Great Fire of London Writing Narratives – Boxton’s diary

Aims of the topic:

Literacy: Writing – composition

Develop positive attitudes towards and stamina by writing narratives about personal experiences and those of others (real and fictional).

Consider ideas, vocabulary and what they want to say.

Make additions, revisions and corrections. Perform and evaluate their own work and give appropriate feedback to others.

***These lessons should be taught after lessons 2 and 3 from the history lesson sequence as children will then understand the sequence of events and will have gathered vocabulary to describe the fire***

Learning Objectives /

Teaching Activities

/

Vocabulary

/ Learning Outcomes
Lesson 1 - Literacy
Writing a diary composition
To understand the characters in a story
  • use questions and answers
  • use subordination to explain answers (when, because, that)
  • develop understanding of personal experiences of others
/ Read Vlad and the Great Fire of London
In groups/pairs think of questions you would like to ask Vlad. Ensure they are confident using root question words (Who, why, where, what, when) and encourage them to think of questions with different words.
Hotseat Vlad: Teacher takes role of Vlad and whilst ‘in character’ answers the questions from the children eg
Q: Were you scared?
A: I was scared Boxton wouldn’t run fast enough. He’s really slow when he’s half asleep but giving him a quick bite soon wakes him up.
If you have confident children they could take the hotseat and the role to give answers.
Check if the rest of the class agree with answers using a signal such as “thumbs up/thumbs down” and ask children to suggest parts of the story that give supporting evidence for their answers.
Make notes on the differences between Boxton and Vlad’s characters.
Try some of the questions with Boxton in the hotseat. What different answers might Boxton give?
Did Boxton feel the same? react the same? Want the same outcome? / Who
Why
Where
What
When
because
When
that / Children can formulate and ask questions.
Children are able to suggest appropriate responses from characters in a story and understand they may be different according to who is giving them.
Lesson 2
To write a personal narrative about real events
  • use first person narrative and past tense to write about events
  • compose individual sentences
  • correctly spell days of the week
/ Writing a diary
Explain what a diary is, ie a personal record of events and feelings, written regularly, often daily, but always with the date.
Discuss why people might write diaries (to remember special events, to share ideas privately etc). Introduce Samuel Pepys diary, the source of much of our information about the Great Fire of London. Pepys wrote many private parts in code to stop other people reading it, he never expected it to be published and read hundreds of years later.
Boxton doesn’t speak in the story, but perhaps he would be happier writing down what happened to him.Share ideas about what Boxton does (sleeping, being bitten, running and escaping, eating and listening to Vlad). How does he feel about all these things?
Look at a diary extract, eg Samuel Pepys:
About four o’clock in the morning, my Lady Battensent me a cart to carry away all my money, and plate, and best things, to Sir W Rider’s at Bednall-greene. Which I did riding myself in my night-gowne in the cart.

Discuss writing a diary in the first person and past tense – it is a record of the day often written at the end of the day before bedtime.
Draft ideas about what Boxton will write about under each diary entry. (see planning frame at end of plan) / Diary
Writer
Days of the week
Past tense
First person narrator / Children understand what a diary is and why people write them.
Children can start to write simple diary entries under different dates.
Lesson 3
To use descriptive vocabulary to expand and sustained writing of diary entries
  • use adverbs and adjectives and spell them correctly with suffixes (-er, -est)
/ Share ideas of descriptive words/adverbs that could be used to make actions more interesting (running, hiding, eating, escaping, biting, resting, sleeping).
Use words generated in the observation of flame to describe the fire (history lesson 3)
Look at rough entries and rewrite them using adverbs and adjectives as appropriate.
Explain that people often describe their diary as a friend (sometimes giving them names like Anne Frank’s diary Kitty). Entries do not have to be formal language but more like you would speak. Encourage children to read their entries quietly to themselves to check that their entries make sense.
Share entries and give feedback (eg 3 stars and a wish) / Adjectives
Adverbs / Children can add descriptive words to develop and expand diary entries.
Children can give one another feedback on their writing in a format that helps develop their work.
Lesson 4
To make simple additions, revisions and corrections
  • check writing, recognize errors and make final corrections
/ Use feedback to make final edits.
Write out the final copy in format wanted eg in books, for display (on parchment with black ink…), in mini diaries. / Revise
correct / Children can edit and complete their work.

Plan for Boxton’s diary

Remember: The fire started on Sunday 2nd September 1666.

Date / Diary entry / Interesting vocabulary