ACTIVITY ONE
I am an active reader. I can make predictions by reading pictures and text
The opening of Demon Dentist:
The reader is introduced to a menacing first picture:
Now read the Prologue
Darkness had come to the town. Strange things were happening in the dead of night. Children would put a tooth under their pillow at bedtime, excitedly waiting for the tooth fairy to leave a coin. In the morning they would wake up to find something unspeakable under there. A dead slug. A live spider. Hundreds and hundreds of earwigs creeping and crawling beneath their pillow. Or worse. Much worse… Someone or something had come into their bedrooms in the hours of darkness, snatched the tooth and left a bloodcurdling calling card behind.
Evil was at work.
But who or what was behind it?
How could they sneak into children’s bedrooms without being seen?
And what could they possibly want with all those teeth…? a) Why do you think all the doors and shutters are closed?
We read in the Prologue:
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b) What effect does the shadow have on you?
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‘Strange things are happening’
‘They … find something unspeakable’
‘Someone or something had come into their bedrooms’ Why do these particular phrases add more mystery to what is happening in the town?
Task: Think about this early build up to the story you are about to read. Then write six sentences predicting what you think may happen in this story.
Top Tip! You may want to ask the class why the film title ‘The Thing’ seems more scary than ’The Fly’
(mystery, suspense, fear of the unknown etc)
ACTIVITY TWO
I can respond imaginatively to what I have read and write imaginatively, focusing on creative uses of language and on how to interest the reader
The madcap chase
While reading the delicious madcap pursuit of Alfie on pages 180-187, your teacher might download and play the ‘Yakety Sax’ music associated with such chases to add to the sense of movement and the increasing size of the crowd.
Questions:
In the line of chasers, who do you think is:
1) the most bizarre?__________________________
2) the most unexpected? ____________________
3) the most threatening?_____________________
4) the most agile?___________________________
chasing thieves into forests, under the earth and across the arctic wastes.
Task: Beginning at the first stage of a chase that tells your reader who or what is being chased and why, describe a really madcap chase in no more than 300 words. Think carefully about who joins in. The following words used by David Walliams in
Demon Dentist could be useful: trampled stampede
commotion pursued Use a Thesaurus to find even more useful words.
5) the least agile? ___________________________
Other Chases
In the book The Great Gracie Chase: Stop that Dog, painters, neighbours and garbage men chase
Gracie and ultimately the whole town joins in.
In the book Burger Boy, Benny is chased across the countryside by a mob of hungry dogs, boys and angry cows. The painters, the neighbours, and the garbage man all run after her.
In the film ‘A Town called Panic’ there is a madcap chase that sees Cowboys, Indians and horses
brandishing
My Madcap Chase
ACTIVITY THREE
I can identify and comment on the organisation of texts, including multimodality
David Walliams’ book, Demon Dentist, is presented as a multimodal text because it combines images, words and sounds.
We therefore have to give a proper focus to all of the elements on each page.
The author has chosen this style of layout to make his story more dynamic. For example, he aims to capture lots of visual support for his story and lots of emphasis, shouting, strong feelings and loud noises. To achieve this, one of the things he does is use a wide range of font sizes to add weight to certain words.
For example:
