope Enigma
Activity 1 – Labyrinths and Other Riddles
Activity 2 – Classical Gods and Goddesses
Activity 3a – Painting With Words
Activity 3b - Openings With Atmosphere
Activity 4 – Literary Focus: A Critical Essay on Marin
Worksheet – Marin: Writing a Character Study
Activity 5 – Blackhope Enigma – The Game and Example
Further Reading
Introduction to the Resource
Scottish Book Trust Online Teacher in Residence is an online community and
resource hub aimed at teachers in Scotland with a particular interest in creative
learning for literacy within Curriculum for Excellence.
These class notes are offered free of charge, and are designed to support teachers
looking for a new book to use with their pupils.
You can download more teaching resources at www.scottishbooktrust.com/otir where you can also participate in live and recorded online events, get free online CPD, and browse our section of case studies and articles via the Online Teacher in Residence blog.
Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) intends to raise standards of achievement by
improving teaching and learning with literacy as one of the key areas of focus. These
materials suggest a range of activities that engage with literacy across the
curriculum, using the narrative as a stimulus for a range of creative learning
opportunities.
CfE gives pupil-led learning high priority, and working with novels may provide an excellent opportunity for pupils to design and drive their own learning, with facilitation from the teacher, using the narrative as a shared ‘jumping off point’ and framework.
Teachers are experienced at using stories with their pupils and since you know your
pupils best, it may be that the work you do with your class takes you in a completely
different direction from the ideas detailed below. It will follow that you will use the
book in ways that meet the needs of your pupils and your local community.
These materials have been compiled using suggestions from the Scottish Book Trust
Online Teacher in Residence Book Group.
Introduction to The Blackhope Enigma
The Blackhope Enigma is a truly engaging adventure story set in the present, but which quickly delves into the world of Renaissance art, as its chief protagonists, Sunni and Blaise, set out to rescue Sunni’s step-brother, Dean. Dean has become unwittingly trapped in a famous Italian painting by the mysterious artist known as Il Corvo and art lovers Sunni and Blaise set out to bring him home with exciting consequences..
As a teaching text it is rich in possibilities and I have aimed this resource at older Primary School pupils, Second Stage. Within this there are a few activities that are suited to P4/5 and some more suited to P6/7/S1, depending on the sophistication of the task. But most can be used by any year group and differentiated by outcome. There are several literary reading outcomes as well as writing possibilities. I have deliberately avoided a chapter-by-chapter close study as this can kill the enjoyment of reading a book. Instead, I have tried to give teachers a variety of possible directions for study – all of which draw on ideas offered by the novel as a whole. The cross-curricular links with Art are irresistible, so I have added a couple of tried and tested activities based on paintings, which are fun and stimulating; the idea of labyrinths and riddles also suggested a few activities based on word play. Within the novel, there is the Renaissance fascination with Arcadia and the classical gods. I have suggested possible reading outcomes on this thread, and it might be a particularly useful means of progression if your class were already studying Roman history as a social subject.
As with all teaching resources, these ideas are simply a starting point and will no doubt give rise to further developments as you begin to teach the text. Whenever pupils are involved, the direction of study often takes on a life of its own!
Whatever your educational adventure turns out to be, I hope you and your class enjoy The Blackhope Enigma.
CM
December, 2010
Activity 1: Labyrinths and Other Riddles
The whole idea of a labyrinth is very appealing to children, particularly if attached to some of the classical stories such as Theseus and the Minotaur. But The Blackhope Enigma is also a puzzle, a riddle and it is worth taking time to discuss with the children what mysteries are solved during the story. Ask the children to think of some of the puzzles that are answered. They may think of these and other ideas.
Some of the questions raised and answered are:
Who were the skeletons in Blackhope Tower?
Lady Ishbel and another ‘escapee’. Their mortal bodies could not travel beyond their time and into the 21st century
How did Dean get into the painting?
By whispering ‘chiaroscuro?
How did Innes Blackhope get out of the painting?
Through the second labyrinth.
Who is il Corvo and how did he make the painting come alive?
The artist who harnessed ‘astral magic’ to combine art and nature.
Where are the hidden paintings that are meant to exist?
Within another painting of the master’s workshop, never to be seen by the outside world
These questions could be displayed as they come to light in the story and then the answer written below as they are resolved by the plot. This will reinforce the idea of the mystery genre and show the author’s craft in posing and answering questions for us to follow.
Other riddles:
Use the idea of riddles as a springboard to writing riddles as poems.
Some examples by Pie Corbett use just one line and are a good starting point:
Golden coin in blue / The sunMany teeth but no bite / A comb
One that holds a thousand / A seed
Ballet dancer accomplishes the splits / Scissors
Pupils could work alone or in pairs to turn an everyday object into a one line riddle and make a book of the results for other classes to try and guess.
Longer riddle poems (4-6 lines is a good target) can be developed from a one liner. The example below is beautifully written with rhyme, but if you ask pupils to keep to a rhythm rather than a rhyme (by counting syllables) this tends to produce better poems with less forced rhymes.
In marble walls as white as milk,
Lined with a skin as soft as silk;
Within a fountain crystal clear,
A golden apple doth appear.
No doors there are to this stronghold
Yet thieves break in and steal the gold.
Traditional
(Answer – an egg)
Christina Rossetti’s poem ‘A Pin Has A Head’ is another fun model to work from.
A Pin Has A Head
A Pin has a head, but has no hair;
A clock has a face, but no mouth there;
Needles have eyes, but they cannot see;
A fly has a trunk without lock or key;
A timepiece may lose, but cannot win;
A corn-field dimples without a chin;
A hill has no leg, but has a foot;
A wine-glass a stem, but not a root;
Rivers run, though they have no feet;
A saw has teeth, but it does not eat;
Ash trees have keys, yet never a lock;
And a baby crows, without being a cock.
Extension: A group or even whole class poem can be created by joining these couplets together. Children love being part of a bigger whole and all can contribute to a longer finished poem. Illustrate with pictures of the different objects in the riddles.
Activity 2: Classical Gods and Goddesses
http://greece.mrdonn.org/greekgods/index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_(utopia)
Research and Report:
In the novel the concept of Arcadia is brought in and it would be helpful to discuss what this idea meant to the people of the Renaissance. The exploration of the Roman gods and goddesses is always quite fun and will be a great basis for understanding art and literary references in future years.
Assign each pupil (p6/7) or pair of pupils (P4/5) a Roman god or goddess or other mythical creature (or ask them to choose their own, avoiding repetition in the class). If you can use some library time or gain internet access for your class, this could add weight to the task. Use A3 sheets to display the pupils’ reports and ask them to draw pictures of their god/creature. Technical skills and elements of good layout could be discussed and assessed, as well as the selection and structure of their ideas. Sharing criteria for success before you begin the task is most helpful.
Some classical references which appear in the novel include:
Venus Neptune
Mercury Apollo
Mars and many others.
Zeus/Jupiter
Minotaur
Janus
Arcadia
Oral Presentation:
Once complete, ask pupils to share their classical character through an individual talk/presentation with the whole class/small groups. Pupils can be paired so that one can evaluate the other’s performance by means of a formal assessment sheet. All pupils will enjoy hearing and learning about the other characters and through evaluation, will learn to improve their own talking skills.
Extension: Create a class display of the finished A3 sheets and a table of books in which pupils have found classical references to gods or creatures which could be marked or written out above e.g. Harry Potter Series, Beast Quest series, Superheros, Shakespeare plays etc.
Activity 3a: Painting With Words
The following activities require colour photocopies/printing or better still, a smart board to display the painting so that everyone in the class has a good view.
Peter Breughel – The Hunters in the Snow, 1585
Display the painting, or colour print the worksheet as large as you can. Explain that the author, Teresa Flavin, enjoyed the paintings of this artist and others like him when she was young. The small figures in the painting helped to inspire the painting in The Blackhope Enigma.
Allow time to discuss the figures in the painting –
· What is happening in the picture?
· Who are the hunters of the title? Where are they heading?
· What else can you see? Skaters? Workers? Animals? Curlers?
(You could ask individuals to come up to the smart board and describe a detail or cut out small squares from a piece of A5 card and lay this over the painting. What can they zoom in on now?)
Ask the pupils to think about which character they would like to be and explain that you will be writing the story of one person from the picture.
Use the worksheet ‘Painting with Words’ to allow pupils to imagine themselves into the picture just like Sunni and Blaise. The story which emerges might be more successful if coupled with the Openings worksheet with a discussion on setting.
However, the Openings activity could easily work as a stand alone lesson. It requires some sophistication to imagine the view and perspective of someone in the picture but could provide a good assessment opportunity for use of language to create atmosphere. Provision of a thesaurus for each child is essential for this activity.
Extension: Personal writing based on using sensual description can really move creative writing forward. After working on Openings, give pupils a task based on describing their own sensual experience. E.g. The Day of the Snow or Soaking in Scotland. Once children are familiar with the thesaurus and the impact new vocabulary can give their writing, they enjoy and benefit from using it to tell their own stories.
Now you have discussed what the painting is about, choose one figure from the painting and look at them carefully. Think about the following questions and jot down your answers on your planning page.
· What is the name of your figure?
· Where are they going?
· What have they been doing for the last hour?
· What are they most worried about?
· What are they looking forward to?
· How do they feel physically at this moment, frozen in time?
Next, start to think about the story that surrounds this character you have created. If they had one problem to sort out in the course of the story what could it be? If a skater, it could be that you had lost your new scarf and your mother would be very cross; if a hunter, it could be to tell your family some grim news.
Write out your story trying to resolve the problem by the end.
3b: Openings with atmosphere:
This is a painting of winter, yet there is warmth in it. Think about the senses you feel as you leave the warmth for the cold outside and as you leave the cold for the warmth of your home.
Write down as many adjectives as you can to replace the word cold – e.g. chill, frozen etc in the snowflake.
Now write down from the painting as many action words (verbs) as you can see e.g. trudging, skating.