PJ's Chapters 1-2

8/8/2019 PJ's Chapters 1-2

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The Boy in the Striped PyjamasLesson 1



Lesson Objectives

At the end of this lesson, students should be able

to: Retrieve specif ic information f rom the text toanswer questions and make predictions

Use discussion sk ills to form a v iew about

characters and the likely direction of a stor y



Book Covers What can we learn about a book by look ing at its

cover?

Using the worksheet in f ront of you, create a list

of questions you have about each book cover. For example:

Who are these boys?

Characters in the story?



Which boy does the

title refer to? W e cannot see their

facial expressions. Arethey happy or sad?

Where are they ? Wh y do they have

num bers pinned totheir pyjamas?

Is one boy older than

the other? Are they brothers or

f riends? Is this a posed

photograph?



Do we associate the

stripes w ith the wordpyjamas in the title?

Are the stripes on thecover any thing to do

w ith the µboy¶? Are they his pyjamas?

The colour seems oldfashioned: is this

because the stor y isf rom the past?

The stripes seem alittle dirt y . Wh y ?



To w hom do thepyjamas belong?

Wh y are there dirt y smudges on thepyjamas?

Who would neatly

fold a pair of dirt y pyjamas?

What is theimportance of the

num ber on thepyjamas? What does the bar bed w ire in the background suggest?



Information on the cover

A book¶s blurb is very important to a reader.

When he or she takes it down from the shelf inthe bookshop it¶s what makes them decide tobuy the book or not. When the novel was being

prepared for publication I wrote the following

blurb and sent it to my publisher:x John Boyne



When Bruno returns home f rom school one day, he is

upset to discover that all his belongings are being packedin crates. His father has recei ved a promotion at work and the family has to move f rom their luxurious home toa new cit y, w here there is no one to play w ith andnothing to do. W orse still, the new house has a tall fencerunning alongside it that stretches as far as the eye can

see and cuts him off f rom the children he can see in thedistance on the other side.

But Bruno longs to be a great explorer like his heroes Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Colum bus anddecides that there must be more to this desolate new place and sets off one day to see how far the fence runs. A nd it is w hile exploring that he meets another little boy w hose life and circumstances are ver y different to hisown.



The stor y in this book is ver y diff icult to descri be. Usually wegi ve some clues about the book on the jacket, but in this case we think that would spoil the reading of the book . W e think it is important that you start to read w ithout know ing w hat it isabout.

If you do start to read this book, you w ill go on a journey w ith a nine-year-old boy called Bruno. (Though this isn¶t a book for nine-year-olds.) A nd sooner or later you w ill arri ve w ith Bruno at a fence.

Fences like this exist all over the world. W e hope you never

have to encounter such a fence.

x From the pu blisher of the novel



Whole Class ReadingLet¶s beginour reading of

the novel.

Turn to page 1and continueto the end of

chapter 4.



Development When and w here is the book set?

How old is Bruno?

Where does he li ve, and w ith w hom?

What impression do we get of Bruno?



Plenary W ork ing on P.E.E. paragraphs and mak ing

predictions:

S o far, we have discovered that Bruno ismoving house because...

Using the worksheet prov ided, f ind ev idence to

back up your thoughts about the three questions.

Documents

PJ's Chapters 1-2