Teaching Literature at Key Stage 3 and 4

Prose

Teaching examples of non-fiction
The Diary of Anne Frank

With these considerations in mind, possibilities for teaching The Diary of Anne Frank can be tried out and discussed with student teachers, including:

• Using the 'jigsaw' technique, ask groups of four to research, discuss and report back on the historical context or a particular specified aspect of the Diary. Each of the four members in the group would be allotted a different area to research or discuss, and would then combine with the equivalent individuals from the other groups fulfilling the same role. Subsequently, each of the original 'home' groups would then re-convene, to hear the findings, and eventually feed into a general class discussion or presentation. Clearly, good teaching for this activity needs to include appropriate resourcing for the research, using the library service and the potential of other curriculum areas. This general approach may take place usefully before, during or after the reading of the Diary.


• A consideration of the genre of diary or journal writing, thus focusing on the form of this text in relation to other pertinent examples, including, if appropriate, student teachers' or pupils' own writing. Instances are many and wide-ranging, from the light-hearted, fictional The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and the more recent sequel Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (Townsend, 1992 and 1999), through the moving account of a teenager growing up in war-torn Bosnia, Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo (Filipovic, 1994), to more traditionally literary works such as Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year or Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal. Activities may highlight the comparison of texts in terms of purpose and audience, both of which are interestingly problematic in this context and could lead to lively discussion.


• Taking ideas on the form of diary writing a little further, teaching could concentrate on the uses many writers have made of the genre within broader works of fiction. Useful examples include several Gothic-influenced classics, such as Frankenstein, Dracula, or Wuthering Heights, and more recent publications like The Color Purple (Walker, 1983) or, specifically for a youthful readership, Dear Nobody (Doherty, 1991). The consideration of journals as some kind of 'framing device' for narrative could then creatively inform student teachers' or pupils' own writing, conceivably at any level. And, of course, there is the tried and tested (and perhaps over-used, for some texts) approach of asking pupils to write the diary of a character featured in whichever fictional work is being studied.