The House on Maple Street, Harris Burdick Mysteries

This was my version of a story to go with the picture in the Harris Burdick Mysteries ‘The House on Maple Street’, which had to include the phrase: ‘It was a perfect lift-off’. This story was a response to the story written by two American 14-year-olds found here: https://rhinospike.com/audio_requests/silverteacher/20183/

We read their version first. We discussed and critiqued it etc, how could they improve it.
Then I shared mine. It’s by no means perfect! And your class may prefer the kids’ version. However, my story is more sophisticated in development, effects, cohesion, language and punctuation. There’s therefore lots for the children to compare and discuss to focus their own planning and writing. I have left this in Word so you can edit it further if you wish, but please credit me.

In addition, I have included our story plan, which the children used having selected a Harris Burdick picture/caption to write a story on. The idea is the children first think of all the questions the picture raises. They pick three questions they will answer in their story, and one they will not. So for instance, in my story, I have explained how the house took off and who flew it, but not where it went to (or indeed what happened to the pilot).