Shackleton's Journey Letter Writing

Are your children ready for adventure? Are they prepared to journey through hazardous conditions and to face constant danger? Are they driven by honour and duty? Great, then this Shackleton's Journey KS2 Planning Pack based on the breath-takingly beautiful book by William Grill is for you!

In this series of six lessons, children will read the introduction to Shackleton's Journey and imagine themselves as pioneering crew members of the Endurance, bound for their historic mission to Antarctica. To begin the unit, children will use high-quality model texts to identify the key features of effective letter writing and carry out their own research into given crew members. They will become fully immersed in their character as they imagine themselves in a series of challenging scenarios in the uncharted seascape and landscape of Antarctica. Through games, oral rehearsal, sentence exploration and well-structured, differentiated resources, children will become confident with using the subjunctive form and creating cohesion within and across paragraphs. In the final part of the unit, your Year 6 class will plan, draft and edit an effective letter of application to join Shackleton's crew.

Please be aware that, for copyright purposes, we are unable to provide the full text for this scheme of work.

Key features of formal letters

This first lesson, inspired by 'Shackleton's Journey', encourages children to reflect on the Heroic Age of Polar Exploration and the world of 1914 before asking them to consider whether they have what it takes to be a polar explorer and how they might apply for a position onboard Shackleton's Endurance.

Your Year 6 class will look in detail at the key features of an effective letter of application and formal language choices. They will analyse a good quality application letter from expedition artist, George Marston, and identify the key features within the text. By the end of the lesson, your Year 6 class will have a solid understanding of the key features of effective letter writing which they can use as an anchor when they come to write their own letter of application.

This letter-writing Year 6 Lesson Pack is ready to teach, with a detailed lesson plan, engaging slides for input and differentiated activities.

View Lesson 1

Researching and notetaking

Children are invited to dive right into the unit by choosing and researching the trail-blazing crew member they would like to write as.

After exploring the roles needed to successfully undertake such an ambitious, historic mission, children will use the Biography Cards provided to research a given crew member (e.g. Frank Worsley, Captain). Your class will select key information about the qualities and experience that make them the perfect fit for this Antarctic expedition and record summary notes which outline ideas for their application letter.

Everything you need to teach this absorbing lesson is included in the pack including: a detailed lesson plan, engaging slideshow and all the printable resources you need.

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The subjunctive form

In this highly-interactive session, children will get to grips with the different variants of the subjunctive form - from describing imaginary or hypothetical situations to expressing urgent and compulsory requests.

Children will imagine themselves in different roles and hypothetical situations and decide what they would do in each scenario. Trouble at sea? Engine failure? No problem! If I were your crew member, you could rely on me. After plenty of oral rehearsal, children will experiment with using the subjunctive form, creating a variety of sentences to suit their proposed hypotheticals. Alternatively, you might like to invite children to play the entertaining yet unpredictable game, Kaboom! Who knew learning the finer points of grammar could be this much fun?

This Year 6 Lesson Pack contains everything you need to identify and use the subjunctive form including: a detailed lesson plan, engaging slideshow and printable, differentiated worksheets.

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Building cohesion

In this lesson, children will learn about the importance of cohesive devices when writing a clearly structured and engaging letter.

Here, children will focus on paragraphing, adverbials and conjunctions to link ideas, pronouns, synonyms and punctuation. They will use their understanding of these devices to recreate letters from two keen expedition applicants which have been scrambled together.

Everything you need to teach this exciting lesson is included in the pack including: a detailed lesson plan, engaging slideshow and all the printable resources you need.

View Lesson 4

Planning an application letter

It's time to bring all of the content that the children have been working on together in one fantastic plan! In this lesson, children will discuss the purpose, structure and content of effective paragraphs to give them all the skills they need to create a compelling plan for their letter of application. Shackleton will be left in no doubt that these applicants are the men for the job!

The slideshow will walk your children through the process of constructing clear, well-structured paragraphs organised around relevant themes and there are plenty of modelled paragraphs which offer children the opportunity to develop ideas for their own letter. Using their very own Paragraph Planner, children will create opening topic sentences before adding supporting details and explanatory ideas which link to a key theme.

This letter-writing Year 6 Lesson Pack is ready to teach, with a detailed lesson plan, engaging slides for input and differentiated activities, all at the click of a button.

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Writing and editing an application letter

Your Year 6 class are now ready to make their application! In this final lesson, children will put into practice everything they have learnt about effective letter writing.

After recapping the layout and structure of formal letters, children will use their plan to write in role as a potential crew member aboard the Endurance. At the end of the lesson, children will review each other's letters to decide who are the most suitable candidates to join the expedition team.

This letter-writing Year 6 Lesson Pack contains everything you need to produce an effective letter of application including: a detailed lesson plan, engaging slideshow, as well as printable, differentiated writing frames and checklists.

View Lesson 6