Drawing of Love Monster finding a box of chocolates on his doorstep.
Love Monster cannot believe it when he finds a box of chocolate. Should he keep them? Should he return them? What should he do?
A hilarious tale where the motto is to follow your heart!
Audience and purpose
The teacher assessment frameworks for writing place an emphasis on children writing for a range of purposes and audiences.
Key Stage One:
- Write simple, coherent narratives about personal experiences and those of others (real or fictional).
- Write about real events, recording these simply and clearly write simple, coherent narratives about personal experiences and those of others (real or fictional).
Key Stage Two:
- Write effectively for a range of purposes and audiences, selecting language that shows good awareness of the reader (e.g. the use of the first person in a diary; direct address in instructions and persuasive writing).
How to make it accessible
Early Years Foundation Stage:
- Do children have a visual prompt of their audience? For example of they are writing a ‘Get Well’ card to Teddy, is Teddy on the writing table with a bandage on his arm?
- At EYFS, writing tasks work best if children can relate to the experience (concrete rather than abstract).
- Teachers should use the language ‘Who’ are we writing to and ‘Why’ are we writing rather than purpose and audience.
Key Stage One:
- KS1 children will benefit from role play; hot-seating; using props and oral rehearsal.
- They may also need ‘Who’ and ‘Why’ before the terms ‘audience and purpose’ are introduced.
Key Stage Two:
- Features of specific genre should be taught first and form the main body of success criteria (grammar objectives should be secondary).
- Make ‘audience and purpose’ explicit.
Drawings taken from 'Love Monster & the Box of Chocolates' of monster facing a chocolate centred moral dillema.
Writing Opportunities
With this framwork in mind, have a go with these writing activites using 'Love Monster & the Last Chocolate' as the basis.
KS1 Writing Opportunities
Task: Monster recently went on holiday. Where have they been?
Purpose: What are you writing and why? This could be a postcard from Monster describing the place he went (choose where from according to your topics).
Audience: Who is he writing to? This could be one of his friends, a family member, a pen-pal, or his favourite chocolate shop.
What the children will need:
- Greeting
- 1st person
- Detailed description
- Opinions
- Engage audience – wish you were here etc…
- Closing
- Conjunctions
- Punctuation
- Words with suffixes (wonderful etc…)
KS1 Writing Opportunities
Task: Monster does not know what to do with the box of chocolates. What should he do? Tell him!
Purpose: Why are you writing? A speech to Monster telling him what to do with the chocolates. You will need to decide if he should eat the chocolates or share them!
Audience: Who are you writing to? Love Monster himself.
What the children will need: this is a speech to the Love Monster. Think about style.
- Powerful opening so that he listens
- State your side – eat them all or share with your mates
- Give reasons to support you
- Motto to remind him – share and share alike or scoff the lot and hide the box!
KS1 Writing Opportunities
Task: Monster detests coffee chocolates. What happened the last time he ate a coffee chocolate?
Purpose: Why are you writing? To recount what happened the last time Love Monster ate a coffee chocolate. You should entertain your reader.
Audience: Who are you writing for? Children in year 1 or year 2 (peers).
What the children will need: this needs to be descriptive and funny!
- Noun phrases
- Superlatives
- Question for the reader
- Exclamation sentence
- OTT language: worst day of my life; thought the world would end’ literally on death’s door etc
Drawing of the Love Monster eating his least favourite flavor of chocolate - coffee.
'Love Monster & the Last Chocolate' is not the only title in the Love Monster collection from Rachel Bright. More Love Monster adventures can be found on Madeleine Lindley's website, including:
