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You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Moth. An Evolution Story by Isabel Thomas and Daniel Egnéus

(Bloomsbury)

Evolution seen in microcosm through the story of the peppered moth – speckled and freckled and a master

of disguise. The poetic text, written by a scientist, combined with mixed media illustrations, demonstrates

how this creature has survived through adaptation, responding to natural change and human intervention

in the environment, so that now there are both light and dark peppered moths.

Overall aims of this teaching sequence: Children enjoy an increasing range of poetry, stories and non-fiction texts

Children know that information can be retrieved from a variety of sources

Children develop understanding through reading and responding to non-fiction texts

Children sustain listening, responding to what they have heard with relevant comments and questions

Children ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge

Children use spoken language to communicate for a range of purposes to a range of audiences

Children identify some effective features of non-fiction texts

Children use language structures and vocabulary influenced by books in talk and in their own writing

Children write for meaning and purpose in a variety of non-narrative forms

Children present information in a range of ways, such as poetry, illustration and oral presentation

This teaching sequence is designed for a Year 1 or Year 2 class.

Overview of this teaching sequence

This teaching sequence is approximately 4 weeks long if spread out over 20 sessions. The vivid

illustrations bring to life a famous story of how the Peppered Moth has adapted and evolved to suit

their changing environment, ensuring survival of the fittest; concepts that may be new to the children,

offering opportunity to explore and extend vocabulary and knowledge of the world by looking at both

learning and the language of information texts. The book links well with the National Curriculum

schemes of work for science in Key Stage 1 and gives a wonderful opportunity for children to explore

non-fiction writing around moths and other animals known for adaptation as well as poetry to explore

settings, animals and emotions. The carefully crafted text allows ample opportunity to highlight

features of the KS1 curriculum focus on vocabulary, grammar and punctuation, which will be explored

as the sequence unfolds.

National Curriculum objectives covered by this sequence

Reading: (Word reading / Comprehension) listen to, discuss and express views

about books at a level beyond that

which they can read independently

discuss the significance of the title and

events

link what they hear or read to own

experiences

Writing: (Transcription / Composition) draft and write by noting ideas, key

phrases and vocabulary, and composing

and rehearsing sentences orally

sequence sentences to form short

narratives

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educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

explain understanding of what is read

discuss the sequence of events in books

and how items of information are

related

discuss favourite words and phrases

answer and ask questions

predict what might happen on the basis

of what has been read

draw inferences on the basis of what is

being said and done

participate in discussion about what is

read, taking turns and listening to others

express views about reading

write for different purposes including

about fictional personal experiences,

poetry, non-fiction and real events

reread and evaluate writing to check it

makes sense and make simple revisions

read writing aloud with appropriate

intonation to make the meaning clear

use new and familiar punctuation

correctly

use sentences in different forms

expand noun phrases to describe and

specify

use past and present tense correctly and

consistently;

use simple conjunctions to link

subordinate and co-ordinating clauses

Speaking and Listening: listen and respond appropriately to adults and peers

ask relevant questions to extend knowledge and understanding

consider and evaluate viewpoints, attending to and building on the contributions of others

participate in discussions, performances, role-play, improvisations and debate about what has

been read

use spoken language to develop understanding through imagining and exploring ideas

Cross-Curricular Links:

This sequence has cross-curricular opportunities for learning embedded throughout the sequence. It is advised in the sequence when it is most beneficial to introduce each aspect of cross-curricular work if more depth is needed out of literacy sessions in order to support children’s reader response and writing outcomes. Maths: Children can estimate and count numbers of moths on particular pages and when conducting a

moth count.

Children can be introduced to percentages when playing the simulator game.

Children could sort and order animals by size, features or when they wake and sleep.

The passing from day to night and back to day could provide a useful link to discussing time as a

unit of measure.

Children could explore maps to locate the variants of peppered moth, using positional and

directional language and look at units of measure in measuring distances between there and the

UK.

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You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Science:

Within the context of studying this text, children will have opportunity to engage in deepening their knowledge of the natural world and engage in the science curriculum.

Geography:

Conduct associated geographic and environmental studies of their local area and those further

afield; in the UK and across the world, for example map work connected with the natural habitats

of moths, the impact of pollution on the local and global environment.

Art and Design:

Children will use artwork to support their observations of wildlife as well as in expressing themselves and responding to the text and illustrations in the book. They will also use photography to support their field work.

Technology:

In creating their own non-fiction texts, children will be engaging in a range of writing and have opportunity to engage in digital media platforms as well as publishing through paper engineering and bookmaking.

PSHE:

Children can explore ways of looking after animals in their local area; making moth feeders and

houses, collecting animal tracks etc. Lots of ideas relating to this can be found in The Wild City

Book by Jo Schofield and Fiona Danks (Frances Lincoln)

Teaching Approaches Responding to illustration

Looking at Language

Role-Play and Drama

Shared Writing

Using visual organizers

Dictogloss

Writing Outcomes

Shared Reading Journal

‘Tell Me’ responses

Speech and thought bubbles

Captions and sentences

Free Verse Poem

Mind map notes

Dictogloss notes

Non-chronological report

Explanation text

Instructions

Persuasive text of choice: letter, poster,

digital production, film script

Book and Learning Review

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You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Links to other texts and resources:

Relating to Moths:

Claudia & Moth, Jennifer Hansen Rolli (Viking)

Related to local exploration:

A First Book of Nature, Nicola Davies and Mark Hearld (Walker)

A Little Guide to Trees / A Little Guide to Wild Flowers, Charlotte Voake (Eden Project)

The Acorn, Edward Gibbs (Templar)

Wild, Emily Hughes (Flying Eye)

Relating to evolution through natural selection:

What Mr Darwin Saw, Mick Manning and Brita Granström (Frances Lincoln)

The Misadventures of Charles Darwin, Isabel Thomas (Oxford University Press)

What is Evolution? Louise Spilsbury and Mike Gordon (Wayland)

The Story of Life. A First Book about Evolution, Catherine Barr, Steve Williams and Amy Husband

(Otter-Barry Books)

The Story of Life (Welcome to the Museum), Ruth Symons and Katie Scott (Big Picture Press)

Relating to animal adaptation:

Survivors. The Toughest Creatures on Earth (Animal Science), Nicola Davies and Neal Layton

(Walker)

Books on conservation:

George Saves the World by Lunchtime, Jo Readman and Ley Honor Roberts (Eden Project)

The World Came to my Place Today, Jo Readman and Ley Honor Roberts (Eden Project)

Oi! Get off our Train, John Burningham (Red Fox)

The Journey Home, Frann Preston-Gannon (Pavilion)

Dear Greenpeace, Simon James (Walker)

The Little Gardener, Emily Hughes (Flying Eye)

My Green Day. 10 Green Things I Can Do Today, Melanie Walsh (Walker)

10 Things I Can Do to Help My World, Melanie Walsh (Walker)

The Everything Kids' Environment Book: Learn How You Can Help the Environment By Getting

Involved at School, at Home or at Play, Sheri Amsel (Everything)

Starting a Garden (Gardening Lab for Kids), Renata Fossen Brown (Quarry Books)

The Great Big Green Book, Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith (Frances Lincoln)

Industrial Revolution:

Eyewitness: Invention, Lionel Bender in association with The Science Museum, London (Dorling Kindersley)

A History of Key Inventions that Changed the World, Adam Hart-Davies and Nishant Choksi (Walker)

Other titles by Isabel Thomas:

Self-Destructing Science: Space (Bloomsbury 2016)

Animal Activity: cut, fold and make your own wild things! (Bloomsbury 2017)

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educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Just Add Imagination Parents for STEM: https://www.oxfordsparks.ox.ac.uk/justaddimagination

Other titles illustrated by Daniel Egnéus:

These Are Animals (Bloomsbury 2018)

The Thing by Simon Puttock (Egmont 2017)

Raven Child and the Snow Witch by Linda Sunderland (Templar 2016)

Weblinks:

Moths:

Zoologist Jess French for Whizz presenting Children Learn About the Moth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nXH0Ihuu70

Chris Packham’s: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Lepidoptera#p01d4x45

Sci Show Kids Vlog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iblveeTDkXQ

Atlas Moth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tlvYJNZKVE

A moth in flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK9feqxtQJs

A stream of moths in flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nGXTqtCnEE

Luna Moth takes flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T3EDWtUD9E

Butterflies and Moths: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Lepidoptera Moth of the Day: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Lepidoptera#p0081gf1 The Peppered Moth and Natural Selection:

http://www.mothscount.org/text/63/peppered_moth_and_natural_selection.html Natural Selection Simulator: http://peppermoths.weebly.com/

Metamorphosis:

Time Lapse Luna Moth hatching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJx4Iy_iKW4

Life Cycle of the Saturnya Piri: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNNmuOUY2kk

Emperor Moth Development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqzPSFQz21U

Metamorphosis of a Caterpillar to Moth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLAu46-SYtA

Luna Moth Life Cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atOSro3_W7c

Nature and Wildlife:

RSPB website for activities and information: http://www.rspb.org.uk

The Woodland Trust website: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk

BBC Nature: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildlife

National Geographic Kids: https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/

Life Cycles: http://philepidoptera.wixsite.com/moths/lifecles

Scientists:

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647 - 1717), Naturalist, Etymologist and Botanical Artist who was the first

to record metamorphosis: https://www.botanicalartandartists.com/about-maria-sibylla-

merian.html

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You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Industrial Revolution:

Industrial Revolution for Kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl_-6WPQ4Sg Industrial Revolution, Andrew Marr (BBC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9BdVHCuNPs

Power of Reading web Links:

Recommended information book titles and authors can be found on CLPE’s Core Book List: https://clpe.org.uk/corebooks/books?f[0]=im_field_book_type_ref%3A1&f[1]=im_field_year_ref%3A5&solrsort=sort_label%20asc

Bookmaking instructions in Teaching Approaches on the: https://clpe.org.uk/powerofreading/teaching-approaches/bookmaking-journals

Teaching Sessions

Prior to teaching this sequence: Visit the school or local library or contact your local library service to collect a range of non-fiction

texts about moths as well as other animals that demonstrate adaptation to support learning. You

will want to create a display as part of your class reading environment that supports the children’s

ongoing research as well as broadening their understanding of different forms of quality, engaging

and authentic information texts. Ensure you provide a range of read aloud experiences so that the

children can hear the tunes of different kinds of texts which will greatly support their own writing.

Collect together materials to support small world play to explore the different environments

explored in the book. These could be shoeboxes and materials to make storyboxes, scene

backgrounds and animals for small world play.

It would be a good idea to dedicate a display area to the work that comes out of the learning,

where art, words and phrases and children’s writing can be displayed as work around the text

develops.

You may also want to transform an area in the classroom into a forest with appropriate sound

effects for role-play and in which you can illustrate the impact of pollution and subsequent

evolution of the Peppered Moth.

Before beginning this unit, it would be useful to make up a shared journal to record responses and

work around this particular text. More about how to do this and examples of shared journals in

practice can be found in the Teaching Approaches section of the Power or Reading website under

‘Bookmaking’.

Session 1: Response to Illustration and Looking at Language Give pairs of children a copy of the first illustration inside the book – after the blue endpapers and

before the title page – of the Peppered Moth in the top corner of a pure white page. It is

important not to share anything about the image, including identifying the creature in any way,

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educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

and allow children time and space to share their ideas. Take the opportunity to draw out their

prior knowledge and preconceived ideas, perhaps unfounded, of moths and butterflies. Offer

prompts to support and develop discussion, based on Aidan Chambers’ Tell Me: Children Reading

and Talk with The Reading Environment (Thimble Press 2011):

Tell Me…

o What do you notice in this image? How would you describe what you see?

o How does it make you feel? Do you like it? Why? Why not?

o Does it remind you of anything you have seen before? How?

o What do you think you know about this creature? How do you know? Does everyone

agree?

o What would you like to know? Do you have any questions? Does anything puzzle you?

Encourage the children to take their time, looking closely at the creature and describing their

observations in as much detail as they can, eliciting and modelling figurative language they will

encounter in the text, such as speckled, freckled, light, dark as well as any technical vocabulary

that they may already know. Scribe these responses and observations around a class copy of the

page in the reading journal or Working Wall.

Ask the children to decide whether they think this is a moth or a butterfly and why they have

concluded this. How can they tell? Do the children know the difference? Which do they prefer and

why? The children may have biased opinions about moths and butterflies, such as the latter being

beautiful, colourful and lovely, whereas moths might be viewed with horror or disgust or, at best,

grey, dull and ugly.

Have a simple scale prepared and pinned on the Working Wall that has the word ‘Horrible’ at one

end and ‘Lovely’ at the other, for instance:

Horrible ______________________________________________________________________Lovely

Ask children to write their names on cut-out copies of the moth on the page and then invite them

to place it on the part of the scale that best represents their opinions about moths. Encourage

children to vocalise their decision process whilst deciding without trying to influence their stance

at this stage. Children may make negative associations with moths and the scale may well look

similar in scope to this one:

Once all the moths have been placed, draw out any patterns the children notice on the scale. Is

there a particular swell of opinion? Why might this be? Is everyone in agreement? Why? Why not?

Encourage children to justify their decisions in which they may relate personal experiences,

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educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

emotional response or scientific knowledge, recasting these into whole sentences and scribing

these statements them alongside the scale.

Read aloud the children’s assertions and ask them to note any words or phrases that they notice

might be used repeatedly to describe moths and any other words that they associate with moths.

You could give the children a set of descriptive words in a range of word classes – nouns,

adjectives, verbs – to sort on a Zone of Relevance diagram; those they consider most relevant to

moths on the inner circle and placing words further out as they consider them least relevant.

Choose vocabulary known to the children as well as less familiar synonyms and antonyms that will

promote discussion and enquiry amongst groups of children, supporting them to draw out

connections and nuances in meaning before placing the word on the zone. Choose words used by

Isabel Thomas in the book too. There may be some words that the children feel are so

inappropriate they keep them out of the zone altogether and those they wish to look up in a

dictionary.

Bring the children together and compare each group’s ideas. What patterns are emerging in the

children’s word choices? Do the children think this is fair on moths? How much of their decision

making has been based on fact? Has the process raised any questions for them?

You might have children contribute to word placement on an enlarged class Zone of Relevance so

that they have to justify their ideas further when bidding for a given word to be placed in a chosen

zone.

Session 2: Identification, Sorting and Classifying

Present the children with an enlarged simple moths identification chart, concealing all text

including titles, common names and scientific nomenclature. At first glance, ask the children to

decide if the creatures are moths or butterflies. What tells them this? Note the children’s ideas

around the chart. This may include misconceptions elicited from the previous session like

‘Butterflies are bright or beautiful but moths are ugly and dull’. Write the assertions as whole

sentences modelling the use of conjunctions like ‘but’, ‘and’ and ‘however’ to support comparison.

Tell the children that we are going to investigate whether our assumptions about moths and

butterflies are indeed based on fact and whether the words we use to describe each are fair.

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Give children time to look at a set of laminated images of both moths and butterflies, without

debunking misconceptions, explaining which is which or providing their names. Gather the

children’s initial responses and observations without comment, scribing them around the images.

Do they recognise any? How? What do they know about them?

Linked to learning in Science, investigate how we might sort and classify these creatures by

common characteristics. With the children working in groups, have them classify the creatures

into groups: ‘Moths’ and ‘Butterflies’. The children may have a third ‘Unknown’ group. For this to

be a deeper thinking investigation and enable you to see the children’s ways of working and the

subject knowledge they use, don’t predetermine criteria; allow the children to decide how they

will sort the animals.

Once they have completed their thinking, ask the children to explain their reasoning for why they

chose the groupings, looking for what skills and knowledge they have used to support their

thinking. Listen to the words and phrases children use to describe each creature and its

characteristics, e.g. stripy, furry, speckled, patterned, symmetrical as well as technical vocabulary

they might already know or need introducing to, e.g. antennae. Make a note of good examples in

the Shared Journal or on the Working Wall.

Compare the criteria that the children have used to classify the moths and butterflies and ask

them to hypothesise what they think the difference is between a moth and a butterfly, before

comparing their ideas to expert guides, such as:

o Zoologist Jess French for Whizz presenting Children Learn About the Moth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nXH0Ihuu70

o Chris Packham’s: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Lepidoptera#p01d4x45

o Sci Show Kids Vlog (USA): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iblveeTDkXQ

Return to Zone of Relevance and make any adjustments after what they have found out. Reflect

on how we take on information and the difference between fact and opinion. During the course of

their research and enquiry into moths, the children can be supported in engaging in authentic

information texts and looking at how we might discern between that presented by reputable

experts and that about which we can’t be so certain.

By the end of this sequence, the children will be inspired by and knowledgeable about moths - and

increasingly experienced in the language of a range of information texts. This will enable them to

create their own guide on paper or digitally in which they could share what they have found out

about moths, including anything that particularly fascinates or inspires them about the creatures.

Session 3: Drawing and Annotating, Looking at Language – Field Journals and Identification

Charts Revisit the moth identification charts and the children’s learning over the previous session. Ask the

children how else they could find out about moths. Encourage the children to engage in first-hand observation and look for moths and butterflies in

our own gardens, school ground, park or local area. It would also be interesting to see what other kinds of wildlife we can spot in our local environment. What would we gain from making first hand observations? What might be difficult about finding moths? Which other kinds of animals do we think we would find in the school outdoor environment or locally? What about plants? What kind of information you would want to collect when making notes in our field journals?

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Support the children’s ideas by looking at a range of examples, books and guides for children, such as: - We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. My Adventure Field Guide, Hannah Pang (Walker)

- A Little Guide to Trees, Charlotte Voake (Eden Project)

- A First Book of Nature, Nicola Davies and Mark Hearld (Walker)

- RSPB Children's Guide to Birdwatching, David Chandler and Mike Unwin (Christopher Helm)

Show the children examples of observational field note guides by organisations like RSPB and renowned artists like Frank Jarvis:

Reflect on the similarities between the layout and presentation of the non-fiction books on display and what you might find in field journals, which are created live from first-hand observation.

Provide the children with their own sketchbooks or help the children to create their own field journals in the form of a simple handmade origami or zig-zag book. You can find instructions in Teaching Approaches on the Power of Reading website: https://clpe.org.uk/powerofreading/teaching-approaches/bookmaking-journals

Children could go on to create moth spotting or wildlife spotting kits to support their scientific observations which could include a checklist and simple instructions attached to key resources like microscopes, digital cameras or binoculars.

Provide opportunity for regular field visits outside and support the children to record what they are finding out, helping them to record as much detail in their observations as possible so that they will feel confident in feeding back to other children. Using photographs to make their own drawings will draw the children’s attention to detail, allowing their spoken and annotated descriptions to be more precise. Encourage children to take their own photographs but also source others for them to look at in case their own do not come out clearly. Ensure when you are out in the field that you are working in your own field journal, modelling the process and introducing descriptive vocabulary when discussing observations alongside children.

Both RSPB and the Woodland Trust have excellent resources that the children can use to support them to identify and label what they observe: - RSPB: https://www.rspb.org.uk/fun-and-learning/for-kids

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- The Woodland Trust https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/naturedetectives/

Following their fieldwork, support the children to use their journal notes and sketches to feedback

as a whole group. What did you observe here? What did you hope to see? What have you found

out about local wildlife? Is this what you expected? Why? Why not?

Ask the children to refer to their drawings and notes in their field journals to relate their

observations of local plants and animals. Ask children to think about where they saw them and the

kinds of habitats or diet they think they need.

After a number of visits into the local environment, children could collaborate to create their own

identification chart tailored to local wildlife for others to reference when out in the field.

Demonstrate through shared writing how they can draw on the familiar, published models to

create their own. You will need to analyse how various forms are laid out and presented for an

audience as well as the language and tone adopted in naming wildlife and in describing them.

When modelling the writing process as a teacher, vocalise these decisions ensuring that

considerations around intended purpose and audience is the prime concern. This will inform all

types of information writing the children will engage in throughout this sequence, whatever the

genre; what best suits the purpose, audience and form on each occasion.

Throughout their observations, discussions and in creating a chart, the children may feel that

there are some creatures that are not as well represented as other. Discuss with the children why

this might be. Perhaps some creatures behave differently and need to be actively sought, some

may be too small or quick to spot easily, whilst others – notably the moth – are nocturnal

creatures and therefore resting in a safe place in daylight hours.

If the children can’t find out about nocturnal animals through observation, make accessible a

range of texts and perhaps invite a local expert to visit who may be able to talk about their own

first-hand experience and knowledge.

Before the next session, ask the children to investigate how we might create an opportunity to

observe first-hand more moths in the daytime. What can we do to attract more moths to look at?

What do moth experts – entomologists – do?

As part of wider cross-curricular or family learning children could research local wildlife further

and engage in conservation projects for the plant or animal that interests them most.

Session 4: Looking at Language – Exploring and responding to instructional voice – How to

make a moth feeder. Return to the questions posed at the end of the previous session. How we might create an

opportunity to observe first-hand more moths in the daytime. What can we do to attract more moths to look at? What do moth experts – entomologists – do? What have the children found out?

Elicit the children’s ideas and share these alongside helpful guides from organisations such as: - Moths Count: http://www.mothscount.org/text/27/national_moth_recording_scheme.html

Tell them that we are going to start by making a moth feeder and keep track of the different moths that arrive. We could then think about getting several different feeders with various types of moth seeds or fruit to see which moths like different types of food.

Show the children a film that shows how to make a butterfly feeder, such as: - Craft for Kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9kC1l0F1ik - How to make a butterfly feeder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-1P07-LtQc

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- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa66VaorYLg Make accessible the website and with the children, gather and check the resources so that they

can work in pairs to create a butterfly feeder, following the instructions in the chosen vlog. You might want to take a tablet or laptop to watch the film outside as you make the moth feeder. They will need to be able to pause the film regularly to ensure they are working in sequence and accurately.

When the butterfly feeders are finished, create a display in the school grounds, hopefully to attract a range of local butterflies and moths. Leave a butterfly and moth log book (alongside moth spotter reference books and posters) for the children conduct butterfly and moth counts and to record observations through drawing and annotation. Leave occasional notes from the butterflies and moths, thanking the children for the food and providing occasional ‘moth facts’ or questions to which the children can find answers.

Ask a few children to present their feeder to the group and discuss the process as a class. What supported you to know what to do and how to do it successfully? How often did you need to replay or pause? Were any instructions easier or harder to follow? Why? What helped you to be accurate and follow instructions correctly?

Read aloud or play the instructions that the children are referring to, also showing them what they look like as written print (a feature of all these vlogs). How did the written instruction support you? The children are likely to have paused at these points and created stills to re-read rather than having to continually replay and listen if they followed a vlog with no written print. It is important and motivating that the children can see the purpose behind print and why it is useful to write things down for an audience.

Analyse the grammatical structures of the command instructional sentence compared with statements, for example, such as the use of imperative, the adverbial phrases that add precision to the instruction. Take the opportunity to use grammatical terminology in this meaningful context of response so that the children can translate this in response to their own instruction writing later on.

Session 5: Shared Writing, Drafting and Publishing Instructions - ‘How to Make a Moth Trap’ Recall that there are national and global campaigns to count moths in order to understand their

habits, the impact of changes to their environments and to ensure that they and their habitats are protected. Remind the children of the fact that there are day-flying moths as well as night-flying. Show them the two charts on Nature Detectives website: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/search/?Query=moth

Whilst the butterfly feeders may well attract day-flying moths, how do the children think we can attract night-flying ones in order to estimate which moths and how many inhabit our local area? Elicit the children’s ideas before showing them the following two films. The first has a man instructing the viewer on how to make a simple moth trap – albeit it attracting a lone moth! The second film, shows the same kind of moth trap attracting hundreds of moths. It is worthwhile showing both: - How to attract moths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqNJZ4ia-Ok - Moth trapping at Frazer Hill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI9In1e2eIE

Re-run the film and discuss the required resources and steps we need to take if we were to replicate this kind of trap. Talk with partners and take basic notes in the class journal. Note that the vlogger addresses the audience informally as ‘you’ as well as adopting a more formal imperative form of sentence. This is commonly used to create a connection with the audience. In writing, imperative sentences work well for this purpose and audience; they are concise and each

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step can be re-read and revisited more easily than rewinding and re-running each one in the film. Using an advisory form of sentence in the film buys the audience a little more time to follow each instruction.

Remind them of the butterfly feeder vlogs and how the instructions were presented using simple, concise language, particularly effective in engaging a young audience.

Watch the film again, and ask the children to look out for anything they need to be especially exact about or careful with in any of the resources or steps, such as: ‘A light sheet’ rather than ‘What you’re going to need is a sheet; something like this, very light.’

As a class, create a moth trap, following the steps in the film and taking photographs of each step for later reference. Ask the children to translate his advisory tone into a command, encouraging them to provide precise language to enable accuracy when appropriate, and to repeat his commands to support the process.

Now explain that there are children in another class who would like to learn how to attract night-flying moths. How can we help them? If they didn’t have internet access what would we do? Elicit ideas about how we could instruct them? What if we weren’t there to teach them?

Once the benefits of recording in writing has been established, discuss what we would need to tell the other children; the information they require and that which is unnecessary. Talk about and recount each step, using the children’s photographic records to support their recollections. Recast sentences orally to include useful time markers and other adverbial phrases that help to sequence or add precision.

Review the vlog that they followed to create the class moth trap. When did they need more detail? Which information might have been unnecessary?

Through shared writing, model writing a set of instructions – ‘How to Make a Moth Trap’ – using the photographs taken as a stimulus for oral rehearsal and writing each step. Mirror the adverbial phrases used in the recount and model the explicit use of imperatives, demonstrating the difference between helpful instructions, telling the children what to do for themselves rather than telling them what we did, how it felt, etc.

Once the instructions have been drafted, give the children bookmaking resources so that they can layout and present them clearly as a published piece of writing for others to use. This may include illustrations or photographs or digitally produced text. Take them to another class to learn how to make moth traps too and ask these children to evaluate their effectiveness alongside the authors.

Once several moth traps have been created, perhaps organise a family event like a ‘moth night’ so that the children can observe the moths for themselves as part of the wider school community. If this isn’t possible, you might organise technology to be available that will enable the sheet to be photographed or filmed to review in the morning. The moth count can be recorded and submitted in various ways.

You might want to create a moth friendly gardening scheme with the children so that they can attract more moths, butterflies, bees and wildlife.

Alternative Writing Opportunity: Some children may be very interested in and had experience of vlogging, in relation to their

interests at home. They may prefer to create an alternative vlog showing how to create a moth feeder which they could upload safely on the parent area of the school website. In this case, talk about how vloggers know what to say when they are showing their audience how to do things.

Elicit from the children how they know what to say when performing in a school play and the benefits of learning or following a script. Children can then be supported, as above, to create a more concise set of instructions that will serve as a script for them to follow when being filmed

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demonstrating making a moth feeder. You might talk about how digital production of writing can reach a wider audience than those published in writing and the benefits this would have to wildlife conservation in this case.

Session 6: Reading Aloud and Responding to Illustration

Show the children the closed book and reveal the front cover (hardback edition 2018) revealing

the title ‘Moth’ but concealing the subtitle ‘An Evolution Story’ for now. Ask the children to

respond to this depiction of the moth and the cover as a whole. What do they like about it? How is

it different to the one seen previously? What impact does the foil effect have on you? How does it

make you feel about these moths? Move the book around gently so that the foil catches the light,

enhancing the magical effect of light and dark. What does it tell you about how the author and

illustrator feel about these moths? What kind of book is this, fact or fiction? What tells them this?

Explain that the author, Isabel Thomas is a scientist and an expert. What do the children think she

knows about moths that they don’t? What might she and illustrator, Daniel Egnéus, be able to tell

us about them? How will they tell us about moths? What will it sound like? Does it change their

initial ideas about what kind of book this is? Do they think she might change their initial opinions

about these creatures?

The children may have noticed that the title is ‘Moth’ not ‘Moths’ suggesting that this book is

about one particular moth or a specific species of moth rather than moths in general. If so, tell

them that they can have some time to find out about all kinds of moths and what makes them

special before honing in on one kind. If they haven’t noticed, you might not want to draw

attention to this until you revisit the book again in session 10 when we are introduced to the

peppered moth (Biston Betularia).

Create an attractive display of books written by Isabel Thomas as well magazines she writes for

like Whizz Pop Bang and those illustrated by Daniel Egnéus. It would be useful to display a wider

range of quality, engaging non-fiction texts by expert authors such as Nicola Davies, to debunk

some of the myths around what makes an authentic information texts that may have been shared

earlier, such as only non-fiction books have diagrams or photographs and only pieces of fiction

have illustration or that story is the sole domain of fiction. Include magazines and digital access to

age-appropriate and authentic websites, such as:

o BBC Nature: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildlife

o National Geographic Kids: https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/

Recommended book titles and authors can be found on CLPE’s Core Book List:

o https://clpe.org.uk/corebooks/books?f[0]=im_field_book_type_ref%3A1&f[1]=im_field_y

ear_ref%3A5&solrsort=sort_label%20asc

Avoid making Moth. An Evolution Story accessible to the children yet as it is important that it is

unfolded slowly over the course of the sequence to allow time to deepen children’s understanding

of this information text, their knowledge of evolution and the language of scientific enquiry

around it.

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You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Session 7: Shared Writing - Developing Enquiry - Moths

Before finding out that the book is about a specific kind of moth, the Peppered Moth (Biston

Betularia), give the children ample opportunity to research a wide range of moths that can be

found in the UK. Not only will it support them to make connections between different kinds of

moths but also allow them time to develop preferences for one that they might like to focus on for

an alternative information book.

Return to the book cover, again concealing the subtitle and turn the page to show them the

midnight blue endpapers and then the image of the moth on the white page they looked at in the

previous session. Draw attention to the position of the flying moth on the page and link it to both

the moth’s life as well as directionality of the book illustration. Where is it going? Where is it

leading us? What will we find when we turn the page? What will the book show us? Where did the

moth come from? Why is it left blank? How could we find out what happened before? What might

you illustrate in the space?

Reflect on the author being a science writer and reflect on what they think they would like to ask

her, based on their discussions in the previous session, and what they hope to find out in the book

about moths.

o What do you already know about moths? What stories, books or programmes have you

read or watched that were about moths?

o Have they ever encountered a moth in real life? What was that like?

o How do they think the author knows about the moths? What has she done to learn about

them? Where might the children find answers to their questions?

o What would they like to ask the author? Who else could you ask?

Encourage children to collaborate in small groups to compose statements and questions about

peppered moths on sentence strips. You may need to model this by scribing the children’s

articulations as complete sentences.

The children can place these on the first two columns of a group chart or you might have an

enlarged version for the whole class on the working wall, such as:

What we already know

about moths

What we want to find out

about moths

How we are going to find

out about moths

What we have found out

about moths

Ensure the chart is accessible throughout the sequence so that children can continue to develop

their enquiry as the sequence progresses and they find out more. This in turn will often inspire a

further cycle of questioning. You may find it particularly beneficial to make the chart – or a copy of

it – accessible to the children’s parents as it can lead to rich conversations at home, providing

further opportunity for language to be absorbed and possessed by your children. This could

include technical vocabulary specific to moths but also the language and grammatical structures of

sentences that shape the predictions, assertions and questioning of enquiry.

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You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Session 8: Looking at Language - Evaluating Questions - Moths

Revisit the enquiry chart as a class, reading aloud a selection of assertions and questions about

moths. Choose a range of both open and closed questions that have been composed by the

children or that you have added yourself in preparation for this session which involves an analysis

of the questions and the type of enquiry involved.

At this stage, focus on the composition of the questions rather than the transcriptional elements

such as punctuation. Model inflection appropriate to question sentences when reading aloud,

adding missing question marks as appropriate without emphasising it unnecessarily. A question

mark doesn’t make a question; it punctuates it to support reading. A well-structured question can

make sense without this marker to an experienced reader. This session will support children to

appreciate fully the role of questions in stimulating dialogue and their varying influence on the

path an enquiry takes.

o Ask the children to consider the third column ‘How we are going to find out about

peppered moths’?

o How do the children already know what they think they do?

o Does everyone agree with all the statements of ‘fact’ in the first column? If not, how can

they check these assertions?

o Where do the children think they will find answers to their questions?

Encourage the children to relate their ideas to previous experience of finding information from

first-hand experiences, such as observation of moths or speaking to a wildlife expert like Isabel

Thomas herself, to a range of secondary sources such as: exploring various forms of non-fiction

texts; engaging in websites or information books; watching television programmes or films.

The children might also glean information from works of fiction, like Claudia & Moth by Jennifer

Hansen Rolli (Viking). However the lack of picture books and storybooks compared to the many

that feature butterflies would make an interesting discussion in itself. Why are butterflies more

alluring to people? What is the attraction compared to moths? As the sequence progresses, the

children might even want to use their understanding and newfound empathy to create their own

picture book for young children featuring a moth.

Gather the children’s ideas and record this in the third column. Evaluate this list together, asking

the children which kind of fact-finding activity appeals to them most and why. Many children

would find the idea of being outside and observing moths in their natural habitat or meeting an

expert and setting moth traps particularly exciting; others might prefer to engage in research

through a particular form of information text. Do their questions support this kind of investigation?

Tell the children that they are going to look more carefully at the questions they have posed in the

second column and sort them into groups so that you can help them plan and organise their

enquiry more carefully and make it as enjoyable and engaging as possible for them, given their

preferences.

Create a large version of the following grid, either on group tables or marking out an appropriate

floor space, using masking tape and labels:

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You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Take one question strip from the chart and read it aloud. Ask the children to reflect on whether

they think it is going to be easy or difficult to answer. Some children may feel they already know

the answer. Focus on how it could be checked and what kind of activity would best support this.

Repeat this a few times, modelling your thought process through pole-bridge talking (thinking

aloud) in which you might try out each of the quadrants and explore the possibilities before

deciding on the most appropriate.

Once the children understand each of the criteria, support them to work collaboratively to place

their own question strips in the appropriate quadrant, based on the criteria provided. You may

choose to have the children work in groups initially, with or without adult support, then invite

them to bring their choices to the enlarged class grid once they feel confident to do so.

Once the questions have been placed on the grid, re-evaluate them and check everyone agrees

that they are in the most appropriate quadrant, revising choices if necessary.

This provides meaningful opportunity to revisit and re-evaluate the grammatical structure of the

questions, in the context of trying to vary them in order for a balanced and more engaging enquiry

to take place. By analysing the question tags used and the structure of the composition, they can

then be encouraged to play with it to see if the revised question would result in a more interesting

line of enquiry: Offer the children prompts to support this thinking:

o How are the sentences structured in each of the quadrants?

o Do the questions start in similar ways in each of the quadrants?

o Can they be rephrased to allow for interesting enquiry to take place?

As you revisit and re-evaluate the questions, ask the children which they would be most interested

in and why. It might be related to a specific curiosity they have about an aspect of moths or

related to the process involved in finding out - research or investigation - that appeals most. You

might look even more closely at one or two questions, reflecting on whether they think it has only

one answer or has many answers, the answer would be one word or we would use many words to

answer. Maybe they think the answer to a particular question could only be imagined or inferred

which might inspire the children’s curiosity.

Provide the children with three dot stickers each and ask them to choose three questions that

appeal to them most, either because they are keen to find out something in particular about

peppered moths or because they think they would enjoy the kind of activity involved in finding

out; research or investigation.

One answer -must be

researched

Several answers -must be

researched

One answer -must be

investigated first-hand

Several answers -must be

investigated first-hand

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You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Session 9: Reading Routines, Drawing and Annotating and Shared Writing - Finding Answers

– Moths Revisit the statements and questions that the children have worked on and consider how they

might organise their enquiry in order to find answers in the most appropriate ways and most

accurately. How will we find answers to our chosen questions? Where will we look? Who could we

ask? How will we know what is authentic information?

Add further ideas and refinements to the third column, showing the children how we might use

reputable sources in the first instance and check that information presented in books or digital

media is written or presented by an expert scientist.

Use the revised chart as the basis for the children’s scientific enquiry in terms of planning who it

will involve, teaching and learning sessions that support investigative work and the resources that

you will need to prepare and make accessible to them to support their research.

Support the children in their preferences whilst broadening their experience in a wide range of

experiences and increasing their confidence in accessing a number of non-fiction forms, such as:

o Zoologist Jess French for Whizz presenting Children Learn About the Moth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nXH0Ihuu70

When drawing on film or documentary to learn information, allow the children time to simply

watch the film in the first instance then invite their initial responses. The children may need you to

pause throughout so that they can reflect on what they see and hear live. Note the children’s

initial responses on a flipchart. Play the film several times, now providing the children with their

journals or sketch books so that they can draw or note down anything that interests them and

compare it with a talk partner. Bring children together in groups so that they can share all their

observations and newfound knowledge and update the enquiry chart. This process allows children

to take on both learning and language models used in this medium of information text. You will

want to model the process of vocalising observations and reflections, drawing and note-making

alongside the children as well as scribing for those less confident writers.

As the children find out more about moths, they will likely begin to form preferences or a

fascination for a particular species of moth or aspects of moths’ behaviour or development. The

might benefit from watching a film of moths in action, such as:

o Atlas Moth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tlvYJNZKVE

o A moth in flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK9feqxtQJs

o A stream of moths in flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nGXTqtCnEE

o Luna Moth takes flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T3EDWtUD9E

o Time Lapse Luna Moth hatching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJx4Iy_iKW4

o Life Cycle of the Saturnya Piri: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNNmuOUY2kk

o Emperor Moth Development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqzPSFQz21U

Encourage the children to look closely at the moth in action and its surroundings. What does it

look like? How does it move? What does it do? Where does it like to live…as a caterpillar? As a

moth? What might it eat? What is interesting about it? What helps it to survive? How long does it

live? You might discuss the similarities and differences between the different kinds of moths with

which the children may be more or less familiar.

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You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Session 10: Response to Illustration and Looking at Language and Storymapping

Re-read the main title – not yet the subtitle – on the front cover, then model page turning, past

the dark endpapers and the single moth on the white page to reveal the title page (again

concealing ‘An Evolution Story’ for now).

Give children copies of the title page for them to pore over. Ask them to discuss the image in their

groups and annotate it with initial thoughts:

o What is happening in this image? What makes you think that?

o How is it similar to or different from the front cover illustration and that of the single moth

on the previous page? What do they notice about the moths?

o What is most striking about this illustration? And about the moths it portrays?

o To where is your eye drawn first? How do you ‘read’ the illustration?

o What do you think you can say about these moths by the way they are illustrated?

o What are the moths doing? Are they all doing the same thing? How do you know?

o Where are they? What makes you think that? How long have they been there?

o Does it prompt any questions? Is there anything that puzzles you?

Draw the groups together to feedback their annotations more widely, comparing similarities or

differences in perception, for example whether they think this is lots of moths or a depiction of a

single moth flying across the space – perhaps from the previous page; if they think they are the

same or different species of moths given the differences and similarities in colouring of each; if

they are intrigued by the lack of symmetry which one might expect in moths and butterflies. It is

important to begin to draw out a sense of time passing and provide children with vocabulary that

will enable them to compare and describe the appearance in the moths in order to scaffold

understanding of the concept of evolution.

Display the annotated illustrations on the Working Wall. Take this opportunity to draw out and

explore children’s responses and vocabulary choices through explicit modelling; clarifying their

own choices and enriching them by recasting and through extension. This might include words and

phrases to describe particular features, colour palette, season, time of day or more sophisticated

or even abstract descriptions that convey the sense of space, the mood and their emotional

response. Support the children to describe their chosen aspect of the scene in complete sentences

rather than incomplete utterances, through modelling and recasting.

In pairs, ask the children to compose orally and write a sentence that they think best describes the

aspect of the scene that most interests them. Encourage them to read aloud their sentence to a

partner so that they can feedback their initial response – how it made them feel as a reader. Ask

children to make simple revisions so that it makes sense as they intended. Support children to

articulate what they were trying to convey orally to support their revisions, modelling how to form

a complete sentence from ideas, add detail and make simple revisions.

Display the sentences alongside the annotated illustrations and read a selection of them aloud,

asking them to share their initial reader response. How does it make them feel? What did the

writer do to achieve this? Are there any words or phrases that they found pleasing or vivid to listen

to or to look at in printed form?

Read aloud the sentences again, explicitly lifting the language off the page with intonation and

allowing children to hear and compare the tunes or prosody of their own and each other’s

sentences. Do they read aloud well? Why? Revisit the words or phrases that the children find

particularly vivid or enjoyable to listen to. You might want to explore the relationship between the

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individual words and phrases chosen, how they sound and how the sentence sounds as a whole,

given its form or how it is structured – simple, compound or complex.

Now read the whole title on the front cover and again on the title page, ‘An Evolution Story’. What

does this mean? If the word ‘evolution’ is familiar to any of the children, elicit their tentative

definitions of what they think it might mean, where they have heard it before and in what context.

Return to the title page illustration spread and what they noticed about the moths if you follow

the directionality of left to right. Draw attention to the patterning and subtly shifting colour

palette of the moths and the spread as a whole. What might this tell us about these particular

moths and how they are special? Invite children’s predictions, scribing new ideas and questions

around the image on the Working Wall.

Follow the twig to the bottom right of the spread into the page turn to find more clues to what

evolution might have to do with moths and reveal the start of the story. Read aloud both pages

until ‘It starts with a little moth.’

Invite the children’s initial responses. How does it make them feel? Why? What makes them feel

like that? What do they think about the illustrations? What strikes you about them? Re-read the

text. How does it sound? Are there any patterns that you hear? Are there any words or phrases

that you found particularly memorable or that you didn’t understand? Encourage the children to

look at the print on the page to help them to spot the repetition ‘…of light and dark. Of change

and adaptation, of survival and hope.’ and to appreciate the dramatic pause in the read aloud,

influenced by the space between the printed text on the previous page and the single sentence

above the book, mirroring the moth flitting in the corner of the first illustration looked at.

Pull out the words ‘change’, ‘adaptation’, ‘survival’ and ‘hope.’ Are these words familiar? How? To

what do they relate? What do these words mean to the children? How do they relate to an

‘evolution story’?

Model how to use a range of appropriate dictionaries or encyclopaedias to find definitions for

these words and those to which they relate. This could be the start of a class or group Scientific

Dictionary that relates directly to the technical language being introduced and then being adopted

during the course of this sequence of work.

Look at the upside down print in the close-up of book the child is reading which gives the name of

the ‘little moth’ in question: PEPPERED MOTH Biston Betularia. (You might share the meaning of

the Latin genus name for the moth – Betularia relating to birch trees which form some of their

habitat - and compare it to the common name ‘peppered moth’ which relates very much to its

appearance. Return to the identification charts and guidebooks, asking if there are any names that

they find interesting and why. In comparing butterflies and moths, they may have already learned

the Greek word ‘Lepidoptra’ which refers to both butterflies and moths and means ‘scaled’ ‘wing’.

Children can learn about the conventions of punctuation in scientific labels compared with that of

proper nouns in Standard written English.)

Revisit the title of the book and introduce them to the fact that it is ‘Moth’ not ‘Moths’. Read

aloud the text again. What kinds of stories do the children know that involves a ‘little’ character?

Encourage the children to recall stories they know that involve little characters that have a big

impact on the story or the reader.

Provide groups with a large piece of sugar paper and place a copy of the image of the child reading

the story in the centre. Around this, have the children offer ideas around the narrative that might

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take place which starts with a little moth and involves ‘evolution’, ‘change’, ‘adaptation’, ‘survival’

and ‘hope.’

Children can storymap or make notes to help them organise their thinking. Support the children to

shape their oral storytelling so that they can share and compare their story predictions with each

other.

Session 11: Reading Aloud, Response to illustration, Looking at Language and Shared

Writing – The Life Cycle Re-read from the beginning of the book until ‘It starts with a little moth.’ then show the

illustration spread of the cocoons in the moonlight without yet revealing the accompanying text.

Allow the children time to respond to the illustration, asking them to share what they like or

dislike about it, what they notice, when and where they think this is and what they think is

happening. Scribe the children’s responses around a copy of the spread on the Working Wall.

Read aloud the first sentence ‘Look! What’s that moving in the moonlight?’ Elicit further

responses from the children, encouraging them to share their knowledge of moths to provide

hypotheses as to what is moving and why. Do the children have any questions?

Read aloud the whole of the text that accompanies this spread and on the page turn, allow time

for the children to explore this new illustration. What do they notice first in this image? Why? How

does it make you feel? Why? Read aloud up to ‘Quick, fly away!’ and respond to what they have

seen and heard read to them. What information does this provide us about the peppered moth?

What is most memorable? Why?

Read the text aloud again then give the children their own copies of the two spreads so that they

can work together to add further facts to their enquiry charts, any hypotheses they are making

based on prior knowledge and any questions they have to which they would like to find answers.

Support them to follow lines of enquiry such as how long the process took and who else might be

a hungry predator, how the moth would escape or hide, etc.

Have the groups feedback to each other and share their thoughts.

Engage the children in book talk so that they can consider more carefully the way in which this

information book is being constructed and how the information is being organised by the author

and presented by the illustrator. Is this what you expected to read about the peppered moth first?

Why? Why not?

Nicola Davies, the zoologist and successful writer of children’s non-fiction, talks of starting at the

most extraordinary moment. In her own book One Tiny Turtle (Walker) she defines this as the

moment that the adult turtles return to the beach on which they hatched in order to lay eggs of

their own and begin the life cycle one more. The metamorphosis of an insect like a moth or

butterfly is arguably one of the most extraordinary moments in the natural world which might be

why Isabel Thomas chose to begin at this point in the moth’s life cycle. The children will likely be

familiar with The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (Puffin) and how this story and other

descriptions of the life cycle start with the egg and end on the glorious butterfly. Which do the

children prefer as a starting point in the story of a butterfly or moth? Why? Where would they

start?

Show the children various examples of diagrams, photographs and illustrations depicting the life

cycle of a moth so that they can fully appreciate the continuous circle of life which could begin

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anywhere if you were to tell its story, such as those on the website below:

http://philepidoptera.wixsite.com/moths/lifecles

Look at the stages in a moth’s life depicted in the life cycle images and the language used to label

each stage. Note the use of pupa, cocoon and chrysalis and technical language used to describe

caterpillars (larva) and adult moths (imago). Compare the language of the charts to the language

Isabel Thomas has used in Moth to describe the metamorphosis with figurative language like ‘A

shiny cocoon wiggles and jiggles’…’a long winter’s sleep’…‘salt and pepper wings stretch and

quiver in the breeze.’ interspersed with technical language like ‘cocoon’, ‘antennae’ and

‘predators’. Why has she chosen to do this? Why are phrases like ‘wriggles and jiggles’

memorable? Draw attention to the rhythm of the text as a whole and how this reflects what is

happening during metamorphosis, the effect of revealing a body part at a time whilst using

repetitive language, the way in which she issues a personal warning to the moth to ‘Quick, fly

away!’ and what this says about how we should feel for this little moth.

Explore the way in which Daniel Egnéus’s illustrative style might differ from what you’d expect

from an information book. Which do the children find more appealing and memorable? Which do

they think are more ‘scientific’? Why?

Show the children old botanical drawings of moths and their life cycle, drawn by scientists, such as

Charles Darwin and Maria Sibylla Merian (1647 - 1717), Naturalist, Etymologist and Botanical Artist

who was the first to record metamorphosis: https://www.botanicalartandartists.com/about-

maria-sibylla-merian.html

What information do these provide that a diagram does not? Why might you choose to draw in

detail like this? Why might you choose a line drawing like the simple diagram above? When might

this be most effective? Help the children to cast a critical eye over the various depictions of the life

cycle, discussing choices made by scientists, authors and artists in representing this form of

information and how that reflects the purpose and needs of audience.

Explore the way in which metamorphosis has been filmed by scientists, amateurs and

documentary makers, drawing on the way the drama and fascination in this natural phenomenon

is portrayed through film techniques, camera angles, lighting, music and the language chosen by a

scriptwriter or narrator, such as:

o BBC Nature: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/adaptations/Metamorphosis

o Metamorphosis of a Caterpillar to Moth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLAu46-

SYtA

o Luna Moth Life Cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atOSro3_W7c

o Time Lapse Luna Moth hatching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJx4Iy_iKW4

o Life Cycle of the Saturnya Piri: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNNmuOUY2kk

o Emperor Moth Development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqzPSFQz21U

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educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Help the children to begin to use a simple life cycle diagram to help organise the information they

are beginning to find out about the peppered moth. As life cycle diagrams are few and far

between for this species, and as the focus of the book is on the story of its adaptation and

evolution as opposed to its basic life cycle, this is an ideal opportunity to have the children begin

to create their own life cycle of the peppered moth, adding in new information as they find it

through simple diagrams, more detailed colour illustration, scientific labels and descriptive

captions. The children will encounter the caterpillar form later in the book on the spread

beginning ‘Every year, the same thing happens.’

Model the process through shared writing, vocalising decisions you make around how to present

this form of scientific information when taking account of the purpose for writing and what you

hope the intended audience will gain from it.

Encourage the children to respond to each other’s life cycle depictions and make positive

comments on effective features as well as suggestions for refinements.

You might want to make a word collection of the language used to describe the Peppered Moth by

Isabel Thomas in the text, those used by scriptwriters and presenters of nature documentaries and

those used by the children in response to Egnéus’s illustrations or other images, photographs of

film. The words could be scribed around an enlarged illustration of the peppered moth or added

to the zone of relevance.

Session 12: Reading Aloud, Shared Writing, Role-Play and Looking at Language – Developing

Hypotheses Read aloud from the beginning of the book and on until ‘But sometimes a peppered moth is born

with wings as dark as charcoal. ‘What does this mean to the children? What do they think about

this? Does it remind them of anything else? How?

To fully appreciate the variety in patterning and colouring in the peppered moth, children could

create their own moths, using techniques adopted by Egnéus such as using water-soluble ink or

watercolour paint ranging from sepia to black and splattering or dripping on heavy stock paper,

exploring the effect of this on both dry and damp paper, then cutting moth-shapes from the

patterned paper. Give the children time to experiment with charcoal effects, cutting out moths in

the same way. Encourage the children to create a hanging display of the many moths to mimic the

spread with the charcoal-winged moth at the centre. Have them annotate their creations with

descriptive words and phrases, perhaps creating a poem to accompany the display.

Encourage the children to create a hypothesis about how the moth could be born with wings as

dark as charcoal when all the others have freckled and speckled wings.

This is a good opportunity to create an ethos in the classroom within which children feel confident

and able to make suggestions and hypothesis that can be tested. Teach the children how they

might draw on what they already know about something to make an educated guess or develop a

theory around what or why they think something might happen. A simple example might be to

show them an object and ask the children to create a hypothesis around it such as whether they

think it will float or not. Model how this can be written as a statement and ask the children to

suggest a sensible way to test it followed by an observation of what actually happened and a

conclusion that might be drawn (and continue to be tested).

Children could take their own hypothesis book home in which they and family members could

engage in making and testing hypotheses on a regular basis based on familiar household objects

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and routines, encouraging them to link findings to make more accurate connections each time.

Children should now be in a stronger position to revisit the Enquiry Chart and discern which

questions and statements can be tested and how they might go about that independently or with

planned support.

Read aloud until ‘Who is disguised? Who will survive?’ Gather the children’s hypotheses,

encouraging them to justify their ideas by revisiting both the text and illustrations and discussing

how new information they have found out about the peppered moth supports the supposition.

Who would you notice, if you were the bird? Why?

To support their ideas, draw attention to the resting position of the moths throughout the book

and particularly in the daytime image when they are most vulnerable from the predatory birds?

Invite children to share what they have found out about the kinds of tree the peppered moths

favour, reminding them of the link between their scientific nomenclature (Biston Betularia) and

that of the birch tree (Betularia), commonly seen across gardens, parks and woodland in the UK as

well as in story books like The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (Macmillan). Why do

they think the moths choose these trees as their resting place? What can they say about the bark

patterning of the silver birch and the peppered moth’s wings? What do the children know about

lichen? Show the children photographs of the peppered moth camouflaged on the lichen-covered

branches as well as the charcoal variant to further support the children to develop theories.

Turn the page to reveal the charcoal moth being spotted, snatched and fed to hungry chicks. Was

this what the children predicted?

This is an excellent opportunity to pause and look at the way in which Isabel Thomas has created

drama in her language and grammatical choices, using metalanguage (such as noun, verb,

adjective as well as expanded noun phrase and adverbial phrase) in the meaningful context of

discussing the impact of a familiar text. Children could role-play this scene to further emphasise

the tension created by the arrival of dawn and the daytime predators. Have children narrate the

text while others in the group play the part of the moths, the bird and the sun rising. How would it

change the meaning if the order of the first sentence were swapped to begin with ‘Nighttime

creatures must find a safe place to rest…’ and ending with the adverbial ‘…as the sun rises.’?

Encourage the narrating children to read with expression and intonation to increase the sense of

suspense and audience participation, modelling how they can include pause in words and action

as well as playing with vocal dynamics.

You might play the children a film of moths’ behaviour at nighttime and that in the daytime to

emphasise the difference and enable the children to fully absorb and appreciate the descriptive

verb choices and rhythmic language patterns in the book: ‘flitter and flutter’… ‘loop the

loop’…’skitter and swoop’ and how they mirror the movement.

Session 13: Reading Aloud, Looking at Language and Readers Theatre Read aloud the book from the start and on until ‘This is why most peppered moths were speckled

and freckled.’

Before completing further aspects of their life cycle with new information, allow the children to lift

both figurative and scientific language from the page by engaging them in Readers Theatre.

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Divide the text so far between small groups and support them to revisit the assigned passage

together, text marking it to include directions for a performance reading. Model how this can be

done, discussing and highlighting words or phrases that might be best emphasised most

effectively, for instance how mood can be communicated through vocal expression – dynamics,

pitch, expressed in canon, as echo or individually – or through action and movement that captures

the energy of the moths. As the illustrations add so much meaning to the text, the children could

work from direct copies of the spreads rather than clean typed text, unless the image is too dark

to support theatre direction.

Give the children ample time to negotiate, rehearse and refine their performance reading then

bring the groups together so that they can take turns to perform to each other. Encourage

children to comment on effective aspects of each other’s performance and to make suggestions as

to how it could be refined further.

Once more, have each group enact their refined performance readings to reflect the sequence of

events in the moth story so far. Following a dramatic pause after the last group has uttered ‘This is

why most peppered moths were speckled and freckled.’ Read aloud ‘Until the world began to

change.’ How does this make the children feel? Why?

Leave this cliff hanger with the children until the next session but pin up a copy of the

accompanying illustration on the Working Wall to garner their interest, encouraging them to

record their hypotheses around the image. What clues does the illustration give us as to how the

world changed? What do the children know about the moths and the world they live in that might

indicate what happens next to them?

Sessions 14-16: Reading Aloud, Book Talk and Directed Reading - Research on ‘magnificent

machines’ and the industrial revolution Read aloud the book to ‘Until the world began to change’ again. Discuss the children’s ideas about

what changed and what that meant for the speckled and freckled appearance of most peppered

moths. What do the children predict and why?

Turn the page and read aloud until ‘here…there…and everywhere.’ Allow the children time to

explore and respond to the illustration across the spread, prompting discussion and book talk:

‘Tell me…

o What do you like about this? What do they dislike? Why?

o What is happening? What do you notice?

o What does it remind you of anything you know?

o When is this? Whereabouts is it happening?

o Do you have any questions? Does anything puzzle you?

This is an excellent opportunity to explore the impact of inventions like the steam train and other

‘magnificent machines’ during the industrial revolution on progress. As well as the black soot and

smoke from the coal burning factories, what opportunities did the inventions of the time afford

for people then and now?

Display a range of information texts in a range of forms that will allow the children the chance to

investigate this period of historical significance and begin to form balanced views on the pros and

cons of industrialisation and machinery. Ensure that colonialism and Eurocentric views are

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mediated as a teacher in ensuring a balanced view that reflects all realities and that a fair

representation of inventors are introduced to children:

o Eyewitness: Invention, Lionel Bender in association with the Science Museum, London

(Dorling Kindersley)

o A History of Key Inventions that Changed the World, Adam Hart-Davies and Nishant Choksi

(Walker)

o Industrial Revolution for Kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl_-6WPQ4Sg

o Industrial Revolution, Andrew Marr (BBC):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9BdVHCuNPs

o Collecting the coal, Fred Dibner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63pDNMZbtbY

Allow the children to choose a particular invention of the time that they could study in more

detail, developing expertise in collaboration with others before sharing their knowledge and

fascination with another group or the class as a whole.

Assign a colour to each study group who collaborate to explore a particular invention. Prior to

embarking on research, draw on how the moth research has been organised and support the

children to consider particular themes this time, such as the invention’s development, its function,

the opportunities it affords and how it will help people.

You might motivate and give purpose to their research by asking them to imagine they are the

inventor of the particular machine – or similar advocate like engineer, factory owner, farmer or

scientist – and that they need to create an information booklet or digital presentation that both

informs and promotes it to an audience.

Allow them choice of form based on the sources on which they are drawing. If they want to

incorporate moving image, it makes sense to present information through digital media. Children

could look at a range of sources, making drawings and notes before deciding how to collate and

lay out the information to share with a young audience.

Ensure you read aloud explanatory text so that the children can hear, absorb and take on the

tunes and voice in their own explanations and writing. Model how to write in a chosen form,

including demonstrating the drafting process of shaping an explanatory text from notes and

sentences to considering which organisation features will support the reader experience. Have the

group work together to read aloud and refine drafts into a finished piece of writing. They can then

decide how they polish or publish this for their audience.

You could engage them in creative approaches advocated by Dorothy Heathcote by setting up

imagined scenarios and having them take on the ‘mantle of the expert’ through drama and role-

play. This will strengthen the children’s understanding and depth of knowledge as well as their

ability to write in role.

When every child in the study group feels confident to share their expertise with others, have

them split off - individually or in pairs - to form new rainbow groups; now comprising at least one

expert from each of the original study groups. This kind of collaborative talk activity scaffolds both

the language and learning and it is highly supportive for children learning English. After the

children have listened attentively to a presentation given by an expert peer, invite them to ask

questions and share their responses. Encourage the children to consider the pros and cons of the

invention in preparation for the next session.

Ask the children to comment on which forms of information text they most enjoyed engaging with

and which they think made the information most memorable to them. Does everyone agree?

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Why? By giving the children experience in and introduction to a range of genre and forms at this

stage, they will be best placed to make independent decisions around which they think will best

suit purpose and audience in their own writing higher up the school.

Return to the spread in which the eggs hatch to support the children in further understanding the

life cycle and development of the peppered moth and further and shaping their depictions. What

do they notice about the fascinating form the caterpillar takes? How could they describe the

caterpillar from the illustration? What do you like about it? What do they remind you of? Why do

you think they are bright green? What does the illustrator think? What time of year do they hatch?

How might they be adapted to hide from the predators? How many survive to become moths?

What do they do all day? How long do they remain caterpillars? Show them photographs and film

clips, such as:

o Twig caterpillar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7-xpvy1oQ8

Session 17: Reading Aloud, Response to Illustration and Shared Writing – Drawing

Conclusions Read aloud the story from the beginning to ‘Chimneys filled the air with smoke and soot.’ Ask the

children to share their initial responses to this. Display this and the previous spread side-by-side.

What do they notice? How do the images mirror each other? How do they differ? How does it

make them feel? How do they feel about the ‘magnificent machines’ now? Why? What does this

mean for the peppered moth?

Turn to the following spread and – with all the text concealed – ask the children to share their

responses to the illustration. You might pin a copy alongside the other two spreads to provide a

sense of chronology and consequence. Where is this? What do they notice now? What stands out

to them most? Which moths are camouflaged? What has happened?

Read aloud ‘Pollution stained the clouds…’ to ‘…which moths will survive?’ Where have the

children heard this before? Revisit the spread in which the blue tit is hunting the peppered moths

on the clean, light bark of the birch tree. What happened then? What will happen now? What do

the children think? Why? Invite predictions from the children, prompting them to expand and

justify their ideas.

Hang black sheets of paper or fabric behind your class display of peppered moths which will

illustrate which ones are best disguised and therefore most likely to survive the hungry predator.

The children can play a bird’s eye view simulation game to confirm their hypotheses, linking it to mathematics as the programme keeps track of each type of moth caught by the bird providing a summary graphic of the percentage, something that may be familiar in other games they play. Choose the dark, pollution-stained woodland in the first instance then try it in the clean, light woodland setting, asking the children to compare the results: http://peppermoths.weebly.com/

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What other conclusions can the children draw from this finding? Which kinds of peppered moths

will be most likely to lay eggs? What will this mean for the population of peppered moths? What

makes you think that? Does everyone agree?

Revisit the spread earlier in the book beginning ‘The speckled, freckled moths are the masters of

disguise’, reading aloud the statements and discussing and text marking phrases the children

enjoy or find memorable. This is an ideal opportunity to use metalanguage in a meaningful

context, such as ‘expanded noun phrase’ (‘speckled, freckled moths’) or ‘adverbial phrase’ (‘safe

from hungry eyes.’) as well as drawing out the more formulaic phrases such as ‘masters of

disguise’ and talking about where they might have heard this before, perhaps in picture books like

Hoot Owl by Sean Taylor and Jean Jullien (Walker) or in superhero animations like Danger Mouse.

Demonstrate through shared writing how you can use the sentence structure to write an

alternative scenario which matches the findings and conclusions the children are making about

the ‘charcoal-coloured moths’. Encourage the children to read aloud their own compositions to a

partner so that they might hear the rhythm and tone and discuss particularly vivid description or

turns of phrase.

Once they have written this, turn over to look at the illustration of the bird snatching a speckled,

freckled moth from the dark branches. Read the text on the next page, comparing it to their own

and that of the comparable spread used as the model ‘The darkest moths are the master of

disguise. Their charcoal-coloured wings keep them safe from hungry eyes.’

Children can broaden their knowledge of moths by exploring the extraordinary ways in which

moths camouflage themselves in the vulnerable daytime hours by revisiting the moth charts,

looking at photographs, film, books and websites, such as:

o http://www.mothscount.org/text/102/camouflage.html

Session 18: Reading Aloud, Book Talk and Shared Writing – Persuasive Text Read aloud the whole story and on until ‘They have adapted to the changes in their world.’ How

does this make you feel? Why? The children may feel concerned or sad that the pale variant of

peppered moths are dying out because of pollution damage caused by humans. Or they may feel a

sense of hope that the peppered moth has been able to adapt to the environmental changes and

survive as a species through more of the dark variant breeding.

Read aloud to the end of the book in which we find that the UK passed a law to clean up the air

which has allowed both variants of the peppered moth to hide and survive and tell their story.

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Elicit the children’s immediate and emotive responses to this using book talk prompts. What do

you like or dislike? Why? Do you have any questions? Does anything puzzle you? Does it remind

you of anything else you have heard about in stories or real life?

Help the children to link this to back to other animals they know about: those in the past that

were not able to adapt to environmental changes so quickly and became extinct; those that are

currently endangered that the children hope might be able to adapt their appearance, habits and

behaviour to keep up with, for instance, climate change and survive and – of these – which they

think are actually most likely to be able to do this.

You might reflect on the difference, for example, between a peppered moth and a polar bear in

terms of its eating habits and what it relies on for this to continue. If the peppered moth already

had a dark variant, one might argue that it was already placed to survive a change in environment

and be camouflaged differently. If the woodland habitat can still provide it with the leaves to feed

on and lay eggs, then it might be able to adapt to manage the threat from predators. If a polar

bear is suited only to surviving in the Artic being highly specialised in hunting on sea ice and it has

no adaptation to cope with warmer regions, it is less likely to avoid extinction and relies on people

to make the changes as urgently as possible.

Children may have visited websites of wildlife protection organisations and be able to direct you

to these as well as other books in which they have found out more.

You may want to use this topic as a stimulus to consider ways in which children might be able to

be involved more actively in raising awareness of global and local conservation issues. In readiness

for this session, you will want to make accessible and read aloud a range of book which deal with

themes of conservation, including:

o Oi! Get off our Train by John Burningham (Red Fox)

o The Journey Home by Frann Preston-Gannon (Pavilion)

o Leaf by Sandra Dieckmann (Flying Eye)

o Ten Things I Can Do to Help my World by Melanie Walsh (Walker)

o Dear Greenpeace by Simon James (Walker)

Read aloud the poem ‘Treasures’ by Clare Bevan to the children which is in the Poems to Perform

anthology, edited by Julia Donaldson (Macmillan) and is featured on CLPE’s Poetryline website:

https://www.clpe.org.uk/poetryline/poems/treasures-clare-bevan alongside this teaching

sequence.

Check the children know about the animals then elicit their initial responses: How does the poem

make them feel? Why? How has the poet achieved this response? What does it inspire us to do or

think? Discuss the message the poet is trying to convey. Why is it a child keeping the treasures safe

rather than an adult?

Discuss what might happen if we don’t look after our world and its precious things. Share ideas

and opinions about harmful things people do and their effects on the world. Note them in the

class journal around the printed poem.

From the notes, ask the children to find the things that they feel they could change quite easily;

things that happen in their own local community or by people they might be able to influence such

as parents, teachers, neighbours, shopkeepers and community leaders.

Hone in on littering which may have been suggested by the children earlier. Provoke a discussion

amongst the children by suggesting that a tiny toffee sweet wrapper you might drop is hardly

going to make a difference to the huge wide world we live in. At this point, you might want to

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show children images of the impact of our litter on wildlife in our locality but also much further

afield than they may expect, such as images or this CBBC Newsround film showing what happens

to single-use plastic waste that ends up in our trees, our natural areas and the world’s oceans:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/42646301

You and one or two more confident children can start a debate by presenting arguments to the

class for and against dropping the sweet wrapper with the rest of the children then joining in

appropriately. Model listening respectfully to others, answering points relevantly and using the

language of debate to challenge or support viewpoints, offer opinions or counter arguments

effectively.

Ask a child to go into role as someone walking down the street eating something messy. What do

the children think s/he should do with the sticky paper?

o What might make someone throw their rubbish down in the street?

o What might you say that would persuade them not to do this?

Put the children into two columns: one line’s role is to try and persuade you to throw the rubbish

down and the other column is to try and think of arguments for why you shouldn’t. Now ask the

child to walk between them. How convincing can the children be? When the child has walked to

the end of the alley, ask him or her to decide what to do, based on the most persuasive argument

given.

Take groups of children for a walk around the local area looking for the places that they think are

well cared for and for the places that aren’t. Suggest children take photographs of these and

record a commentary on what they find using a device such as an MP3 player. Ask them to

consider the impact on wildlife in the area and how this could be prevented.

When the children return to school, allow them time to explore a range of age-appropriate, persuasive texts that deal with conservation issues. This could include, letters, posters, pamphlets, pages in books or magazines, documentary films, a digital presentation, blog entries, vlogs or web pages. Explore with the children, perhaps in small groups, the way in which the different kinds of texts are presented, their layout, and the kind of language that their author’s choose. Which are most effective in persuading us or grabbing our attention? Why? Why not? Compile a list of effective features that the children feel they may want to draw on when composing their own persuasive text.

Agree with the children that you could write a persuasive letter to a local Member of Parliament. Model appropriate persuasive tone, thinking aloud your language choices as you compose the letter from the children’s suggestions. Create the letter without overburdening the children with terminology, rather model an assertive tone and persuasive techniques.

Once the letter is complete, remind the children that their intended outcome is to encourage and

persuade the MP to support farmers and landowners in conserving peppered moths by telling

them what you know. Re-read the letter to check that it is clear and assertive in its message and it

is persuasive enough through use of modal verbs and rhetorical questions. Is it polite and formal

enough for this purpose, given it is not a note to a good friend but somebody we have not met?

Send the letter off to the intended reader and await a response.

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Session 19: Reading Aloud and Book Talk

Read aloud the whole story without breaking the flow. Once the children have heard the whole story read aloud, the group can begin to explore their responses to it with book talk:

- Tell me…

- Was there anything you liked about this story?

- Was there anything that you particularly disliked…?

- Was there anything that puzzled you?

- Were there any patterns…any connections that you noticed…? Did it remind you of

anything else you’ve read or seen?

Read aloud the story again and this time think about the way Isabel Thomas feels about peppered moths. Do we feel the same? Why? Why not? How have she and others helped us create a connection with the peppered moth and moths in general? You could also ask deeper questions in order to draw attention to the authorial and illustrative techniques adopted in the book, such as the symmetry and patterning in the text which mirrors a moth’s wings or the voice used – sometimes explanatory, sometimes directly addressing the moth itself. You can use or adapt prompts from Aidan Chambers’ Special Questions, such as: - Which words and phrases did you like? What do you notice about these words? - Who was telling the story? Do we know? And how do we know? - Think of yourself as a spectator. With whose eyes did you see the story? Did this ever change?

Why? How did the author do this? - How long did it take for the story to happen? Why is this important in the case of the peppered

moth (An extraordinary demonstration of evolution within a human lifetime)? - Did we find out about the story in the order in which the events actually happened? - Are there parts of the story that took a long time to happen but were told about quickly or in a

few words? Are there parts that happened very quickly but took a lot of space to tell about? - Where did the story happen? Did you think about the place as you were reading? Was it

important where it was set? Why? Are there passages in the book that are especially about where the story is set? What did you like or dislike about them?

- What would you like to know more about? Make Moth accessible for the children to revisit and explore so that they can deepen their

knowledge of the peppered moth. Has reading the book led to further questions about moths even other moths, in general? Children might demonstrate a greater interest in one particular aspect of the moth or they may wish to broaden their enquiry.

Session 20: Retrieving Information from a non-chronological text and Looking at Language –

Exploring Explanatory Voice through ‘Dictogloss’ ‘Dictogloss’ is a useful way of modelling a specific type of text and the writing conventions associated with it. It also offers a source of information, clarifying content and providing the pupils with greater ownership of a more academic language (adapted from the work of Ruth Wajnryb: Grammar Dictation, Oxford University Press, 1990). Allow time for the children to hear many good quality examples of non-fiction texts read aloud.

This could be done as part of a group reading session, with each book being placed on a table and

an enabling adult or older reading buddy reading the text to groups of children who are

particularly interested in the subject matter being covered.

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educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

As part of your reading routines, refer to a series of high quality non-fiction texts. Access to these

texts will support the children in becoming increasingly familiar with the authentic voice and

format of this type of writing. Examples of potential texts might include:

o The Emperor’s Egg, Martin Jenkins and Jane Chapman (Walker)

o Big Blue Whale, Nicola Davies and Nick Maland (Walker)

o Tigress, Nick Dowson and Jane Chapman (Walker)

o Otters Love to Play, Jonathan London and Meilo So (Walker)

o My Little Book of Animals, Camilla de la Bédoyère (QED Publishing)

You might focus the reading, make notes from a range of non-fiction texts, so that the children

have one thing to say about a chosen prompt. This could be through a dialogic reading and note-

taking activity to show children how to summarise information effectively.

Once the children have gained enough experience and are confident in recording and sharing

information retrieved through talking, drawing or note-taking they can engage in ‘dictogloss’ to

support the class in gathering more information about peppered moths. You may still choose to

scribe for some children, as appropriate.

A ‘dictogloss’ involves children being able to listen for retrieval, to create and combine notes and

to collaborate so you will need to ensure that they have enough experience in these kind of

literate acts beforehand. It may be more appropriate for children with little experience to learn

and practise these skills during small group reading whilst engaging in a range of non-fiction texts.

The non-chronological text at the end of Moth is perfectly suited to be chosen to read aloud. It is

authentic, providing rich but age-appropriate language models and enabling the children to tune

in to explanatory voice.

Organise the children into small groups and provide them with paper and pencil each as well as

extra paper on the tables.

1. Once organised, ask the children to do the following:

2. Listen to the text being read aloud.

3. Listen to text being read aloud again.

4. Listen to the text being read aloud and write down some key points and phrases that you

hear.

5. Share your notes with a partner. Work together to write a new version of your individual

notes.

6. One set of partners join with another set to form a group of four. Work collaboratively to

improve what you produced in your pairs.

7. Rewrite the text on a large sheet of paper.

After children have had a chance to complete their collaborative writing, ask what they have

learnt during this session. What do we now know about peppered moths that we didn’t know

before?

Ask children to read aloud their group writing or model doing this for them so they can hear what

their writing sounds like. Note the children’s choice of descriptive or technical language and

compare it to the authors. Why were some parts more memorable to us than others?

Allow time for the children to look at this spread in Moth and compare it to the story told

throughout. How do the language, tone and voice compare? Which do the children like best?

Which makes the information most memorable to them? Why?

©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.

You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Session 21: Book Talk and Organising Information

Revisit the writing from the dictogloss session as well as returning to the large class enquiry chart. Ask the children to share facts about the peppered moth that they have found particularly interesting. Why did this aspect of the peppered moth particularly appeal to them? Consider whether it relates to what the creature eats, what they look like or where they live or the special story they tell?

How could we share all of this new information with other people? Explain that we are going to be creating our own texts all about peppered moths which we’ll be able to post, send home or share with other classes to share our new knowledge and fascinating facts. What type of information might we want to include?

Support the pupils in classifying what they know so far under a series of headings, perhaps by adapting the information collated to create a peppered moth mind map:

Do some sentences relate to what the creature eats? What they look like? Where they live? As this is a scientific text, think about technical language which could describe these categories, such as: Habitat, Appearance, Diet, Offspring and Conservation. Discuss and clarify the meanings of this technical vocabulary, continually grounding meaning as children make choices.

Discuss how to organise the information so that facts are categorised to help the reader learn about peppered moths. Revisit the text read aloud from Moth during dictogloss. Do they need to be read in the order they appear? Would they still make sense if they were jumbled up? You could copy each fact separately and give them to children as a set of fact cards to test their hypothesis. Why do these facts make sense read in any given order but the story text would not? What is the difference? You might explore the use of conjunctions to move the narrative on in a story as well as the use of past and present tense in each.

Revisit the authentic texts, films and websites that the children have been using to support their research, and explore how they have chosen to organise and present their information.

Compare how the author or script writer has presented and sequenced the information.

©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.

You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Sessions 22-25: Shared Writing, Drafting, and Publishing an Non-chronological Text in a

Chosen Form – ‘The Peppered Moth’ Tell the children that they are going to use what they have found out to write an explanatory text

to tell others about the peppered moth. Give children time to compile their own fact files. This could be an individual, paired or group

writing task. Give the children a variety of materials and choices about how they might want to present their

fact files. Some may want to create large, interactive posters; others may want to use ICT to create a presentation, a film documentary, or poster; some may want to write a non-chronological report.

Provide ideas for formats through looking at a wide variety of ways that information texts can be presented using words and pictures. Model the process of thinking about how to present and organise information and the style, language and formality of non-fiction writing through Shared Writing.

Give plenty of time for the children to draft their writing before reading aloud to check for sense and meaning, editing for spelling and punctuation and then write up for presentation in their chosen format.

Session 26: Book and Learning Review Ask the class to consider why the book was so important for the class and what they have learned

from their subsequent research. How has the book affected the way we think about the world? Share writing a brief class review of the book, taking the children’s ideas and shaping it

compositionally to suit a child browsing in the library. Invite children to write their own book reviews for this book or one that had a particular impact on them in the course of this sequence.

Revisit the children’s learning journey since the early sessions in the sequence: - Have we answered our questions? - How did the book help us? - What else did we do to find answers? - Which were the best information books or websites? Why do you think that? - Is there more we would like to find out? - What might we do next? Who can we involve?

Through shared writing, write a few sentences that captures the children's ideas, reviews their learning, and reflects the impact the book had on them.

Decide as a class what action you could take as a class to help protect precious wildlife and clean up or conserve the habitats they rely upon. Choose one idea to carry out for a set period of time. The children might decide, for example, to create conservation areas in the school, use both sides of the paper for drawing as much as possible, to recycle the class’s rubbish or to grow plants and sell them for the class fund.

Display this and other class work prominently as part of a drive to engage the school community in

helping conserve local wildlife.

©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.

You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Sessions 27-30: Looking at Language – Exploring Features of Non-fiction and Fiction and

Free Writing

In one of her blog entries – ‘Fact and Fiction and Story Space’ http://nicola-davies.com/blog/?p=510 -

Nicola Davies writes, ‘I’m interested in igniting the spark of curiosity in my readers. My aim is to start a

fire so big it can consume world of information and experience and burn for a lifetime. And the best

way I know for doing that is using narrative. It’s an incredibly flexible and robust device – it can hold

information about the deepest tides and currents in our nature, the instructions for making a soup or

the life history of a polar bear. Narrative is good at providing combustible material in exactly the right

form to get those sparks crackling away. A search engine provides you with a whole freshly cut tree.

Just ask Ray Mears how good that is for firestarting. Narrative breaks knowledge into nice dry twigs

and feeds them to the flames at exactly the right rate.’

In this session, children will have opportunity to explore the ways in which books and texts can be categorised, their language features and how experiencing a range and breadth of texts can help us learn about the world. By now, the children will have explored the range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts you have on display and they can be encouraged to make reference to these whilst comparing texts. In making this intertextual comparison, look specifically at the language used by authors and emotive techniques employed by illustrators.

Allow opportunity to make observations about different voices adopted in quality, authentic and engaging information texts; story narrative, non-chronological annotations, advisory notes, factual asides, contents, glossary and index pages. What do the children think the books have in common? What is different about them?

Encourage them to share their perceptions of the intended audience or readership, their purpose – why they have been written, what we gain from them – and the kind of books they are – fiction or non-fiction. Explore the idea that they are both stories can tell us facts and information books can inspire imagination.

Prompt the children to first think about the purpose and audience of each kind of book: - Why do we have stories and why information books?

- What is their purpose? Why do we need them as readers?

- Do only non-fiction books help us find information? Do only fiction books tell a story?

Ask children to justify their ideas and gently challenge any assumptions, bringing them back to the breadth of books they have experienced in this sequence.

Now prompt them to consider the features of each kind of book: - How do we know that they are one kind of book or another?

- What do information books look like? How are they presented compared with fiction

books?

- Do only story books have illustrations by an artist? Which kinds of books use

photographs? What other kinds of pictures are used in different kinds of books?

- What do the words sound like in both kinds of books? Do we only learn new words

from information books? Why do you think that?

Tell the children that they are going to investigate their ideas about what they think makes a non-fiction text and what makes a story book. Give the children time to explore a collection of books from the class display and general book stock so that they can have their assertions confirmed or challenged. It is worth thinking carefully about the breadth of texts that you provide so that they include picture books illustrated with photographs, like Naughty Bus by Jan and Jerry Oke (Little

©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.

You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

Knowall) and Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems (Walker), a range of illustrated nature storybooks, comics and magazines that reflect popular culture in addition to those specifically relating to science or history as well as pamphlets, maps and other non-fiction texts. These might include:

- Okido

- Whizz Pop Bang

- Magazines produced by RSPB, National Geographic, BBC, etc.

Support the children to record what they are finding out, helping them to organise their research on paper so that will feel confident in feeding back to other groups. They may want to take a few examples of books that either confirm popular ideas or challenge them and make annotations around a copy of selected pages. Or they could make a chart of features, expected and discovered, such as photographs: rich illustrations, interesting endpapers, diagrams; characters, plot; story language, technical words, contents page, index, captions, etc. You may wish to guide their intertextual investigation as part of group reading, especially when conducting less straightforward aspects, such as language analysis.

Following their investigation, support the children to use their notes to feedback as a whole group. What have they found out? Is this what they expected? Why? Why not? Where might you put them in the class library? How would you categorise them? Does it matter? How did information inside a story help us to remember facts? Is it the same as looking at a website? Should information books give us all the answers? Why? Why not?

Return to Isabel Thomas and Daniel Egnéus and their creation of an information book that is also a beautiful object. What might they be encouraging us to do for ourselves with this story? How can we be inspired in our own writing?

Allow opportunity for children to use what they have learned about their favourite moth and create a form of information text in the format of their choice. Support them to draw on the forms they have experienced through the sequence and the information texts that they find most memorable and appealing. Support them in adopting the voice appropriate to purpose and audience.

Early Phonological Development:

Word collections:

Children can explore a range of descriptive, emotive and technical language.

Instrumental and Voice Sounds:

Using voice, instrumental sounds, or body percussion, children can create a soundscape to represent the changes that the moth undertakes as part of its development or evolution. Children can explore how the industrial revolution has been depicted using instrumental sounds and musical composition.

Environmental Sounds

Children could listen to recorded or real sounds of a variety of settings; describing the range of sounds they hear and comparing each of the soundscapes.

Rhyming words:

Children can explore the sounds within rhyming pairs and look at the onset and rime pattern in the printed words to lead to spelling knowledge: - wiggles and jiggles

©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.

You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

- speckled and freckled - loop and swoop - scramble and ramble

Alliteration and Assonance:

smoke and soot grew greener

Language of story and text: Master of disguise As dark as charcoal Stained the clouds Blackened the branches

Use and Application of Phonics and Spelling:

Basic code:

bats, still, moth, chicks, eggs, things, shed, pass, long

Consonant clusters:

story, wings, must, black, train, speck, dust, black, branch, hunt, snack, still, spot, trap, count

Complex Code:

light, night, try, disguise, survive, silent dark, darker, garden sleep, steam, breeze, eaten, feast, hungry, factory, factories, industry, machine, tiny, fifty born, food, look, soot safe, place, pale, take, change cloud smoke, most, hope stretch, watch, hatch, sister, brother, quiver, master, pepper, joins bird air, rare year, green, tree

High Frequency Words:

This, is, a , of, and, which, here, there, everywhere, them, they, now, their

Verbs ‘-ed’ suffix ‘-ing’ suffix

root word simply + ‘ed’

double consonant

-e then + ‘-ed’

change y to i then + ‘-ed’

simply + ‘-ing’

double consonant then + ‘-ing’:

-e then +’-ing’

©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.

You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than

educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

then +‘-ed’

trap trapped trapping

adapt adapted adapting

survive survived surviving

evolve evolved evolving

NB Capturing the children’s oral rehearsals and outcomes will enable you to assess how secure the children are with common irregular past tense usage or whether they are attributing the rule of -ed suffix for past tense to all root words, e.g. ‘finded’ instead of ‘found’. Support children through a range of planned opportunities for talk in order to recast and model this language until the children come to possess it.

‘-s’ plurals

simply + ‘-s’ change y to i then + ‘-es’

moths factories

chimneys