Resources for Schools: Wild

We asked Ele Fountain if we could talk to her about her writing and how she creates her characters and gripping stories. Watch the interview below, then we've made some suggestions for how you could use the interview in the classroom.

Interview Writing

Discuss the types of questions used in the interview and how these elicit more detailed answers than closed questions.

If the children are already familiar with question types, play the interview without the questions and ask the children to use Ele’s responses to work out what the questions might have been.

Use the interview as a model for writing their own interview questions based on a different book or author they are studying. Being able to formulate questions for the author during and after reading will help children to develop their critical thinking and specific reading comprehension skills such as inference, summarising and considering author’s use of language and its impact on the reader. Submit the children’s questions to authors through their websites and social media accounts. Alternatively, role-play some interviews with the children taking it in turns to both ask and answer the questions.

Tips for Story Writing

Watch the interview together and draw out Ele’s comments and advice in relation to the different aspects of story writing.

Ask the children to work in groups to focus on a single question and summarise the main points Ele makes in her responses.

Use the summaries to create a Top Tips poster on how to write a good story.

Story Settings

Provide lots of opportunities for children to ‘experience’ their chosen setting. Use first-hand or virtual visits, reference books, extracts from other stories, sound clips, real artefacts, food tasting and video clips to immerse the children in the setting.

Create soundscapes and artwork to bring the setting to life.

Use these experiences to collect words and phrases for a multisensory description of their setting.

Use extracts from Wild as WAGOLLs to support the children in writing their own setting descriptions (e.g. pages 92-93, 138-139, 156-157).

Story Openings

Read the first chapter of Wild and discuss how Ele has portrayed the action and built tension through short sentences and powerful verbs. Discuss the impact of using the first-person narrative alongside precise and appropriate dialogue to create a fast-paced opening to the story.

Use images, music videos or film shorts to inspire story openings and support the children in writing their own action-led story openings.