Billy Goats Gruff

Lasting about a week, W did a literacy unit based on the Three Billy Goats Gruff. We started by reading the story, then there was character analysis, a formal complaint letter to the council about harassment from the goats and an alternative ending. The big task which was to create a cardboard theatre and write a play script to perform.

W threw himself into the art aspect and created a background and bridge. A short diversion into perspective resulted in a river which flowed beautifully into the distance and loads of sheep in the fields. We used cutouts from Twinkl for the characters which we hot glued onto skewers.

Play script writing can be a challenge in KS2. The inclination, from years of reading and listening to stories, is to describe and explain. Play writing requires an abstract view; W had to step out of the story and recast himself from describer to director - delegating the job of story-telling to his characters and scenery.

The start point is identifying and understanding that plays happen in scenes not chapters (which are typically set out by time). For plays, the location takes priority and each location change will determine the scene. We have to identify:
1. Location of this scene
2. Characters in this scene

After that, we start the dialogue with a new speaker on each line. It was a challenge to convince W that we don't need to say 'he shouted' after the words as we're using direct speech (but confusingly, without the speech marks). Stage directions (shouting) can be added in brackets.

Writing plays is a specific skill. It feels clumsy and flat to strip a story down to only what is said and requires faith that what's on paper will spring into a magical masterpiece when it's brought to life on stage. Accents must be decided upon, lines and their expression practiced and entry/exit timings perfected.

None of those things happened in our play.

The stage doors fell off, the troll entered facing the wrong way, W dropped the script, I forgot my lines and the bridge collapsed.

It was a triumph. 5 stars.