English: KS3
Teaching Idea - ‘Moonfleet’ Project

By Carolann McMahon, former Drama Adviser, Dorset LEA, and Linda Poulsen, Education Officer, Dorset County Museum / Museum Education Adviser, Dorset LEA.

Introduction

‘Moonfleet’ is a classic adventure story set in eighteenth century Dorset. It tells the story of young John Trenchard who in his quest for Blackbeard’s diamond, gets caught up with smugglers and diamond dealers and finally survives a dramatic shipwreck.

The author, John Meade Falkner, spent his childhood in Dorchester and Weymouth. When he wrote the novel in 1898 he drew on his intimate knowledge of the locality to create a story which is rooted in real life events. The backdrop to the story is Fleet, a notorious smuggling village left derelict following a terrible hurricane which caused widespread flooding. The story is powerfully written and vividly evokes the drama and excitement of John Trenchard’s adventures.

The work of Meade Faulkner is featured in the Writers Gallery of the Dorset County Museum. In particular there is a display which depicts John Trenchard hiding from the smugglers behind Blackbeard’s coffin in the vault of Fleet Church, ***LINK with Smugglers Gallery*** which lends itself to dramatic interpretation with students (see Session 2).

This cross-curricular project is designed to enhance student’s enjoyment of the story and at the same time develop their understanding of the story teller’s craft. It has been devized by Carolann McMahon, formerly Dorset LEA’s Drama Adviser, and Linda Poulsen, Dorset LEA’s Museum Education Adviser and Education Officer at the Dorset County Museum. It is particularly appropriate for Yr 8 students, although it may also be adapted for other year groups. The following notes give a flavour of the project; any school interested in involving their students should contact Linda Poulsen at for further details.

Session 1 – Visit to School

Session Leader: Museum Education Officer

Aims of Introductory Session:

  • to encourage students to think about the author and the origins of the story.
  • to enable students to gain insight into how personal experience can enrich the quality of writing.
  • to motivate students, particularly boys, to improve their reading, writing and research skills.
  • to prepare students for visit to the Dorset County Museum by

(i)enabling them to identify with the smugglers, how they felt, what they might be thinking, etc.

(ii)using non-fiction resources, particularly the ‘Dorset & the Sea’ web site, to research the background to smuggling in Dorset.

Resources:

Map, lantern, tinder box, replica Mohun brass, photocopies of tombstone and notes from Thomas Hardy, i.e. his grandfather’s account and extract from ‘The Distracted Preacher’, plastic barrel (equates to half anker barrel containing roughly 4½ gallons used by smugglers).

1. Introduction:

‘Moonfleet’ – where did the story come from?

Who was John Meade Falkner?

Drawing on real life, names, places and events.

JMF: 1858 – 1932 ‘Moonfleet’ published 1898.

Biographical details – childhood in Dorchester and Weymouth. Whilst JMF a student his father moved to Buckland Ripers, near Weymouth.

JMF creating a sense of time and place.

Map – pupils locate Dorchester, Fleet etc.

Dorset coast – pupils discuss the reasons for smuggling. Routes inland.

Dorchester Gaol registers – find smugglers from inland parishes. Occupations?

Tinder box, lantern - sense of time, i.e. mid 18th C.

Names – replica brass from church. Mohun, Trenchard - local families.

Rev Thomas Ratsey Maskew - head of Thomas Hardye School where JMF was educated

Events – death of smuggler William Lewis; photocopies of his tombstone in Wyke Regis

churchyard – carving of two ships, cf. David Block’s headstone.

Photocopies of Thomas Hardy.’s grandfather’s involvement with smuggling.

Devastation of village by Great Storm of 1824

2. Importance of personal experience in enhancing quality of writing:

Contrast 1930’s cigarette cards depiction of the Tub man with Thomas Hardy’s description in ‘The Distracted Preacher’: “the sensation of having chest and backbone in contact after a walk of four or five miles.”

Plastic barrel – filled with 4½ gallons (i.e. half anker). Smugglers carried at least 2, one on the chest, one on back. Students to test weight – think of words to describe what it feels like, what it would be like walking over uneven ground, in darkness, etc.

3. Follow up:

  • write a brief account about landing the cargo on Moonfleet beach and hiding it in the Church, from the perspective of one of the smugglers.
  • students research smuggling in Dorset using the ‘Dorset & the Sea’ web site. Working in groups they investigate different aspects / personalities involved. Discuss use of language. Compare JMF, Thomas Hardy, newspaper accounts. (Latter in web site Archive***LINK)

Session 2 – Visit to the Dorset County Museum

Reading the Cartoon Tableau ‘In the Vault’

Session Leader: former Drama Adviser, Dorset LEA

Aims of Session 2:

to use drama to enhance pupils’ understanding and enjoyment of the book

to develop insight into the author’s writing

to develop drama strategies

to use personal experience through drama to enrich writing

to develop / enhance speaking and listening skills

1. Discussion

  • Individually / pairs look at the picture of the tableau and discuss it using the following questions to help you:

What are the men doing?

How would you describe them, e.g. ugly, mean, frightening?

Share and record feedback on flip chart to use in next activity.

  1. Dramatic Activity
  2. Statues: individual statues depicting descriptions in discussion above. Show half group at a time.
  3. In Role: half the group in role as art critics describe the statues above using words from the flip chart to help them. Decide which character they might represent in the museum tableau.

3. Speaking, Listening & Writing

  • Through discussion, writing or any other form of response, describe what it might have felt like in the vault for the smugglers. Record your impressions.
  • What might the smugglers be thinking when carrying the barrels through the dark, secret passage to the vault? Record responses on large ‘thought bubble’ sheets.

4. Characterisation

  • Which of the characters looks like the leader / boss?
  • What is it about him that makes you think he is the leader / boss? Is it the way he stands, looks, or is dressed?
  • How might the character you have chosen to take on in role move, e.g. slowly, clumsily, confidently, threateningly…?
  • What might his voice be like, e.g. rasping, smooth, high pitched, powerful, weak, squeaky, deep, strong, guttural…?
  • Write a description using the above guide to help you.
  • Practise movement of each character – walking, turning, gestures, stance…
  • Practise: i. talking

ii. use of voice, e.g. to emphasise his character, perhaps by tone.

iii. gestures, facial expressions, and so on.

iv. How might the others behave towards him, e.g. respectfully, resentfully…?

  • Tableau – clambering through the tunnel carrying barrel(s).
  • Thoughts-in-the Head of tableau.
  • Mime – clambering through the tunnel carrying the barrel, remembering how heavy it might be and how this would affect the breathing, balance, posture, movement, etc.
  • Sound effects – what sounds might be heard? Record on paper for use in writing, e.g. poem, to add atmosphere when re-telling the tale by John Trenchard.
  • Bring to life – do and say what you think the smugglers might do and say, incorporating all you have done previously.
  1. Speaking, Listening & Writing
  • When John Trenchard first heard the sound of footsteps coming towards the vault, what might he have thought, e.g.
  • Who did he think the footsteps belonged to?
  • Why did he hide?
  • What might his thoughts and feelings have been when he initially found himself trapped? Discuss and record on flip chart.
  • What might his thoughts and feelings have been when he realised:
  • he knew these men?
  • they were smugglers?
  • some of them did not like him?
  • Act out the above.
  • When John Trenchard first realised he knew some of the men, do you think he;
  1. felt safe?
  2. wanted to let them know he was there?
  3. wanted to shout at them?

If you think ‘yes’ to ii. or iii., what do you think stopped him doing so?

If you don’t think he felt any of these, why not?

Write your thoughts on this using one of the following forms: a poem, word collage, diary or letter to a friend.

6 Dramatic Activity

Working in groups:

  • Improvise the vault scene and then script it.
  • Show i. spotting individuals

ii. thoughts in the head

  • Conscience Alley of John’s thoughts.

7 Interpreting the Skeletons

  • If skeletons could think and/or speak ;
  1. what might their thoughts be?
  2. what might they say to the smugglers using their resting place as a hiding place to store their contraband?

Black Beard is also lying in the vault – how might he react? What might he think / say if he were able?

Choose one of the skeletons in the tableau and choose an adjective to describe the way he looks.

  • Become a statue / still image of the skeleton.
  • Thought track the character.
  • Bring to life the skeletons and incorporate the thoughts in the head into the conversation with each other.

Split into two groups. One half becomes the smugglers and the other half becomes the skeletons.

  • Make a tableau when the smugglers realise the skeletons can move and speak.
  • Bring the tableau to life and improvise their reactions. Emphasise the body language and facial expressions. How might their voices sound, e.g. stilted or frightened? Might some of them be speechless or frozen to the spot?
  • Replay in slow motion.
  • Freeze and thought track.
  • Stylised movement or Dance Drama of the skeletons’ movements. Add sound effects / music. Make up a poem, rap or song to accompany it.

Session 3 Visit to Fleet Village & Church, and the Chesil Beach

Session Leaders: former Drama Adviser, Dorset LEA and Dorset County Museum Education Officer

Aims of Session 3:

to explore the myth and reality underlying the novel through visiting places associated with the novel and re-enacting selected events.

to enable pupils to explore and develop, through visits, their own creative responses.

Resources:

Old photographs and maps of Fleet village, extracts from the novel, leaflets describing the Fleet and its wild life and flora, photographs of Chesil Beach and the sea shore, poem ‘Chesil Beach’ by Michael Tod, copy of Hokusai’s print ‘The Great Wave’ and Gustave Doré’s illustrations from ‘The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner’.

1.Introduction

  • Walk up bridle path to get overview of Chesil Beach, the Fleet and Fleet village, and absorb atmosphere.
  • Draw simple line drawing of the bay and Chesil Beach, and make word shape picture, i.e. words that describe mood, sounds, colour, movement, landscape...
  • Read extract from book ‘Moonfleet’ - Chapter 2 ‘The Floods’.
  • Cut through the farm and look down on Butter Street. Look at map and pictures of the village taken during different periods. What was destroyed by the floods? Discuss similarities, differences/changes. How does the village compare with J M Faulkner’s portrayal of the village? How realistic might his portrayal have been during the time the book was set? Is the village as the students imagined? If not, why not?

2.Fleet Church

  • Historical background. Look around the churchyard. Notice structure /architecture of church, tombstones. Image how it looked before the flood... Compare with Eric Rickett’s reconstruction. Which tomb did the smugglers use to reach the vault?
  • Look around inside the church e.g. brass memorials to the Mohun family. Discuss what might be underneath the church floor.
  • Write words to describe the atmosphere in the church.
  • Discuss what sounds might be heard in church, e.g. movements of congregation, people singing hymns and saying prayers, church clock, bells...
  • Read extract from the novel describing the noises heard by the congregation i.e. barrels floating about in the vault hitting coffins. .

3.Dramatic Activities

  • Students in role as the villagers during the church service when the above happened.
  • Characterisation - develop individual characters bearing in mind characterisation work done in Session 2.
  • Still images of thoughts the congregation might have had when hearing the noises.
  • Thought track images.
  • Bring characters to life, improvise and interact with other characters. What might the characters have done and/or said on hearing the noises beneath the church floor?
  • Discuss what they might have said to each other when leaving the church. How did they leave the church, e.g. hurriedly, noisily? Were they frightened, excited, apprehensive?
  • Interview

Working in pairs, A & B

A - a character who experiences noises in the church

B - a journalist

What type of questions might the journalist / interviewer ask? What type of answers might s/he get?

In role as the journalist / interviewer write up the interview in the style of one of the following:

i) a newspaper of the time

ii) a modern newspaper, e.g. a tabloid or a broad sheet.

Headlines

In small groups - become pictures in the newspapers. Give the pictures a caption / headline.

Sharing & Annotation

i) Groups take turns to show rest of class their newspaper picture. Simultaneously the audience (editors) make quick line drawings of the picture, annotate it and suggest captions.

ii) Audience discuss / share with the ‘picture’ group their interpretation of the picture and compare captions.

4.Visit to Chesil Beach to see site of shipwreck

  • Look at scene and discuss in context of novel.
  • Read Michael Tod’s poem, ‘Chesil Beach’. Discuss his use of language, metaphor, personification, etc.
  • Students create word collage depicting the mood of the sea.
  • Discuss Gustave Doré’s illustrations from ‘The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave’.
  • Draw the ‘mood’ of the sea.

5.Visit Portland Heights

  • Experience the view and discuss why / how ships became trapped in Lyme Bay, e.g. the Royal Adelaide.

6Follow up in school

  • Pupils study publicity leaflet about the Fleet. Compare the use of scientific and factual language with JMF’s descriptions of the Fleet. Who is the publicity leaflet written for? Discuss the balance between text and images, and other presentational details. How effective is the leaflet? What are its good / weak points?
  • Pupils write their own tourism leaflet.
  • Pupils read shipwreck extract from ‘Robinson Crusoe’ by Daniel Defoe and compare his use of language with JMF’s. Which is the most evocative? What differences are there in sentence structure and tone? How do these fictional accounts compare with the loss of the Royal Adelaide, shipwrecked on Chesil Beach, published in the Illustrated London News in 1872? (See ****Archive field****** in this web site)
  • Pupils write their own description of surviving a shipwreck, either as a passenger on the Royal Adelaide, or as themselves surviving an imaginary shipwreck.
  • Pupils study the description of the seabed in the Duke of Clarence’s speech in Act 1, Scene IV in Shakespeare’s play Richard III:

“Lord, Lord! methought what pain it was to drown:

What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!

What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!

Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,

A thousand men that fishes gnaw’d upon,

Wedges of gold, great ingots, heaps of pearl,

Inestimable stones, unvalu’d jewels,

All scatter’d in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and in those holes,

Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,

As ‘twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,

That woo’d the slimy bottom of the deep

And mock’d the dead bones that lay scatter’d by.”

  • Pupils then compare Shakespeare’s imagery with the illustration of the seabed by Gustave Doré in ‘The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner’. They write their own account of what it would be like diving on Doré’s site, describing what they might see, hear and touch, how they might feel, and what might happen… (‘The Adventures of Tintin – Red Rackham’s Treasure’ by Hergé might also provide some ideas!)

Session 4 Feedback Session in School

Session Leaders: Museum Education Officer and class teacher

Aims of Session 4:

  • to enable students to reflect on what they have done, what worked well or not so well, and why?
  • to enable students to reflect on how their participation in the project has enhanced their appreciation of the story teller’s craft.
  • to enable students to identify improvements in their own reading, writing and research skills, and identify strategies for further improvements.
  • to make their work available to a wider audience through classroom displays and the internet.

1. Discussion

Students are invited to share with each other what worked well, or not so well, and how the project has affected their appreciation of the novel. What did they enjoy most / least? If they were doing the project again, what would they keep / change? Why?

2. Creating a display

Class members discuss what sort of display they want to create, what themes they want to put over, who is their audience, etc. and agree an editorial panel. Themes might include the life and times of J. Meade Falkner, smuggling in Dorset, shipwrecks, a historical comparison of Fleet village as it was and is now, using maps and photographs, or a natural sciences display on the ecology of the Fleet. Students select their own ‘best’ pieces of work for the editorial panel to incorporate in the display.

Students might wish to re-enact scenes from the novel or their drama and create their own video or use a digital camera to record the project.

3. Putting Work on the Internet

Students e-mail or send their work for possible inclusion on the Dorset & the Sea web site to Linda Poulsen, Dorset County Museum, High West St., Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1XA.