Children’s literature series - Fox

Fox

written by Margaret Wild, illustrated by Ron Brooks

Image source

This is a dark tale of friendship, trust, loyalty and jealousy. For the last two years teaching Year 2, I’ve been on the fence as to whether or not I should read this book to my students as the themes and actions of the characters are more appropriate for slightly older readers, who also come away with more meaning from the story. However, I read it this year and last year to my class and prefaced it by explaining to the students that I am hesitant to read it to them because some readers find it a bit scary! Of course, that made them want me to read it and hooked them into the story. Set in the Australian bush, Dog and Magpie form a close relationship based on mutual trust. When Magpie meets Dog, she is the ‘glass half-empty’ sort, whereas Dog is a ‘glass half-full’ character. Dog has a missing eye but exclaims to Magpie that life is still good. Magpie on the other hand has a burnt wing and can’t fly. She thinks that life is miserable. Dog runs like the wind with Magpie on his back and she is soon convinced that life isn’t so bad after all, even claiming to Dog that she will be his missing eye and he can be his wings. Tension begins to build when Fox enters the fray. Dog welcomes Fox but Magpie sees him as a threat and resists his invitation to go with him and experience again what it truly feels like to fly. For the lonely and jealous Fox’s first two attempts Magpie remains loyal to Dog, reiterating the mantra that she is Dog’s missing eye and he is her wings. However, she finally cracks on her third attempt and agrees to go away with Fox. This is where the real drama unravels, climaxing in a twist that leaves readers to ponder what happens next - a beautiful springboard for discussions and writing tasks. There are lots of layers to unpack here and I would advise caution in using this book for younger readers. However, simply for enjoyment purposes only, I highly recommend this book for all readers aged 7-12. Fox is a real collaborative effort between Margaret Wild (author) and Ron Brooks (illustrator), with lots of rich descriptive language and visual literacy elements to analyse.

Discussions, teachable moments and tasks within the classroom

• Visual literacy (reading path, salience, gaze, layout, demand, framing)
  Teachable moment: Readers use visuals in combination with words to make to make a multi-modal text. Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks have used visuals and words together to add more meaning to the text. Understanding the visual literacy elements that authors and illustrators use helps us to get a better understanding of texts and makes us better readers. Salience refers to the element on the page that first grabs the readers attention. Reading path refers to how the author and the illustrator have manipulated words and pictures to draw the reader’s attention from one element to another. Gaze refers to what the character’s eyes are focusing on. For example, the salient element on the page might be Fox, and his gaze is directly focused on Magpie. In this example, the reading path goes from Fox to Magpie. Layout refers to how elements (visuals and words) on the page have been organised. In Fox, the words have been deliberately organised to influence the reading path. Demand can refer to the gaze of a character that is directed to the reader. For example, Fox’s gaze is directed at the reader, so he is making a demand, whereas Dog’s gaze might be off to the side, so he is making an offer to the reader. Framing refers to the way that a picture has been ‘cropped’. For example, creative framing can draw the reader’s attention to the salient element, such as cropping Fox’s face to show only his eyes.
  Discuss: How have Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks used the elements of visual literacy to make meaning? TODO: Prepare a colour print-out from the text that is a clear example of one of the visual literacy elements you have explicitly taught as a model for this discussion.
  Task: Label the visual literacy elements. Discuss how they create meaning for the reader. TODO: Prepare more colour print-outs that show examples of these visual literacy elements.
• Character relations
  Discuss: How do relations between Dog and Magpie change after Fox enters the scene (compare before and after)?
• Text-to-text comparisons
  Discuss: What other foxes can you think of from popular children’s literature (The Gingerbread Man, Chicken Licken, Aesop’s Fables)? What are the character traits of foxes in children’s literature (cunning, sneaky, untrustworthy)?
  Task: written task in response to the above discussion - How does Fox compare with other foxes in children’s literature (he is sneaky, jealous and cruel)? How do the author and illustrator show this (through Fox’s gaze at Magpie, ‘He flickers through the trees like a tongue of fire’, ‘his smell seems to fill the cave - a smell of envy and loneliness’, ‘Fox shakes Magpie off his back as he would a flea’)?
• Inferring meaning - there are lots of opportunities for readers to make inferences within this text.
  Teachable moment: When we infer meaning, we gain a deeper understanding of a text. We use clues to draw conclusions. The answers are not always right there, but we can make an educated guess by using clues within the text and using our own background knowledge and experiences.
  Discuss: When Fox leaves Magpie alone in the desert, “Magpie hears a faraway scream. She cannot tell if it is a scream of triumph or despair.” Do you think it was a scream of despair? Why? What are the possibilities (It could have been Fox screaming. It could have been Dog screaming. If it was a scream of triumph one of them might have been happy because they killed the other. If it was despair it might have been because they were being attacked by the other)?
  Task: Write a written response to the above question. Justify your answer.
• Figurative language - similes
  Teachable moment: In the text, when Fox first appears, he ‘flickers through the trees like a tongue of fire’. Fox wasn’t a tongue of fire. His flickering was like a tongue of fire. This is called a simile and it’s an example of figurative language. If the author had said ‘Fox was a tongue of fire flickering through the trees’, this would be an example of literal language. With literal language, you say exactly what you mean. With figurative language, we use figures of speech to compare things with one another. In this example, Margaret Wild has compared Fox’s flickering to a tongue of fire.
  Task: Complete a ‘Y-chart’ with adjectives to describe what a flickering tongue of fire would look like, sound like, and feel like.
• Grammar - coordinate adjectives
  Teachable moment: Coordinate adjectives are a group of adjectives together that modify a noun. For example the big, scary monster - big and scary are adjectives to describe the noun (monster) and they modify its meaning.
  Discuss: Here are some more examples from the text: big, gentle mouth; rich, red coat; hot, red desert. What are the adjectives in these examples? What are the nouns? How do these adjectives modify the meaning of the nouns?
• Predicting
  Discuss: The author ends the story with Magpie slowly beginning the long journey home. We don’t get to find out what happens to her, or what happened to Fox and Dog. What do you think happened to the characters in the story? Why do you think this?
  Task: Write about what you think happens next.

Posted using Partiko iOS