Robin Hood teacher’s guide

Pre-reading: The lesson starts with showing the pupils some pictures from which they have to guess a famous character. If they don’t guess the character after the 2 slides, they will definitely guess the character after seeing the short ‘funny’ clip about Robin Hood - Men in tights. After watching the clip the pupils receive a format on which they collect everything they know about Robin Hood in just a short amount of time. After that, they have to fill the words through the link they have received so that you can collect all words on one page in an instant. You can also see which words are mentioned the most. Next you hand out the reader in which the pupils can find all of the exercises they are going to do to day. Exercise 1: First they are going to fill in why they think Robin Hood is still a great story to listen to. Further through this lesson, we will get back to that. After the short talk and the first exercise the pupils are shown the lesson targets of today. At the end of the lesson you:

- Improve your reading skills. - Improve your social skills. - Understand what legends are. - Know more about the legend of Robin Hood - How to try to distinguish fact or fiction in myths and legends.

While-reading: The teacher reads the poem out loud in front of the pupils. They can read the poem at the same time in their reader. Exercise 2: The pupils will write down their opinion if Robin Hood is a hero or a villain. Later on in this lesson they will answer almost the same question with more knowledge at hand. Then they can see if their opinion has changed. Exercise 3: After reading the poem the pupils have to mark the facts they already knew from the pre-reading phase in colour. But also they have to mark (in another colour) the facts they didn’t know yet. After this check up on their findings.

Exercise 4 and 5: Let the pupils discuss in groups what they think about the story. They can discuss it with the use of some example questions given in the reader which they have to answer individually before starting the discussion. This way they all have an answer and they all have a say in the discussion. This discussion can be held in all kinds of different forms. For example, you can use a socratic circle, but in this lesson plan we will use another form. The pupils will sit in groups of four. Each pupil will take up one question and explains his answer after that, the other students can react in turns. The student can then jot down everything they find of interest about the answers of the others. After the discussion collect some short answers from each group. Exercise 6 Next tell the pupils that Robin Hood is a legend. Legends are stories based on facts and fiction. So they can be partially true. In the reader the pupils can find some short extracts about the history of Robin Hood. They are going to match the information and try to find out what is shown multiple times. Because of their findings they can conclude that some of the information has probably happened for real. Explain to the pupils that after they have read the extracts, they have to jot down all the small facts they can find in an extract into the table. They also have to write down the date of the extract. With the information they find they can draw conclusions if they think the extract is trustworthy or not. Note: this will still be an opinion, but it is a strategy to get closer to the truth. After these exercises tell the pupils that the story of Robin Hood originates from a ballad. A song about a hero which was spread orally. This is why the story probably changed during time. Post-reading Exercise 7 After all the information the pupils have received they’re going to answer some statements in which they can check if how they think about some facts about Robin Hood. Exercise 8 Now use the first exercise they made this lesson. And use that answer to answer the next question. Why is Robin Hood a story which has survived until now? What makes this story so interesting? What are the key elements.

Exercise 9 After that collect all their findings so that they can use all the ideas in the last exercise. Create a newsflash about a ‘Robin Hood’ in present time. If you have the possibilities you can let the pupils create the videos in class, but you can also give it as a homework assignment.

1. make an English newsitem of a couple of minutes (video) 2. describe an incident: what has happened? When did it happen? Who did it concern? 3. Describe the reaction of the police. 4. Create a short interview with a witness. When the pupils have finished an exercise and they can’t proceed yet, you can let them create a wanted poster about Robin Hood.

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