Exploring the moral and characters in 'The Happy Prince'
I can discuss the moral and the characters' emotions in ‘The Happy Prince’.
Exploring the moral and characters in 'The Happy Prince'
I can discuss the moral and the characters' emotions in ‘The Happy Prince’.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- Expressing the thoughts and emotions of a character helps the reader understand the character more.
- Different character traits appear in the story and we use these to draw conclusions to infer a moral from the story.
- A moral is a lesson that can be learnt from a story; readers’ interpretations of a moral may differ.
- The characters’ emotions change throughout the narrative.
- We can look at each character's speech and actions to understand their emotions fully.
Keywords
Character trait - part of your personality, belief system and behaviour
Moral - a lesson that can be learnt from a story or experience
Emotions - strong feelings that result from a person’s circumstances, mood or relationship with others
Common misconception
Pupils may find it difficult to understand the characters' emotions.
Tell pupils that exploring what the characters say and how they act helps to infer what they are feeling.
To help you plan your year 4 english lesson on: Exploring the moral and characters in 'The Happy Prince', download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 4 english lesson on: Exploring the moral and characters in 'The Happy Prince', download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 2 english lessons from the 'The Happy Prince': narrative writing and reading unit, dive into the full secondary english curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.