Michael Morpurgo Month 2020: Listen to the Moon Cover Sheet

Listen to the Moon 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 activity looks at how language choices can share details about a character.

Listen to the Moon May, 1915. Alfie and his fisherman father find a girl on an uninhabited island in the Scillies – injured, thirsty, lost… and with absolutely no memory of who she is, or how she came to be there.

She can say only one word: Lucy. Where has she come from? Is she a mermaid, the victim of a German U-boat, or even – as some islanders suggest – a German spy…? Only one thing is for sure: she loves music and moonlight, and it is when she listens to the gramophone that the glimmers of the girl she once was begin to appear…

Themes and ideas Listen to the Moon is a book that will introduce primary children to a range of big ideas and themes, all wrapped up in an intriguing tale. While reading the whole novel, a primary class might explore: Fear of the unknown When “Lucy” arrives, she is treated with suspicion – perhaps she cannot speak because she is a German spy?

Key discussion questions: • Are the islanders right to be suspicious of Lucy when the Wheatcrofts take her in during a time of war? Or should they be more welcoming to a stranger?

Of course, many other themes and ideas might emerge from reading and discussing the book: trauma and loss, friendship, the treatment of children by adults, as well as the chance to learn about a key moment in history.

Using the resource This resource shares an extract from the story; a school log entry from Mr Beagley, headmaster of the local school in 1915.

After reading the text, there is a set of short teaching activities considering how details about a character can be shared through an author’s language choices.

There is also a sheet with a storytelling challenge based on the extract. For Listen to the Moon it focuses on telling a story using the voice of a particular character. 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.

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 Mr Beagley write in a formal way?

What evidence can they find for this (vocabulary; constructions such as “likely to prove” or “I have seen fit”)

The extract used in this resource comes from p. 192, so if you are sharing the whole book, read up until this point. If not, explain that after settling into life with the Wheatcrofts, Lucy must attend school with Alfie. This extract comes from the headmaster’s school log, reflecting on Lucy starting at the school.

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Finally, ask the children: Is Mr Beagley a kind man? Does he speak about children in the way you would hope a teacher would?

Slide 3 Tell the children that Alfie and his father find a girl abandoned on an island and bring her home for the family to care for. Alfie’s mother, Mary, looks after the girl as best she can. At first, the girl will only say one word – “Lucy”, so that is what they call her. Eventually she begins attending the local school, where the headmaster is a cruel man known to the children as “Beastly Beagley”. Tell the children this extract comes from his school log book.

Read aloud together (either with the teacher reading aloud and children following, children reading together as a class or children reading together in pairs).

Ask the children if there are any unfamiliar words in this extract (“obscure”, “dubious”, “neglected”, “abandoned”).

Ask the children what Mr Beagley using these terms might tell us about him (he is educated; he uses formal language in the school log, perhaps).

Slide 4 Read the next section aloud together too (either with the teacher reading aloud and children following, children reading together as a class or children reading together in pairs).

Ask the children again to comment on Mr Beagley’s use of language and what it tells us about him. If necessary, prompt the children by asking: •

Is Mr Beagley an educated man?

Slide 5 Look again at the words and phrases in bold.

Ask the children why Michael Morpurgo may have made these vocabulary choices when writing in Mr Beagley’s voice. How might it help the reader to build a picture of Mr Beagley?

Finally, work through the children’s selections, ensuring that they understand the meaning of any unfamiliar words.

Slide 6 Tell the children that they are going to practise talking in different voices to share information about a character.

Ask the children to think of a new character (remind them that they can invent something completely new or draw on an existing character that they know well) and ask them to try talking to their partner in their character’s voice.

If they are not sure what to talk about, they could either choose a topic that suits their character (an evil villain explaining his plan to take over the world or a strict teacher telling someone off) or they could talk about something they can see (describing the room that they’re in, for example).

Once they have had a go, stop the class and ask them to reflect on the aspects of language that they changed (the vocabulary they employed; how formal the language they used was; whether they spoke in short or longer sentences, etc).

They can now try writing a diary entry for their character, thinking carefully about how they can show their personality through the way that they write in role.