Bob's Twinkle-acious Adventure

Learning intention

I am learning to analyse the progress of a story to make predictions, so that I can further develop my comprehension skills.

 

Success criteria

• I can make predictions throughout the progress of a story and discuss them with my classmates
• I can use reasoning from a text to make my predictions
• I can reflect on the accuracy of my predictions and my use of textual evidence after reading a story.

 

Read ‘The story so far’ text in the breakout box and ask students to volunteer any details they remember from the previous instalment of the story in issue one. Read the first column of the second instalment of the story, or if you have a digital subscription, you may wish to play the audio. Pause for discussion. Ask students to consider what they think will happen next and to give reasons for their predictions.

Responses may include:

• Something is following the crew that is making strange sounds because Bob said it sounded like a deep, echoing, gurgling from the water
• They are worrying about nothing because Bob realised it was just boat noises
• There is something scary in the water because Shasta said there was most definitely the sound of something else
• Captain Ahab is tricking them with his story because even though he is telling them he heard something from the water, he seems much calmer than the others.

Continue reading until the end of section 4, then pause for discussion. Ask the students to consider whether they think the seaweed men are real by guiding discussion with the following points from the text:

• Bob and Shasta are in a hurry to leave, but Captain Ahab tries to reassure them that no one knows whether the seaweed men are real and tells them to relax
• Bob suggests that this is because everyone who’s met them has ended up being ‘drownded’.
• The seaweed men are believed to be known for capsizing (overturning) boats and at the end of section 4, the SS Webweaver starts ‘rocking wildly to and fro’.

Ask students if any of these points have influenced their opinion about the existence of seaweed men and discuss their reasons.

Continue reading and pause at the top of page 8 after reading the sentence ‘Then, two things happened’. Ask students to think about what their final predictions are, reminding them that:

• Ahab has gone to raise the anchor.
• Shasta flew to front starboard.
• Bob is transfixed on the seaweed man.

Choose volunteers to share with the class what they predict the two things are going to be. Finish reading until the end of the story and have a reflection discussion about how accurate students were with their predictions and how well they used textual evidence to support their predictions, regardless of the outcomes.