- Story
- Countdown, Year 3
- Issue 7, 2019
The Smell of Success
Learning resource
Outcomes
Worksheet: Trigraphs
Understanding EN2-4A
Conduct a Step Inside visible thinking routine. This routine is designed to help students look at characters and events differently by exploring different viewpoints. Three core questions guide students in this routine:
- What can the person or thing perceive?
- What might the person or thing know about or believe?
- What might the person or thing care about?
The story evokes feelings of reverence, insight, judgement, intelligence, understanding, friendship and courage. Brainstorm perceptions from the story and use them as story titles. Students could record their responses on one of these Step Inside worksheets.
Write a short report about what happened in the beginning, middle and end of The Smell of Success using this Book Report worksheet.
Engaging personally EN2-2A
Theme: At its most basic level a theme may be regarded as a message or even the moral of a text. Ask students to write a paragraph about what they think the moral of the story is. Students could use a Thinking about Themes worksheet to record their ideas. Explore further the English Textual Concept ‘Theme’.
Create a mind map of smells that denote success using Bubbl.us. For example, a successful athlete could smell like sweat. A successful pastry chef could smell like profiteroles. Brainstorm jobs, people and ideas that can be linked to smells.
Connecting EN2-11D
Text-To-World connections occur when we relate the text with what we already know about the world.
Text-to-World: How do the ideas in this text relate to the larger world—past, present and future? Students complete the following statements using a Text-to-World Connections worksheet activity:
- What I just read makes me think about (event from the past) because …
- What I just read makes me think about (event from today related to my own community, nation or world) because …
- What I just read makes me wonder about the future because …
Discuss as a class or use a Think, Pair, Share worksheet to record responses.
Teaching Strategy explained: Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to-World Rationale.
Engaging critically EN2-2A & EN2-7B
Complete a Fact and Opinion worksheet to help students identify the information contained in ‘The Smell of Success’. Ask students to consider how the boy and his mum felt about Great Grandad. Locate and list the factual statements about Great Grandad and the similar opinions, as portrayed in the story. Fact and opinion charts can also be used to help students understand the different positions represented in texts and look more closely at author purpose and whether facts are fairly presented or if opinions are more prominent and why.
Describe Great Grandad using this Show Your Thinking® Character Traits worksheet. Show Your Thinking® is a framework developed to guide students as they develop and practice their critical thinking skills when writing short constructed responses. Students list Great Grandad’s characteristics and support their inferences and ideas using evidence from the text.
Experimenting EN2-10C
Conduct an interview with James about how he outsmarted the restaurant owner. To assist students with writing interview questions and transcripts, download ABC’s Tips For Students Sheet on Conducting Interviews.
Write an amazing diamante poem about Great Grandad. Students could use this Diamante Poem worksheet to assist them in writing their poems.
Animate ‘The Smell of Success’ using Comic Life, or draw a simple film strip using this Story Board worksheet.
Reflecting EN2-12E
Conduct an I used to think ... But now I think … routine. This routine helps students to reflect on their thinking about a topic or issue and explore how and why that thinking has changed. It can be useful in consolidating new learning as students identify their new understandings, opinions, and beliefs. Record responses on this I Used to Think … Now I Think … worksheet.
Exit Slips are a formative assessment that can be used to quickly check for understanding. The teacher poses one or two questions in the last couple minutes of class and asks student to fill out an ‘exit slip’ (e.g. on an index card) to ascertain student thinking and understanding. Here are Instructions on filling out an Exit Slip and two Exit Slip worksheets.