Michael Morpurgo Month 2020: The Pied Piper of Hamelin Cover Sheet

The Pied Piper of Hamelin 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 lesson looks at how skillful writing can help you to describe characters in a story.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin In the town of Hamelin, the rich and greedy live like kings and queens while the poor and sick scavenge rubbish tips for scraps. A lame orphan boy tells the classic tale of how a plague of rats take over the town and how a fantastic piper offers to rid Hamelin of its rats for a single gold coin, then lures away the town’s children when the greedy mayor breaks his word.

Masterfully weaving contemporary social and environmental themes into a gripping tale, and celebrating it with breathtaking illustrations, former British Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo and illustrator Emma Chichester Clark team up to create a compelling new take on this timeless story.

Themes and ideas Reading the whole book of The Pied Piper of Hamelin provides many opportunities for rich classroom discussion, drawing on a number of different ideas and themes, including: Stories with a message or moral The mayor of Hamelin makes a promise to the Pied Piper, which he then promptly breaks. This story gives children the opportunity to discuss the way stories can communicate a message.

Key discussion questions: • Do you think there is a moral or message to the story? What do you think it is?

• Is Hamelin a better town at the end of the story than at the beginning? How? Retellings of famous stories This version of the story is a retelling of a tale that has been passed down since the 1600s (and perhaps even before that). Like many storytellers before him, Michael Morpurgo makes the story his own, drawing out different elements for his version.

Key discussion questions: • How does this retelling of The Pied Piper of Hamelin differ to any other versions you know?

• Would you change anything if you were going to retell the story?

Using the resource This resource shares an extract from the story, describing the moment the Pied Piper walks into the town meeting. After reading the text, there is a set of short teaching activities considering how skillful writing can help you to describe characters in a story.

There is also a sheet with a storytelling challenge based on the extract. For The Pied Piper of Hamelin it focuses on describing a particular character trait through actions, rather than explicit description. This could be used as a short classroom activity or as homework to consolidate the learning in 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. Ask the children if they have read this book or read or heard another version of the Pied Piper before.

If you are reading the whole story as a class, the activities in this resource begin on p. 38 so read up until this point first.

If you are using the resources as an introduction to the text, then tell children that you are going to look at an extract that describes the appearance of the Pied Piper.

Tell the children that the town of Hamelin is overrun with a plague of rats and the townsfolk are desperate to be rid of them. At a meeting of the mayor and townsfolk, a strange figure appears…

Slide 3 Read aloud together (either with the teacher reading aloud and children following, children reading together as a class or children reading together in pairs) and then ask children to share their first impressions of the Pied Piper.

Ask the children to read through the extract again in pairs, summarising what they have learned about the Pied Piper. As an additional activity, they could draw him based on the description.

Slide 4 Ask the children to look carefully at the text in bold. What does this small detail suggest about the Pied Piper? (He is intelligent or clever; he is taking in the room and the townsfolk, assessing the situation, perhaps.)

Tell the children that good storytellers sometimes tell their readers about a character directly, but sometimes they “show, not tell”, giving the reader information about a character through their actions or what they say.

Slide 5 Ask the children to read the next part of the description independently. Can they spot any examples of “showing, not telling” here?

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What does the look and smile suggest about the Pied Piper?

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What about the change back to the serious expression?

Slide 6 Tell the children that they are going to practise “showing, not telling” in their own storytelling.

Ask the children to follow the instructions on the slide, thinking of an emotion and then inventing an action or behavior that would show it.

In pairs, children can then try writing character descriptions that show, rather than tell, something about a character. As an extension, rather than showing an emotion, they can try showing something more subtle – perhaps a character is hiding something or is lying. The children could then use this idea in their creative writing or storytelling.