213
MAGAZINES AND BOOKS
READING
WARMER
Choose eight new words from the previous lesson. Give
the students a definition for each word and ask them
to write down the word with the correct spelling. The
students then swap their lists and correct each other’s
words. With a
weaker class, write
the first letter of each
word on the board and then add a dash for each of the
other letters, e.g. c _ _ _ _ _ _ (
cartoon
).
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Friday Barnes, Girl Detective
is a series of eight mystery
novels (as of 2018) about an 11-year-old detective.
Set in
a boarding school, this series is written by R.A. Spratt, a
female author from Australia.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
is a 1964 children’s
book by Roald Dahl, made
into a film starring Johnny
Depp. Dahl may have got his inspiration from the
Cadbury’s Chocolate factory near his boarding school,
which used to ask pupils to test the chocolate.
Romeo and Juliet
(Vocabulary section)
is a play by William
Shakespeare, first published in 1597. Shakespeare wrote
37 plays, classified into three types: tragedy, comedy and
history.
Romeo and Juliet
is a tragedy.
The School of Rock
(Listening section) is an American
musical comedy film starring Jack Black, which is still
very popular with young British teenagers. It is now a
stage play in London and New York.
1
Ask the students to look at the
book covers first and ask
‘What are the names of the books?’ ‘Who wrote them?’
‘Are there films or TV series about these books?’ before
they discuss what they think each one is about in pairs. If
necessary, pre-teach
Girl Detective
and
Chocolate Factory
by asking the students to look at the silhouettes next to
each book title and to say what each one is. Please note:
the
vocabulary in
Friday Barnes
is more difficult than
Charlie
and students may need help with the following
words:
thief/thieves
,
steal
,
jewellery
,
a
reward
,
boarding
school
and
solve (a mystery).
