Super-Smell

Identify the point of view for the story and write a short story using an alternative point of view. 

 

Read the story as a class. Ask students who is telling the story. No name is mentioned in the text, but students should identify the character who refers to himself as I. Ask students to find the clue on page twelve that tells the reader the unnamed main character is a boy (the dad calls him ‘son’). 

 

Explain that the story is written from first person point of view. This means the text uses I/me/we/us/mine. In this way, we don’t get the character’s name. Explain that some books use first person point of view and some use third person point of view, which refers to characters by their name and he/she/they etc. Remind students that when they write stories, they need to keep the same point of view throughout their work. 

 

Ask how many characters students can find in the story. A close reading should find: 

- the main character/narrator 

- Mum 

- Dad 

- older brother Nikko 

- older sister Callie 

- Grandad 

- Ivan from school 

- dog Great Goody/Super-smell 

 

Direct students to the dialogue and actions of each minor character and brainstorm what this tells them about the character. An overview can be found below. 

 

Mum	Likes chocolate and tries to sneakily eat it when no kids are looking, gets her kids to do chores
Dad	Works on laptop, does Zoom meetings, busy and cranky at times
Nikko	Likes milk, thinks he can impress girls by burping
Callie	Has moved back home which implies she is old enough to have lived by herself, is embarrassed in front of her friends by her younger brothers
Grandad	Likes the paper and fish and chips, can’t smell, makes up words, bad knees, big brown eyes
Ivan	Likes boiled egg, baked beans, banana and pickled onion sandwiches
Great Goody/Super-smell	Huge, goofy, gangly dog, smelly, lovely personality, big brown eyes

 

Using this information, students are to choose one of the minor characters and write a short story from their point of view. It needs to have something to do with the unnamed main character getting a new dog. (Students may make up a name for the unnamed character for their story.) Students can use first or third person point of view, but they must keep it the same throughout the story. Particularly creative students may write the story from the dog’s point of view. 

 

To help students get started, ask them what their chosen character might be doing when they find out the unnamed character is taking a smelly dog for walks. Ask how their chosen character might react to this e.g. Nikko and Ivan might be impressed, whereas Callie might be disgusted. Ask students if their character might be part of the Nose-clip gang, and what that could mean.