Why teach this unit?
This is a wonderfully versatile project and one you can use time and again. This is because children simply change what it is they want to put at the end of this title stem: A story about… my dad, A story about… my friend Charlie, A story about… Spiderman, A story about… the Gruffalo, or even A story about… Monty the monstertruck!
Children love telling others stories about the people they know and like outside school. They may have overheard or been told a funny or a serious anecdote about someone, or perhaps remember something they did together, and this is a great opportunity to entertain or inform others about it, make a record of something to look back on, and maybe also to express affection for someone or something important to them. Making a book about someone who belongs to the wider circle of family friends and acquaintances offers children extra possibilities for making links between home and school and for writing about what they know (Young et al. 2022). For this reason, their book may contain elements of both personal narrative (memoir) and information.
Alternatively, this project is an opportunity for children to write their own ‘fan fiction’ by taking a character from their popular culture and using them in their own story. This helps introduce children to the idea of intertextuality – that your stories can be based on others you know or love (Young & Ferguson 2023).