Eagle Point Mystery

Learning intention:

I am learning to identify key points in a text to create chapter headings with relevant graphic designs.

 

Success criteria:

• I can explain how chapter headings help readers predict content
• I can identify the key points in a section of text to create a chapter heading
• I can use relevant graphic design to decorate the chapter heading

 

After reading the story as a class, discuss the plot and characters before asking students to consider what structural feature the story is missing if it were to be a junior fiction book. Go through books in the classroom library or school library to help students identify that longer novels are usually divided into chapters. Discuss the different types of chapter titles that are found in books. Students might notice:

- chapter titles that are numbered

- short chapter titles

- long, descriptive chapter titles

 

Ask what the point of a chapter title is. Ensure students understand it is to give context and foreshadowing to help readers predict content. Use random chapter titles from classroom books to discuss what might happen in that chapter, giving students a chance to see the connection between chapter titles and content.

 

Return to the story Eagle Point Mystery and explain that students will come up with chapter titles for every section beginning with three asterisks, as well as at the very beginning. This means they will need to come up with five chapter titles.

 

Position of the chapter titles:

1. Beginning, page 9, starting with ‘Ted stood in the shallows’
2. Page 10, starting with ‘Strong arms grabbed him’
3. Page 10, starting with ‘After Ted recovered from his fright’
4. Page 14, starting with ‘They raced across the paddocks’
5. Page 15, starting with ‘After lunch, Mae grabbed her towel’

 

Spend some time discussing the main events that happen for each ‘chapter’. Remind students that the point of chapter titles is to allow the reader to predict the content of the chapter. Have students brainstorm some examples for the first chapter to give them ideas. Sample answers include:

- Dumped

- The Big Wave

- A Dangerous Swim

- Scaredy Ted

- The Worst Afternoon Imaginable

 

Once students have come up with the five chapter titles for the story, explain that they will be writing the headings out with a graphic design to match the tone of the story. Visit Adazing’s webpage on Chapter Heading Designs and scroll down to the subheading 9 Chapter Design Samples to have a look at the different ways chapter titles can be set out. Ask students what kind of designs would work for the chapter titles of Eagle Point Mystery. Students might consider writing the words to look like a maze, seashells, swirls or an obstacle course.

 

Students design their chapter titles on blank paper. When complete, they write a sentence in their books explaining the reason behind their design choices.