"The flashing black eyes were fixed on Sophie's bed. The next moment, a huge hand with pale fingers came snaking in through the window. This was followed by an arm, an arm as thick as a tree-trunk, and the arm, the hand, the fingers were reaching out across the room towards Sophie's bed."
- Chapter 3, The Snatch
Having read The BFG by Roald Dahl many times in my youth, I was very excited to see it on our reading list for this course. In the beginning, we meet Sophie - a young girl who lives in a strictly-run orphanage. One night, while she can't fall asleep, she sees a giant peering into the windows on her street and blowing what looks like a trumpet onto the sleeping inhabitants within. The giant hears her watching him and snatches her from her bed.
When they arrive back in the giant's cave, Sophie is relieved to learn that he doesn't want to eat her. In fact, he's the Big Friendly Giant (hence, the BFG)! He stole her away because he's afraid what will happen if humans find out that giants exist.
The BFG shows Sophie the other giants outside his cave and describes the kinds of humans they all like to eat (depending on how the giant is feeling and his personal tastes). Sophie agrees to stay in the cave to avoid being eaten herself. She tells the BFG about her life in the orphanage and how she lost her parents when she was very young. He reveals that the trumpet she saw is actual a tool he uses to take away children's bad dreams and give them good ones instead.
Sophie and the BFG are an unlikely duo, but I loved seeing their friendship blossom in this first half of the story. The BFG opens Sophie up to a whole world of things in which she didn't previously believe, while she helps him overcome his insecurities. I look forward to reading about their adventures in the second half!
Language
The BFG's silly way of speaking presents an interesting opportunity for students to practice using context clues to figure out words. The BFG himself says:
“Words...is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life. So you must simply try to be patient and stop squibbling. As I am telling you before, I know exactly what words I am wanting to say, but somehow or other they is always getting squiff-squiddled around" (Chapter 8).Most people can relate to the frustration of having our words come out all "squiff-squiddled around." As students encounter strange and made-up words in this book, they will need to think about the context of the words to understand their meaning. Dahl loved silly words so much that there's even an Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary (available here). I wouldn't want my students to rely on this dictionary too often, but it might be a fun activity to compare our understanding with the dictionary definitions.
Reader's Theatre
Dahl is a master at creating vivid and intriguing situations for his characters. Throughout the story, I had a movie running in my head, aided by Quentin Blake's illustrations. I could feel Sophie's terror as she was nearly eaten by the Bloodbottler, as well as her curiosity while the BFG introduced her to snozzcumbers, frobscottle, whizzpoppers, and other peculiarities of the giants' world.
One way to get students to engage with these descriptions and dialogue is through reader's theatre. I've included the first page of an adaptation I found online (with the link for the whole script below). This one is a little bit long, so you could break it up to have groups of students take a couple pages then perform the whole thing together. Even better, you could use this as a model to get students to write their own scripts for other scenes in the book. I love reader's theatre because it encourages students to have fun with their reading and practice using good expression.
Click here to read the whole script
Sources
Dahl, R., & Blake, Q. (1982). The BFG. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Viking Penguin.
NWT Literacy Council. (n.d.). Readers theatre scripts. Retrieved from https://www.nwtliteracy.ca/sites/default/files/resources/readers_theatre.pdf
While this is not my favorite book, i do agree that there is a great opportunity to teach language. context clues is a great idea! i was also thinking you could use it to help the students sound out words. As I keep reading it i do find myself wanting to know what happens next!
ReplyDeleteMelissa,
ReplyDeleteYou do a great job of pulling out highlights and representing the strengths of the story. Great job looking at applicable uses in building literary skills of students. The Reader's Theater would be a strong instructional strategy to motivate students to work through tough vocabulary and master the content to perform well.
I'm glad you like the book and I think you probably have a different perspective since you read it as a child! I also agree that this is a great opportunity for students to work on using context clues to assign meaning to a word.
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