Analysing Animal Cruelty - Year 5

This week in Year 5, we have been analysing an information text about the PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. It encouraged an incredible amount discussion and debate amongst the class and it was lovely to listen to the conversations they were having, filled with such enthusiasm, energy and an itch to investigate this controversial topic in more detail.

We started off the week by highlighting the text and making detailed mind-maps in pairs, collating all of the information and quotes together that we found interesting or shocking . This provided us with a bank of facts that we could refer back to all week and ultimately use as an evidence provider when we completed our writing task at the end of the week.

The first challenge for the children was to construct an answer to the following question...

The children were asked to  use their inference skills to gather four examples of opportunities, stated in the text, that described opportunities for 'a 30 year old mother,' to act and help reduce animal cruelty. The key was to ensure that the evidence they selected was specifically relevant to this audience, a mother.

Once we had discussed possible quotes to use in our answers and debated their relevance, we then started to developed our reasoning.

CAMERON!

TALIAH!

JAZZ!

JAMES: PART 1!

JAMES: PART 2!

Once we had mastered 'picking out' quotes for a 30 year old mother, I gave each of the children a teacher within school.
E.g.  

The children had to write a letter to the teacher they had been given, informing them about animal cruelty and persuading them to do something about it! The challenge was that the children had to ensure that the letter perfectly suited their teacher's specific character traits and lifestyle.
For example, if they were a vegetarian, finding a quote that discussed reducing the amount of meat they eat, would be inappropriate for that particular teacher.