Year 6 @ St Peter's



St Peter’s Catholic Primary School EnglishMonitoring task — Reading comprehension: Short storiesModelled responseMonitoring task — Reading comprehension: Short storiesRead the short story Good Dog by Morris Gleitzman provided to you. Answer the questions in sentences using legible and fluent handwriting. Remember to include evidence from the story in your answers.Plot structure: What are the key events in this short story? Responses may vary, for example:Ginger (narrator) arrives at her friend, Veronica’s birthday party with her big, friendly dog, Anthony.Veronica’s father can be heard harshly training the family’s little dog, Flossy. Veronica’s mother is annoyed that Anthony is at the party.Anthony starts playing party games with the children at the party and they have fun.Veronica’s father appears and is angry that Anthony is at the partyThey play a game, ‘Good Dog/Bad Dog’, to teach Veronica’s father a lesson.Anthony proves that positive reinforcement works better than negative reinforcement.Veronica’s mother invites the narrator and Anthony to Veronica’s cousin’s birthday.Characterisation: Choose one of the characters in the story. What traits and behaviours are demonstrated by this character? Use evidence from the text.Responses may vary, for example:Mrs Pobjoy is very stressed and unhappy throughout most of the story, although she is more understanding and relaxed by the end of the story. The author uses language features to describe Mrs Pobjoy’s appearance, behaviour and direct speech to show us this. For example, the description of her fashionable clothes, fashionable hair shows that she is conscious of her image and her behaviours, looks very stressed, glowering at Anthony and talking very fast into her mobile phone, depict her as stressed. The direct speech ‘Pets are not invited… Get it out of here’ shows how unwelcoming and displeased her character is at the beginning of the story.Conflict: What events at the beginning of this short story establish the main character’s struggle throughout the story? Responses may vary, for example:Veronica is alarmed and nervous because Ginger takes her big dog Anthony to Veronica’s party. Veronica knows that the dog will not be welcomed by her family into the family home. Ginger knows, however, that if Anthony is given a chance at the party, he will prove to be a welcome party guest.Conflict: How does the main character face their struggle?Responses may vary, for example:Anthony plays games with the children at the party which they enjoy and when he plays ‘Good Dog/ Bad Dog’, he proves to everybody that he is a good party guest.Language features and strategies: Choose two of the following language features or strategies used by the author in this short story to create humour:choice of language features (e.g. careful choice of verbs and adverb groups)exaggerationemphasis suspense or plot tension.Give one example of each identified strategy or language feature. Explain how its use influences a reader’s response to the story. Responses may vary, for example:Language feature or strategy 1The author’s choice of language features influences how a reader feels about the characters, for example, Anthony. The dog is shown to be gentle and kind by the expressive verb and adverb choices used to describe him:gently grabs them, he licks, he wouldn’t hurt, he made sure he found Veronica last, already organising, starts singing, howling reallyLanguage feature or strategy 2The plot tension and suspense creates a nervous feeling for the reader as the big dog goes into the party. Ginger, the narrator, is trying throughout the story to convince everyone that Anthony will be good for the party. The reader senses that things could go terribly wrong at any moment but luckily, at the end, Anthony proves to be a paring narrative point of view: How is the author’s use of narrative point of view in this story similar or different to another short story you have studied in this unit? Use evidence from the two stories to explain your answer. Responses may vary, for example:Title of the short story being compared: Mission ImpossibleThe author uses Ginger’s point of view to tell the story and first person. Veronica looks horrified when I arrive at her party. It is similar to Mission Impossible because the author tells the story through the main character’s point of view. However, while Gleitzman uses first person in Good Dog, he uses third person in Mission Impossible, such as Mum and Dad needed him to keep things paring theme: Explain the main theme of this short story. How is it similar to or different from another short story you have studied in this unit? Use evidence from the two stories to explain your answer.Responses may vary, for example:Title of the short story being compared: The tiger, the rabbit and Chung HoThe main theme in Good Dog is that kindness gets better results than harshness. ‘Bad dog,’ he’s shouting. Anthony ignores him. ‘Good dog,’ she says, and Anthony slowly opens his mouth. This theme is a little similar to the theme in the story The tiger, the rabbit and Chung Ho, because although Chung Ho’s kindness is not rewarded at first, it is at the end: … no sooner had the tiger surfaced, than he began pacing hungrily around poor Chung Ho. ‘I don’t have to honour my promise to you …”.Personal response: Which short story, Good Dog or another short story in this unit, had a more powerful influence on you as the reader? Explain your answer using evidence.Responses may vary, for example:I think that the short story Mission Impossible has the most influence on me. I particularly like the author’s use of dialogue, such as: ‘Your mission, ’ said Dad to Jake, ‘if you choose to accept it, is to take full command of this operation and to achieve victory using only cunning, daring, ruthlessness and cotton buds.’ This language makes the boring job of looking after something sound a bit more exciting and it is funny because he includes ‘cotton buds’ among all the serious stuff. I like the character Jake and want to be like him. He is clever, imaginative and funny.Reference: Gleitzman, Morris 2007, ‘Good dog’ in Give peas a chance and other funny stories, Puffin, Camberwell, Vic. The tiger, the rabbit, and Chung-Ho. A re-told traditional tale from Korea. Gleitzman, Morris 2007, ‘Mission impossible’ in Give peas a chance and other funny stories, Puffin, Camberwell, Vic. (pp. 1-13) ................
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