Year 4 Mythical Story Writing Unit

This English unit is designed for year 4. The unit requires at least one version of the myth ‘Midas and the Golden Touch’. The aim is for the children to write a mythical story based on an edited version of the Greek myth – King Midas. The unit allows the children the opportunity to become more familiar with mythical stories and their composition. It also gives the children the opportunity to role-play, read and immerse themselves in a variety of different mythical stories. This unit is very specific and detailed when it comes to the planning and writing stages (a modelled write is included in the plan). It also develops the following skills and knowledge from the National Curriculum:

Writing (Composition):

Plan their writing by:
i. discussing writing similar to that which they are planning to write in order to understand and learn from its structure, vocabulary and grammar
ii. discussing and recording ideas

Draft and write by:
i. composing and rehearsing sentences orally (including dialogue), progressively building a varied and rich vocabulary and an increasing range of sentence structures
ii. organising paragraphs around a theme
in narratives, creating settings, characters and plot
iii. using commas after fronted adverbials

develop their understanding of the Vocabulary, grammar and punctuation by:
i. choosing nouns or pronouns appropriately for clarity and cohesion and to avoid repetition
ii. extending the range of sentences with more than one clause by using a wider range of conjunctions, including when, if, because, although
iii. using fronted adverbials

Evaluate and edit by:
i. assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing and suggesting improvements
ii. proposing changes to grammar and vocabulary to improve consistency, including the accurate use of pronouns in sentences
iii. proofread for spelling and punctuation errors
iv. read their own writing aloud, to a group or the whole class, using appropriate intonation and controlling the tone and volume so that the meaning is clear.

This is a 3/4-week unit which includes 12 separate lessons/activities. However, some of these lessons will often need more than a single lesson to complete (particularly the writing and planning sections).

Within this unit plan there are hyperlinks to other resources associated with the plan.