Buried Thunder
Teachers’ Resources
By
Annie Fox
CONTENTS
Introduction3
Overview for Scheme of Work4
Navigator5–6
Lesson Plans7
Assessment49
INTRODUCTION
English teachers don’t need to be told the enormous value and pleasure of reading whole texts as class readers. Little compares with that feeling when a class are truly engaged in the reading of a really good book. Fortunately, contemporary writers of fiction for young adults continue to offer fresh opportunities to enjoy literature with students.
Oxford Rollercoasters is a series that offers teachers the opportunity of studying first-class novels as whole-class readers with Year 7, 8 and 9 students. Each set of materials has been written in response to the diverse needs of students in those year groups.
Focus on assessment of reading
Oxford Rollercoasters includes titles with varied themes, challenging subject matter and engaging plots. For example, Noughts and Crosses takes a contemporary slant on racism; The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas explores the Holocaust through the eyes of a young German boy; Buried Thunder is a psychological thriller which begins with a young girl discovering two bodies in a forest.
In the latest wave of Rollercoasters, each novel is accompanied by innovative and engaging teaching materials, designed to help all students access the texts and also to reflect the National Curriculum Programmes of Study. The key concepts of competence, creativity, cultural and critical understanding are clearly addressed, and the schemes offer a wide range of cross-curricular opportunities.
The latest teaching materials are firmly based on developing reading skills, though teaching plans include approaches to literature through oral work, drama and media. Theories behind both assessment for learning and thinking skills are evident in the lesson plans.
Time-saving resources
In each on-line Teacher’s Pack there is a compact Overview which summarizes the work scheme, identifies the specific reading skills and strategies being developed, and the resources available for each lesson.
Lesson Plans suggest particular focuses and learning outcomes, but the Word files can be adapted to suit the level of progression for each particular class. All Resource sheets can be easily adapted for differentiation.
The Navigator offers a clear plot summary, identifying the stages in the structure of the novel. It is designed to help teachers adapt the pace and detail of work according to the needs of their class.
Every set of lesson plans ends with its own student Reading Assessment Progress sheet, which can be used to identify areas for student development.
Reading Guide
Each of the novels has its own student Reading Guide – an accessible, magazine-style booklet, packed with visual, textual and activity materials to help engage students in their study of the novel. Each one features writer’s craft material to enhance and enrich the students’ appreciation of the author’s skills. Original drafts and commentary from the authors of the novels provide valuable insight into the process of writing.
Ideas for wider reading and for the extension of independent reading are provided in the Pathways section at the end of the Reading Guide.
Oxford Rollercoasters provides first-class teaching resources for first-class contemporary fiction. The series is designed to engage the widest possible range of students in reading for pleasure, and we feel confident that it will contribute to those memorable experiences of reading together in the secondary classroom.
OXFORD ROLLERCOASTERSBuried Thunder Overview
OVERVIEW FOR SCHEME OF WORK
Lesson and focus / Reading skills and strategies / Resources1.Story opening
Chapter 1
(Homework Chapter 2) / Appreciate an effective story opening
Make deductions about the book from its cover and predict plot and character development / R: 1a, 1b
RG: p.4
2.Developing character and exploring structure
Chapters 3–4 / Interpret information about characters and structure
Define suspense
Explore characters through role-play / R: 2a, 2b
RG: p.8
3.Characterization and dialogue
Chapters 5–6
(Homework Chapter 7) / Understand how authors create characters
Explore dialogue / R: 3a, 3b
RG: p.6
4.Creating suspense and mystery
Chapters 8–9
(Homework Chapter 10) / Identify methods to create suspense
Locate examples of the mystery genre
Understand how clues are planted in the story / R: 4a, 4b
RG: pp.7, 8
5.Setting
Chapters 11–12 / Select and interpret information relating to settings
Plan an original piece of writing based on a setting / R: 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d
RG: p.5
6.The role of foxes as a motif
Chapters 13–14 / Explore motifs
Debate how foxes are perceived / R: 6a, 6b
RG: p.3,10
7.Deceptive appearances
Chapters 15–16
(Homework Chapters 17–19) / Identify how the novelist uses the themes of deception and appearances
Understand the importance of the character, Mo / R: 7a, 7b
RG: p.12
8.Creating a trailer to explore genre
Chapters 20–21 / Define ‘genre’
Select key exciting episodes from the text
Use media terminology to create a trailer storyboard / R: 8a, 8b, 8c
RG: p.9
9.Tension and crisis
Chapters 22–23
(Homework Chapters 24–26) / Explore the build-up of tension
Chart the tension in two key chapters / R: 9a, 9b
RG: p.13 (optional)
10.The resolution
Chapters 27–28
(Homework Chapter 29) / Reflect on key aspects of the narrative structure
Understand the resolution of the plot
Explore implications and inferences about a character / R: 10a, 10b, 10c
11.Writer’s craft
Whole novel / Understand aspects of the writer’s craft
Explore different writing techniques / R: 11a, 11b, 11c
RG: p.14
12.Review and reflect
Whole novel / Express and share personal responses to the novel
Review learning / R: 12a, 12b, 12c, 12d
Progression: teachers’ choice of this text should be influenced by the degree to which the study of Buried Thunder will allow a class to make appropriate progress in their knowledge and skills of reading. Buried Thunder offers students the opportunity to examine a story which deals with themes such as friendship, loss and danger.
Cross-curricular links: opportunities to link with PSHE, Media, ICT and Drama.
OXFORD ROLLERCOASTERS Buried Thunder Navigator
NAVIGATOR
Chapter / Plot outlineChapter 1 / Fourteen-year-old Maya Munro discovers a woman’s body in the forest. There is a horseshoe pendant around the woman’s neck. Maya hears mysterious rustlings and then discovers a red-haired man’s body. Finally she sees a third body with a figure standing over it. She also sees a fox. She runs from the forest and collapses.
Chapter 2 / Maya comes to and finds her worried family looking for her. She tells them what she has seen and her father calls the police. The Munro family returns to the Rowan Tree, an ancient hotel they have recently purchased. Maya’s brother, Tom, confronts Maya about her odd behaviour before she ran into the forest and tells her that she said ‘Someone’s going to die.’ A policewoman arrives at the door. It is the woman whom Maya saw lying dead in the forest.
Chapter 3 / The policewoman is WPC Annie Shaw. The other police officers arrive and question Maya. The police have found no evidence to support Maya’s story and do not believe her.
Chapter 4 / At night, Tom tells Maya that he doesn’t trust WPC Shaw because he saw her searching the reception area when she thought no one was looking. Maya goes downstairs to see if she can discover what WPC Shaw was looking for. She discovers a horseshoe pendant, the same one worn by the body in the forest. Maya hides the pendant in a secret cupboard beneath her bedroom floorboards.
Chapter 5 / The next morning, Maya is struggling with the busy breakfast orders. A ‘wild’ girl, Bonny turns up at the door asking for a job. She has a strange, large, silent boy, Mo, with her. Bonny sends the boy to wait for her by the church. Although surprised by Bonny’s manner, Maya’s father agrees to give her a trial shift. Maya goes to the churchyard.
Chapter 6 / In the churchyard, Maya meets Zep and they see a dead fox. Zep has a knife and seems threatening. A woman, Rebecca Flint, warns Maya to keep away from Zep. Bonny comes looking for Mo. Mrs Flint tells Maya that she never intends to go inside the Rowan Tree again.
Chapter 7 / Maya tells Tom there is something wrong with the Rowan Tree. He thinks she needs to face the forest again. She goes to retrieve the horseshoe pendant, but discovers a wooden effigy in its place. She decides to dispose of the effigy in the forest. Maya sees a man with red hair.
Chapter 8 / Maya and Tom go into the forest. She is looking for the red-haired man, and somewhere to throw away the effigy. Zep and a mysterious teenage girl emerge from the bushes where Maya has thrown the effigy. The girl leaves and Zep shows them a savagely cut tree trunk. Tom attempts to protect Maya. Zep leaves and they see the man with red hair.
Chapter 9 / Maya and Tom meet McMurdo, the forester, and Bryn, the red-haired man who is McMurdo’s assistant. Maya asks who is responsible for the carved tree and dead foxes. Bryn asks what the red-haired man Maya had seen dead in the forest had looked like. She describes his clothes, which are like Bryn’s, but says he had a silver watch, which Bryn doesn’t have. McMurdo warns Maya against telling ‘fantasy stories’. They see Bonny, running through the forest. They come upon Mo near three carved trees standing over the corpse of a fox. He runs away, chased by McMurdo and Bryn.
Chapter 10 / That night Maya can’t sleep because she keeps hearing noises, particularly a scratching at her door. She goes to her parents’ room and her father goes out to explore. Hearing him say ‘Who’s there?’ her mother goes out as well. Maya hears more scratching and screams.
Chapter 11 / Dr Wade comes to examine Maya. The Munros have hired three new staff, two 16 year olds, Roxy and Jake, and Milly, ‘a fierce-looking’ woman. Bonny objects to the new recruitment, accusing the Munros of sacking her. The police turn up wanting to find Mo. Bonny runs off.
Chapter 12 / Jake’s parents used to own the Rowan Tree and so Jake shows Maya and Tom around it. His uncle is McMurdo. Jake admits the hotel is an unhappy place and the marriage of the previous owners, the Flints, broke up. He tells them there are secret cupboards in the attic and broom cupboard.
Chapter 13 / Maya follows a fox into the garden. Roxy joins her, asking why Maya is talking to herself. Maya worries that she is frightening all the hotel guests away. She feels the fox is summoning her from behind the garden wall. The Munros worry about business, but are glad they have one restaurant booking: Bryn and Annie Shaw are coming for dinner the next day.
Chapter 14 / At night, Maya follows a fox that she has seen digging outside. She is convinced it is trying to communicate with her. She goes outside and sees that its digging has revealed a human foot. She then sees a figure with a fox’s face rising from the bushes.
Chapter 15 / The figure dressed in fox fur runs tauntingly at her. It is Zep and he pushes against her. Zep suddenly runs away and Maya sees that Mo is there. She thanks him. He is waiting for Bonny.
Chapter 16 / Bonny arrives with food for Mo. Bonny agrees to walk Maya back to the Rowan Tree in return for her silence about the old barn that Mo and Bonny use as a retreat. She says they have enemies and that evil things are going on. Mo is innocent, but has been attacked and hit. When they return to the Rowan Tree, the police are there.
Chapter 17 / Annie Shaw interviews Maya and the body is identified as being Rebecca Flint’s. Maya is quizzed about her last conversation with Mrs Flint. Zep is considered a suspect. The police suggest that they stop running the hotel for a while, but Annie Shaw asks if they can still come for dinner as it is a special place to them and she thinks Bryn is going to ask her ‘something important’. Maya says ‘Don’t come.’
Chapter 18 / Maya’s mother tells her that with a murderer on the loose she can’t go running off again. Maya knows she can’t convince her mother that she saw the bodies in the forest and she now wonders if what she saw has a more sinister meaning. Maya hears a scratching at the door again.
Chapter 19 / The police and press arrive in the morning to investigate Mrs Flint’s murder. Maya is grounded. Maya tells Tom again ‘Someone’s going to die.’ Jake tells Maya and Tom that Zep and Mrs Flint were in a relationship although he was only 19 and she was in her 40s. Mrs Flint was lonely after her husband had left her for another woman and so she let Zep stay in her outhouse.
Chapter 20 / Jake comes to check if Maya is all right. He feels Maya knows something she isn’t telling him and he says he is angry with whoever killed Mrs Flint. Maya hears a growling from behind a door. She shuts herself in a room and thinks that she is being hunted. When she goes downstairs she sees that two dinner guests have arrived in the Rowan Tree restaurant.
Chapter 21 / Bryn and Annie are seated in the restaurant dressed just as they were when she saw them as bodies in the forest – except Annie isn’t wearing the horseshoe pendant and Bryn doesn’t have a silver watch. Maya tells them they shouldn’t have come. Tom asks Maya if she thinks he is the one who is going to die. She replies that she doesn’t know. Tom falls ill and a doctor is called. After Bryn and Annie leave, Maya’s father becomes ill. He tells Maya that Annie is happy because they found her horseshoe pendant for her and Annie gave Bryn a silver watch. Maya sees two figures walking hand in hand to the forest and a fox looking at her.
Chapter 22 / Maya feels the fox is beckoning her to come outside. Maya’s mother falls ill. Although forbiddenfrom going outside, Maya follows the fox. Someone places a garbage bag over her head and she is bundled away. She hears a moan and removes the bag. She finds Mo bending over an injured Bonny. Mo had brought Maya as the only other person he trusted, hoping she could help with Bonny. Mo suddenly runs off and Maya finds Annie and Bryn’s bodies just as they were in her first visit to the forest. Then she finds Mo, badly hurt, and realizes he was the third body and she was the figure standing over the body. A fifth figure dressed in fox furs arrives and pulls an axe from a tree.
Chapter 23 / The fox figure wields the axe and Maya is hit in the cheek with its handle. Mo tries to stop the fox figure but just as he weakens someone else hits the fox figure. Maya discovers that the fox figure isn’t Zep, and in fact it is Zep who has felled the fox figure. Zep runs off and Maya checks the pulses of Annie and Bryn. Maya sees a fox and then torches drawing near.
Chapter 24 / Dr Wade looks after Maya and tells her that her family had been poisoned by a home-made mixture, but they would survive. The others in the forest had been taken to the hospital. Bonny had been poisoned too. The police reveal that Rebecca Flint was poisoned. The police cannot yet tell them who the fox figure is.
Chapter 25 / Maya tells Roxy and Jake that she thinks the fox figure has been haunting the Rowan Tree and living there. They go in search of possible hiding places. They find loose floorboards and an old chimneybreast. Maya is convinced that the fox figure has been in her room and possibly the cellar.
Chapter 26 / In the cellar, they find a window with a broken latch. Maya senses a hostile presence there. She goes up to check on her ill family. The police come and ask Maya and Jake to accompany them.
Chapter 27 / The police take Jake and Maya to the hospital. They see Mo and Bonny recovering. They are told that Bryn and Annie may recover in time for their wedding. McMurdo reveals to Jake that he isn’t an only child. His mother Chloe had an affair with a 19-year-old Bryn and became pregnant. Jake’s father died and his mother, who was unstable, was found 13 years later living under a bridge. She died and no one knew what happened to her child. That child was the fox figure.
Chapter 28 / They are taken to see a young girl, Crystal, who was the fox figure. She was the girl who had been with Zep in the bushes. She is psychotic and wanted revenge on everyone involved with the Rowan Tree, particularly Bryn, her father. She was manipulating Zep, but when she killed Mrs Flint, he went after Crystal. Maya says ‘Someone’s going to die’ and Crystal stops breathing.
Chapter 29 / Maya’s family is recovering. A guest calls to make a reservation at the Rowan Tree. Jake and Milly return home. Maya checks the hotel. When she looks out the window she sees two yellow eyes peering in.
OXFORD ROLLERCOASTERSBuried Thunder Lesson 1