Lesson video

Hi, I'm Mr. Buckingham.

And it's so good to see you here for today's lesson.

Today, we're going to be looking closely at Elle McNicoll's fantastic character, Addie, the protagonist in "A Kind of Spark." And this is going to be really helpful for our writing later in this unit.

Let's get going.

Today's lesson is called Exploring Addie's Character from my unit called A Kind of Spark: narrative writing.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to explore Addie's character traits in "A Kind of Spark" and identify character lows and highs within the structure of the story.

As with the previous lesson, before you start this lesson, you will want to have read the complete book, "A kind of Spark," by Elle McNicoll.

And you may want to have completed our unit called A Kind of Spark: reading, where we go through the book together.

You may find it useful to have a copy of the book with you for this lesson, but it is not essential.

If you're ready, let's get going.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

A protagonist is a main character or central figure in a story or narrative.

Traits are special qualities that make a character in a story unique and interesting.

The structure is the order of events within a narrative that gives it a coherent and engaging flow.

And emotions are strong feelings that result from a person's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by identifying Addie's character traits and then we'll move on to identifying character lows and highs for her within the story of "A Kind of Spark." So as we know, within the story, "A Kind of Spark," Addie is the protagonist, the main character.

And we know she's an 11-year-old girl who lives in Juniper, a village near Edinburgh.

So what else do we know about Addie? Pause the video and have a chat with the person next to you and see how many facts you can recall about Addie.

Have a go.

Well done, great job, and she got loads.

Maybe you said some things like this.

We know that she lives with her two sisters and her mom and dad.

We know that she's interested in sharks but not in dolphins.

We know that she's autistic like her older sister Keedie.

And we know that at school, she spends a lot of time in the library.

We know that she's a very good reader but that she doesn't like maths.

We know that her teacher, Miss Murphy, is unkind to her, but she likes Mr. Allison, who's the librarian.

And we know that her parents work a lot and that her sister Nina is a vlogger.

So I'm sure you've got some similar ones, but I'm sure you've got lots more as well.

Good work.

So which of these are true of Addie? Pause the video and decide.

Well done, good job.

I'm sure you spotted that it's correct to say that she has messy handwriting, apparently, and she can find noise and light overwhelming, but she doesn't like to be touched and she doesn't have an awful lot of friends at school, although we know that changes during the course of the book.

Really well done for getting those.

So when we think about characters like Addie, we can identify traits which are features of their personality based on their behaviour.

So we look at their behaviour and we infer, or work out, traits that they have.

So we can see for instance that Dad in the story is caring.

And we can see that by looking at the evidence.

We see that he adapts the way he talks to be helpful to Addie.

He cooks different foods to help Addie eat it.

He never gets angry even when he's tired from work.

And he supports Addie at the village meeting.

And he understands why what Emily did was so upsetting to Addie.

So all of these behaviours give us evidence to show Dad's trait of being caring.

We can see this is a big part of his personality.

It is a character trait for Dad in the story.

So what traits does Audrey have? And what's your evidence to support your ideas? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good job.

Now we could have come with many different things here.

Here's an example.

Izzie says one of Audrey's key traits is being open-minded because she's accepting of Addie as she is without question, which is unlike Jenna who is kind of ashamed of Addie's autism.

And she just doesn't care about the fact that she's a bit different.

So Audrey is very open-minded.

That's one of her character traits.

You could say, like Alex did, that she's brave.

So, for instance, she tried her best to stand up to the bullies and she had the courage to stand up to Miss Murphy as well by bringing that thesaurus into the meeting.

So that took some guts according to Alex.

So we can see two of Audrey's traits here, being brave and being open-minded, but you might have thought some really good ones as well, so long as you've got some evidence to back up from the text.

That was great, good job.

So Addie's autism, we know, is a key part of her character in the story, although it's certainly not the only part.

So what does autism involve? Let's just recap.

We know that some autistic people may find it hard to interact with others and understand how others think or feel, or understand situations.

We know that some autistic people might find loud noises and bright lights to be overwhelming and they may get anxious about new situations they're placed in.

We know that some autistic people may do the same things repeatedly or they may struggle to deal with changes to routines.

But the book also makes clear, doesn't it, that one of the main challenges of autism is to do with masking.

And we know that masking means trying to fit in with non-autistic people and their way of doing things.

And in the book, this is really shown to be exhausting and draining for people who have to do it.

For instance, we see Keedie at university being really burnt out over the fact that she has to mask so much at university.

So do you agree with Aisha, and why or why not? Aisha says, Addie doesn't find her autism difficult to cope with.

What makes it hard is the way the rest of the world is and how people treat her.

Pause the video.

Do you agree with Aisha? Why or why not? Well done.

Really interesting question to discuss.

Maybe you said like Alex, it's definitely true that the way Miss Murphy treats Addie makes her life in school harder than if she were just left to herself.

We can imagine Addie learning lots and lots at school if she was just left in the library with books all day, but Miss Murphy almost gets in the way of that process by interrupting Addie's thinking and by stopping her from being comfortable in school.

Maybe you said something like this.

But think about when she went to find Keedie at the university.

Her autism made it hard for her to interpret that situation correctly.

So this is a good point, isn't it? When Addie found that student card and went to take it to Keedie at university, she misinterpreted the situation.

And we could argue that it's Addie's autism that made it difficult for her to correctly interpret that situation.

So at the end of the book, we also see Addie say, "Sometimes autism is my superpower and sometimes it's not.

Sometimes it makes things difficult." So we can see that it's partly about how she's treated by other people but partly the autism in itself making some situations more difficult for Addie.

So how does "A Kind of Spark" help to show that autistic people are not all the same? Pause the video and have a careful think.

Well done, really good thinking.

So we could say Addie is quite quiet and gentle, whereas Keedie, who's also autistic, is much more confident and outgoing, or at least that's how she comes across.

So two different ways of being autistic, two different ways of presenting your personality, even though both those characters are autistic.

Maybe you thought something like this.

Yes, though we also see that Keedie finds some things harder than Addie.

For instance, at university, Keedie is finding the lighting very hard, but Addie hasn't mentioned this so much at school, although we do see in the village hall, Addie mentions the lighting being very strong, and she notices the lighting at university would've upset her too.

But maybe Keedie feels that a little bit more strongly than Addie in that sense, so she's got a bit more of a challenge in terms of the lighting there.

So, obviously, all of autistic people are different, so they will experience the world in different ways and will have different challenges and different strengths.

So we also see Addie show a wide range of character traits in the book.

We might say that she's very determined.

And the evidence for that is that her request for that plaque is repeatedly denied, but she keeps on working until she achieves her goal at the end of the book.

That proves that she has a character trait of being determined.

We could also say that Addie is keen to please, not always, but sometimes.

For instance, when Audrey says she prefers dolphins to sharks, Addie stops reading about sharks even though she loves them, because she's keen to almost ingratiate herself with Audrey, which means to get on good terms with Audrey.

So she puts her interest in sharks to one side because she wants to be friends with Audrey.

We could also say that Addie is sensitive to others' feelings.

For example, she doesn't want Keedie to read that word that Emily wrote in the thesaurus in order to protect Keedie's feelings.

So she's really thinking about how others will react to things that might happen.

So I've thought of three character traits for Addie there.

You might disagree, and that's fine.

But we always have to back up our ideas with evidence from the text.

Do you agree with Jacob, and why or why not? He says, I think one of Addie's main traits is that she's shy.

Pause the video and decide if you agree.

Well done, really good job.

So Andeep says, I disagree.

Addie made several speeches in front of big groups of people and she spoke to adults at the university.

Yes, she was nervous in those situations, but that's just normal.

So Andeep's saying we don't have proof that Addie is shy.

Maybe you agree with Sam.

She says, I agree with Andeep.

I think it's fair to say that Addie is cautious around people because she's had bad experiences, but I'm not sure that she's shy.

So Sam's saying, well, she goes into situations with a little bit of caution, which comes from the interactions she might have had with other people that have gone badly, like with Miss Murphy, but she's not shy.

She's not afraid to speak, and she's not afraid to speak to people.

So we might all have some different perspectives on whether character traits are true for Addie or not, but we have to support them with evidence from the text.

So let's do our first task for this lesson.

I've written some traits on the right-hand side here, single-minded, easily-upset, compassionate, patient, and curious.

I want you to decide which traits are most relevant to Addie's character.

So decide where you'd place each of them on this target.

You're gonna put the traits that are most relevant to Addie in the centre and then work outwards.

So the ones which are least relevant should be on the outside or even outside the rings altogether.

And I want you to be prepared to justify your choices with some evidence from the text.

Pause the video and decide where you'll place each trait.

Have a go.

Well done, fantastic job.

Perhaps you made some choices like these.

Jun said, I put single-minded in the centre because of how strongly Addie pursues her goal of getting the plaque made.

I put patient furthest out because I remembered when Addie rushed to the library to find out more about the witches.

So Jun's justified his belief that patient is not always relevant to Addie because he's remembered that scene from the book where Addie's desperate to learn more about the witches.

Let's see what Sophia said.

She said, I wasn't sure where to put curious.

Addie has subjects she cares a lot about and others she doesn't.

That's true of all of us, isn't it? We're curious about some things and less curious about others.

Sophia also said, I put compassionate at the centre because her campaign is based on her caring for the witches.

So Sophia is saying, well, the whole book is motivated by Addie's desire to do something good for these people she feels are mistreated, which shows compassion, meaning care for others.

Now, you might have disagreed with this, but I'm sure you managed to justify your ideas really well with evidence.

Good job.

So we've discussed some of Addie's character traits.

Now let's move on to identifying some character lows and highs in the story of Addie.

So we now need to look closely at the structure of the story in "A Kind of Spark." Can you summarise first of all the key points of the story in just four points to the person next to you? Pause the video and have a try.

It's hard, isn't it, to summarise such a long story in such a few points.

Here's what I did.

I started off with, Addie's teacher treats her badly and her friend Jenna is drifting away from her.

Then Addie learns about the Scottish witch trials and asks her village to create a memorial to the people who were executed, and they refuse.

Emily then destroys Addie's thesaurus, which provokes Addie to hit her.

And then Addie speaks at the village meeting and persuades them to build the plaque by showing how personal the issue is to her.

Now you might disagree with the ones I picked out there.

My third point, you might say that's not that important to the story.

I thought it was important enough to include it, but we could disagree on that.

But we've come up with there a summary of four important points from the story.

And remember, summarising is all about getting out the most important information.

Well done.

So we know that stories often follow a structure like this, which we could call a story staircase.

We have an opening, a build-up, a climax, and a resolution.

So what do those mean? Well, the opening is where the writer describes the setting and the characters.

And the build-up is where the problems in the story are introduced and the tension rises.

Then we have that climax, which is the high point of all the action and the tension in the story, and the resolution, where the problems are resolved.

It's not always easy to see that structure, particularly in a longer book like "A Kind of Spark," because in a longer book, we might have several different storylines or plot lines which are running alongside each other.

So in "A Kind of Spark," we could say, well, one plot line's about the memorial, but another plot line is really about Addie's autism and her experience of that in the world.

So those two plot lines run alongside each other, and they might climax and resolve at slightly different points.

But we can see a general structure like this in our story.

So have a look at the story staircase below.

Why do you think the bars for the buildup and the climax are longer than the bars for the opening and the resolution? Pause the video and have a think.

Good thinking.

Well, there are kind of two reasons for this.

It's partly to show the tension rising up towards the climax and then falling when the problems are resolved.

So that's what gives us a staircase structure.

So the build-up and the climax have more tension, more action, so they have to be longer bars to show that.

But it's also about the quantity of details and events in the story that might fall in those two categories.

So the opening and the resolution of the story are often quite brief, but the build-up and the climax might be much longer because they might have several different problems introduced in the build-up and several sections of high tension building towards that climax.

So we've got the bars slightly longer as well to accommodate those events.

Really well done if you thought that through carefully.

So in "A Kind of Spark," the buildup is quite long, and it's quite detailed, with many different threads running through the story.

Here are some events we could include in the build-up.

We could say Addie first learns about the witches, sparking her campaign might be the first step in that build-up, where we first introduce that problem of, how am I going to memorialise these witches? Then we see Addie seeing unkind comments about Nina's video, adding some tension, Addie developing that friendship with Audrey, and Addie's friendship with Jenna deteriorates or getting worse.

We've got Addie going to Keedie's university, a really important plot point, and then being provoked by Emily and hits her.

And we've got Addie being involved in that tense meeting with Miss Murphy.

So all of these events serve to ramp up that tension towards that climax where Addie's campaign has its last chance to succeed when she gives that final speech in the village hall.

So which part of the story structure does each of these events in the story best fit into? Do they fall into the opening, the build-up, the climax, or the resolution? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good job.

So a, Addie learns about the witches and campaigns for a memorial would be part of the build-up.

For b, we're learning about characters in the story, aren't we? So that's part of the opening.

When the plaque is unveiled, that is part of the resolution, because the problem of how to memorialise the witches has been resolved.

And giving that final, more personal speech about the plaque is part of the climax, where the action reaches its highest point.

Really well done if you got this.

So throughout the story then, we've got Addie experiencing lows, low points, and highs, high points, so negative experiences and positive experiences for her character.

For example, we can say that Addie has a high when she meets Audrey, who sits down to research the witches with her.

She's got a friend who seems to be treating her right.

And we see Addie have a low when she sees that tree the witches were hanged from, and it really upsets her, doesn't it, on the school trip.

And sometimes those highs and lows can come very quickly after each other.

For instance, we have Addie experiencing a character high because she manages to track down Keedie at university by navigating her way there all alone, but then she immediately has a low because she realises she's upset Keedie by coming to find her and maybe caused a big problem in their family.

So characters can go up and down, high and low very quickly as part of the buildup to the story.

So what other character lows and highs can you think of for Addie? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good job.

So for lows, maybe you said things like when Miss Murphy tears up her work right at the start of the story, when Emily tears up her thesaurus, when Keedie has that burnout, and when Miss Murphy speaks to her in the office.

For highs, maybe it was things like when Keedie comes home for dinner and Addie's so pleased to see her right at the start of the story, when Keedie gives her that book about the ocean, when the plaque is unveiled in the resolution, and when Audrey gives her that new thesaurus as well towards the end of the book.

So you've got lots of lows but also lots of highs for Addie in this book.

Really well done for thinking of those.

So in which part of the story structure are there likely to be the most high points for Addie? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good job.

Now we could disagree about this, but you might have chosen the resolution here, because of course the resolution is where the problems in the story are resolved.

They're solved.

So we're likely to see lots of positive outcomes and positive experiences for Addie in that resolution, which we do see in this story.

Now of course, not all stories that we read will have a happy ending like our story does.

But in this story, we see lots of character highs for Addie in the resolution at the end of the book.

We know that character lows and highs are obviously going to be linked to the emotions the character feels.

So we could have emotions like these, anger, fear, determination, confusion, contentment, sadness, excitement, love.

So, for instance, we know that Addie experiences excitement on the class trip to the witches' tree.

Mr. Patterson asks, doesn't he, "Who's excited to learn about witches?" And Addie can barely contain her excitement there.

But we know that she experiences confusion when she goes to the university to see Keedie, and it's clear that Keedie's not pleased to see her there, which she thought she would be.

So Addie's confused at that point.

We know that she experiences love, or maybe she shows love, when she chooses to be in Nina's video to share time with her.

So at different points there, we've got lows and highs associated with different emotions.

So which emotion best matches what Addie might have felt when she saw the plaque during the resolution of the story? Pause the video and decide.

Well done, good thinking.

I think it was probably satisfaction is the best match there.

Now of course not everyone reacts to events in the same way and with the same emotions.

We might all react differently to these events.

So we have to try and infer, or work out, Addie's emotions from what we're told in the book.

And we can't just give our own view.

We didn't see at the end of the story Addie jumping up and down and cheering, do we, when the plaque is unveiled.

So it would be wrong to say that we can infer that Addie is over the moon about that.

So satisfaction seems like a better fit for what Addie feels based on what we see in the book.

Now of course we can never be sure what other people are feeling or other characters are feeling, but we can give it a good guess based on what we see and using the evidence in front of us.

So let's do our final test of this lesson.

I want you to pick five key events from the story and plot them on an emotions graph to show whether they're highs and lows.

And then for each event, I want you to say the emotion you think Addie was feeling at that point.

Let me show an example.

Here's my graph.

I plotted five points, starting on the left-hand side and finishing on the right-hand side.

And we could pick one of those points, and we could say, when the plaque is unveiled, Addie feels content and triumphant.

So I've said what that point represents.

I've plotted it as a high level, so it's a character high for Addie.

And I've said what I think she's feeling then, which is content and triumphant.

So have a go at plotting your graph with five points, labelling each point to say what the event is and what Addie's feeling.

So it might be helpful to use this structure.

When this happens, Addie feels this.

Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, really good job.

So here's an example of the emotions graph you might have drawn.

So I've started off with here, a low point.

When Miss Murphy tears her work, Addie is confused and hurt.

Then I've gone up slightly.

When Audrey approaches her in the library, Addie feels hopeful.

I'm going up some more.

I said, while campaigning with Audrey, Addie feels excited and happy.

Then I've gone way back down, a character low.

When Addie hurts Emily, she feels ashamed and regretful.

And then I finish with a character high.

When the plaque is unveiled, Addie feels content and triumphant.

Again, really well done if you've managed to do something similar.

Hopefully you picked different events to me, but you've managed to say how Addie might be feeling and to show on the graph whether it's a character high or a character low.

Good job.

So let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've said that Addie is the protagonist in "A Kind of Spark," and the story is told from her perspective.

We know that Addie's character has many traits, including bravery, honesty, and determination.

We know she's autistic, but this is just one aspect of her identity.

We can identify a structure in the story in the book, including an opening, a build-up, a climax, and a resolution.

And we can check character highs and lows for Addie across this story, identifying the emotions she feels at different points.

Really well done for your work in this session.

I'd love to see you again in a future one.

Goodbye.