Activity

Choose a book to read the start of, which is suitable for the age of your students e.g. Eight Pieces of Silva by Patrice Lawrence, Oh My Gods by Alexandra Sheppard or The Lightening Catcher by Clare Weze.

Divide students into small groups. One person will become one of the characters from the book. Allow them to choose, but encourage them to pick a character they know something about – enough for them to imagine how they might be feeling.

The other members of the group question the ‘character’ in the hot-seat – asking them questions about what is happening in the story and what they want to know from that character.

The person in hot-seat should try to answer as best they can, imagining they are the character. They aren’t answering as themselves, and should try to think back to what the character was like in the story so far, as much as possible. They may have to make lots of things up – which is fine! Allow five minutes for this.

When students have had a chance to ask questions, ask the groups to share their favourite questions and answers from their groups with the rest of the class.

Reflection

  • Which questions do you think got the best answers?

  • Why do you think that is?

Go Further

Members of the group could take it in turns to swap in, trying out different characters (or the same if they want to). You could read on (or ask students to read in their own time) and find out if any of their questions were answered, or if any of hot-seat guesses were correct!

Inquisitive: Wondering & Questioning

Students practice asking questions of a character, with the aim of finding out what sorts of question may elicit the most interesting response.