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Edwinstree Middle School
Reading Journal
Name:
2
Weekly Guide
Come into school prepared to discuss your
reading
Cool Chilli: Essential Reading. Plus explore
specific pages (see below)
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
Read
Chapters 1
& 2
Read
Chapters
3 & 11
Read
Chapter
14
Read
chapter
16 & 19
Medium Chilli
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
Read up to
and
including
chapter 5
Read up to
and
including
chapter 10
Read up to
and
including
chapter 14
Read to
the end.
Hot Chilli: Also explore A Midsummer Night’s
Dream focussing on the relationship between
Prospero and Puck – you could ask your teacher
for a copy of Puck’s lines
Explore another novel which uses the time-
shift technique
Read some more of Shakespeare’s sonnets
3
Further ideas to choose from
Cool Chilli including
essential learning
Medium Chilli Hot Chilli
Regularly take notes
about
Nat, Arby and
Shakespeare
Answer the chapter
questions (verbally
or written)
Write your own
questions
(Use The Reading
Detective in the
Linking Literacy
Passport)
Explore the setting
of Elizabethan
London by reading
specific pages (see
below)
Find further pages
which explore
Elizabethan London
Research
Elizabethan London
using the internet
and books
Write a summary of
a chosen chapter
Write predictions Write an alternative
ending
Collect new words
and find their
meanings
Write sentences for
new words you have
found
Use new words in
your own writing
Draw a detailed
picture of settings
using evidence from
the text
Create a new front
cover
Write a book review
Find three facts out
about
Susan Cooper
Write a fact file
about Susan Cooper
Write a biography
about Susan Cooper
Look out for key moments (see below) – make some notes
4
Chapter Summary
1 Nat is an actor in Arby’s ‘The Company of Boys.’ They are rehearsing
two of William Shakespeare’s plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and
Julius Caesar. They will fly from America to perform in London’s New
Globe Theatre. We discover that Nat is an orphan; he lives with his
aunt Jen.
The main character, Nat, is about to embark on a journey. What do you think he
will learn?
2 Nat arrives in London with the acting company. Nat stays with the
Fisher family. Nat reflects: “There was something strange about
Arby.” (page 25) When they first met, Arby was recruiting young
actors, Arby seemed excited when he found out Nat’s name: Nathan
Fields. Whilst walking in London Nat experiences a ‘strange giddy
feeling’ (page 27). Nat visits the New Globe Theatre.
What is Cooper suggesting about Arby?
3 Nat’s dream.
5
What other time-shift stories do you know? How are they similar/ different?
4 Nat begins to realise that he has woken up in Elizabethan England.
Harry talks to him and explains that he was worried that he was
coming down with the plague. Master Burbage took Nat through the
streets of London to the Globe theatre, where he is to act.
How does Cooper make this new setting come alive?
5 Modern England: Nathan, from the past, is taken to hospital
suffering from bubonic plague.
Why is this an important chapter?
6
6 Nat is taken around the Globe. Nat meets the other actors and
William Shakespeare. Nat finds out that they are to perform A
Midsummer Night’s Dream to Queen Elizabeth I. Nat discovers that
the younger actors were apprentices. Nat makes an enemy, Roper, who
enjoyed trying to hurt him whilst sword fighting.
Why does Roper dislike Nat? Which other character felt like this in chapter 1?
Why does Cooper include these characters?
7 Nat is given the job of opening a trap door in a play: The devil’s
revenge. Roper signals falsely and gets him into trouble. Nat is taken
to see the bear-baiting.
Why do you think that Bear-baiting was so popular in Shakespeare’s time?
8 Roper and Nat head for another fight, which was stopped upon the
arrival of Shakespeare. Shakespeare is impressed by Nat’s tumbling.
Shakespeare shows kindness to Nat. Nat explains what had happened
7
to his parents. Shakespeare explains his deep sorrow for the loss of
his son Hamnet.
How are the feelings of Shakespeare and Nat similar? Why do you think Cooper
left it until now to tell her audience this information about her main character?
9 Modern England: Nathan, from the past, is fighting for his life.
Do you think he will survive?
10 Nat goes to live with Shakespeare. Nat remembers that his father
had also been a writer. Roper chokes on a piece of apple and Nat saves
his life using the Heimlich manoeuvre. Nat jumps into the part he was
playing. Roper in in his debt. Shakespeare is made to deliver a political
speech through his play, this frightens him.
Nat reflects that roper hasn’t really changed. Do you think Roper has learned a
lesson?
8
11 Nat becomes frightened. Shakespeare gives Nat a sonnet.
“The Shadows flickered away with him and left the room.” What is the
significance of this quote?
12 Modern England: Nathan, from the past, wakes up; the antibiotics
have cured him and asks to go home.
Why do you think Nat’s aunt is denied her request to see Nathan?
13 Nat and Shakespeare are nervously waiting as they are expecting to
perform to the Queen of England.
9
How does Cooper create tension?
14 Nat somersaults and plays his part of Puck well. Shakespeare plays
Oberon and together they wow the crowd.
Why do you think Cooper chose A Midsummer Night’s Dream to be the
Shakespeare play they performed?
15 Nat meets Queen Elizabeth, who had enjoyed his acting. Nat becomes
frightened and confused when he thinks about the future.
Shakespeare says goodbye.
10
Do you think Nat would have stayed in the past if her were given the choice?
16 Nat dreams again. This time of his father.
Why do you think Nat dreams of his father?
17 Nat has returned to his correct place in time. He wakes up in hospital.
As he gets used to the real world he finds that he misses Elizabethan
England. Nat and Arby argue, and Nat realises how much he misses
Shakespeare and in despair runs off through the streets of London.
Why do you think Arby was so angry?
11
18 Nat opens up to Gil and Rachel; they say they believe his tale. Nat
reasons what happened between him and Nathan Field from the past
and they check out some facts in history books. Arby appears and
recites Nat’s poem. They reflect on its meaning.
What is the significance of the poem?
19 Aunt Jen mentions how proud Nat’s father would be; they talk about
him. Nat discovers Arby’s real name: RB – Richard Babbage. Arby and
Nat talk about Shakespeare and the role Nat had played in keeping
him alive. Arby explains how Shakespeare had never forgotten him and
had even written him into his last play The Tempest as Ariel the spirit.
What was Arby’s role in Nat’s time-travel?
Why do you think Cooper chose King of Shadows as her novels title?
12
Pages Descriptions of Elizabethan England
You could draw pictures of the images
Look out for any further descriptions
44 Toilet
46, 47, 50 Clothing
47 Speech
48 Housing
49, 78, 187 Food
51, 52, 53 Streets
66, 78 Sounds
69+ 80 Actors/ The Globe
85-88 Bair-baiting
112, 156 Thieves
150, 157 The Globe/tickets
151 Money
157 Drunkenness
181 The Queen of England
13
Whilst reading, make notes about Nat. Focus on his feelings and the developing
relationship with Shakespeare. Include page numbers
14
Whilst reading, make notes about Arby. Focus on his role in the novel and his
initial relationship with Nat. Include page numbers
15
Whilst reading, make notes about Shakespeare. Focus on his feelings and the
developing relationship with Nat. Include page numbers
16
Pages Look out for these key moments – make some notes
What do you see? What do you think?
What do you wonder? What do you feel?
97, 98 Shakespeare finds out about Nat’s parents
98 Shakespeare tells Nat about his son Hamnet
137 Shakespeare gives the sonnet to Nat
217 Nat confronts his deep sorrow
17
Sonnet 116 Given to Nat by Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be
taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
18
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of
May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a
date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course
untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his
shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
19
Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the
sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts
are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her
head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and
white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more
delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress
reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing
sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on
the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as
rare
As any she belied with false compare.
20
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