Holes - Stanley Yelnats!

This engaging and informative lesson helps students to understand the introduction and development of the lead protagonist in Louis Sachar’s 'Holes' - Stanley Yelnats. Students explore Stanley’s character traits at the start of the story, using extracts from the text, before tracking his changing behaviour as the novel progresses.

The lesson follows a step-by-step learning journey, in which children learn through:
- Reading and understanding the selected extracts to determine the key traits of Stanley's character at different points in the text;
- Noticing trends in Stanley's character throughout the text, observing how he develops from his introduction in the text to later on in the story;
- Using textual evidence to back up ideas about Stanley;
- Creating two diary entries from the viewpoint of Stanley, accounting for his changes over time;
- Peer assessing each other's learning attempts;

Included is:
- Whole lesson PowerPoint - colourful and comprehensive;
- Cards for the card-sorting activity
- Selected extract- Chapter 4;
- Development of Stanley chart (Word and PDF)
- Comprehensive lesson plan.

There are also opportunities for group learning, peer assessment, and whole class discussion. I originally used these resources with year 7 and 8 classes, however colleagues have used them for between years 4 and 9 with minimal adaptations.

All images are licensed for commercial use, and image rights are listed on the last page of the presentation.