Kensuke’s Kingdom – Novel Study Unit Complete Teaching Pack | Year 7 English

A rich and engaging teaching unit for Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo, designed for Year 7 English classrooms. This resource supports students in exploring themes of survival, friendship, and cultural understanding while developing key skills in comprehension, inference, and analytical writing.

Through structured lessons and interactive activities, students follow Michael’s journey and examine how relationships, setting, and perspective shape meaning in the text. The unit encourages both critical thinking and empathy, helping students connect personally with the novel while building strong literacy skills.

What’s included
A full teaching unit with clearly sequenced lessons
Theme analysis (survival, friendship, isolation, trust, cultural understanding)
Character analysis (Michael, Kensuke and key relationships)
Language features and techniques (imagery, symbolism, descriptive language, narrative voice)
Context exploration (island setting, Japanese culture, historical references)
LitCraft instructions to support immersive, role-based learning and deeper engagement with the text
Interactive and kinaesthetic learning activities
Discussion questions and comprehension checks
Creative and reflective response tasks
Writing scaffolds for analytical paragraphs and short responses

How to Use
Convert to PowerPoint: Upload the PDF to PowerPoint (File → Open) to automatically convert into editable slides
Use in Google Slides: Upload to Google Drive, right-click, and open with Google Slides
Use digitally or print: Upload to your LMS (Google Classroom, Canvas, etc.) or print for handouts
Canva option: Upload the PDF to Canva to edit, customise, and export as PowerPoint