Year 6
Goodnight Mr Tom
We will be studying this classic text, either in its entirety or using extracts, linking it with its film dramatisation and seeing the similarities and differences between them.
It links in well with the Year 6 History curriculum, covering topics such as Evacuation, the Blitz in London, Gas Masks and Air Raid shelters. You will gain a better understanding in both History and English lessons of the context of the War and what life was like for ordinary people during the conflict.
The novel also follows the journey that the main characters make as they develop friendships and let go of the past.
Holes
Holes is a masterfully crafted text, and this craftsmanship will be the main focus of our study. It will introduce you to the idea that novels have more complexity than the storyline or plot.
Which of these covers do you prefer, and why?
Journey to the River Sea
Journey to the River Sea is a fabulous story, well crafted and with strong and interesting characters. It is a long book, but not difficult: you will be doing some of the reading at home so you must not only look after your copy of the text but also remember to bring it to every lesson.
The story is set in about 1912 in Manaus, a city built in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest. Manaus was built by Europeans who were developing the rubber trade and wanted to build a bit of Europe in the Amazon.
The Opera House, constructed with Italian marble, French glass and European bricks...It was finished in 1896. Can you imagine how it must have seemed when first built - with a huge golden dome rising higher than anything else around. What message would that give to the Brazilian people?
The Public Library. Another huge building for the time and the area. What message does building a library give to the world?
The rubber trade was booming in the early years of the 20th century, due to the need for tyres - initially for bicycle and then, increasingly, cars
Rubber comes from the sap of the Hevea tree. The sap is collected as it drips out of wounds in the bark of the trees. In order to have enough trees to make collecting rubber commercially viable in the rainforest, 'Rubber Barons' had to commandeer vast tracts of land, often forcing the native tribes who lived there to work for them.
In 1839, American inventor Charles Goodyear (1800–1860) developed the vulcanization (heat-treatment) process that makes rubber harder and more durable. By itself, unprocessed rubber is not all that useful. It tends to be brittle when cold, and smelly and sticky when it warms up. Goodyear had spent many years as a struggling inventor, trying desperately to turn rubber into a useful product, when he accidentally dropped some rubber and sulphur on a hot stove and watched it "cook" itself into a much more useful form: the black, vulcanized material we know as rubber to this day. This accidental discovery echoes another accidental discovery in another of our texts this year: watch out for it! Despite developing one of the most useful materials of all time, Goodyear never made much money from his invention and died deeply in debt. His name lives on in the Goodyear tyre company - check your car tyres as they may well be Goodyear - and his superb contribution to materials technology has never been forgotten.
It takes several steps to make a product out of natural rubber. First, you have to gather latex from the rubber trees using a traditional process called rubber tapping. That involves making a wide, V-shaped cut in the tree's bark. As the latex drips out, it is collected in a cup. The latex from many trees is then filtered, washed, and mixed with formic acid to make the particles of rubber coagulate (stick together). The rubber is then pressed into slabs or sheets and dried, ready for the next stages of production.
It is likely that Mr Carter's rubber would have been processed exactly like in the video below.
In the 1880s, Brazil had a monopoly on the rubber trade. Many other countries wanted to cash in on the trade, but the Hevea trees were quite delicate and so difficult to transport. The Brazilian government was also unwilling to risk losing its monopoly.
Either with authorisation, or without (stories vary), in the 1920s a British rubber baron eventually succeeded in transporting (or smuggling) thousands of tiny Hevea saplings to Malaya - a British colony that had the same climate as the Amazon rainforest. If the British could grow rubber trees, then that would benefit their whole empire, without having to pay so many taxes and duties on the product.
In Malaya, the trees were planted in plantations, which was more efficient than them being interspersed amongst other trees in the rainforest, and so the collection of rubber sap was more efficient. Within about 15 years, Brazil went from producing 95% of the world's rubber, to producing 10%. Manaus stopped being the affluent place it had been in its heyday.
But Journey to the River Sea starts in London, around 1910-1912. What major world event is on the horizon, unknown to all the characters?
King George V became King in 1910, aged 45. He had been in the Navy from the age of 12 until he was 27. He had been third in line to the throne, but his brother's unexpected death meant he moved to second in line and had to take up royal duties instead.
1912 was the year the Titanic set sail for New York, on its maiden voyage, but never arrived...
The Suffragettes were actively demanding 'suffrage', the right to vote, for women. Although many women worked full time, they had no political rights. Some of the suffragettes used increasingly dramatic means to get their point across.
Emily Davison ran in front of the King's horse during the Epsom Derby in 1913; research shows that she was probably trying to attach a suffragette flag to the horse's bridle. She was knocked over and died of her injuries.
It was only after the end of the First World War that women over the age of 30 were granted the right to vote, as long as they, or their husband, owned property. Full suffrage was only granted in 1928 - and both men and women had to be over 21. Today the voting age is 18.