Photos taken from Nottingham castle Copyright Nottingham Castle

Photos taken from Nottingham castle. © Copyright Nottingham Castle. Used with kind permission.

Hide and Reveal

Spotlight

How When y Wh Wha The castle has a moat There are some crennelations Over the door there is a portcullis In the wall there are some holes People are going in to the castle ** Make up your own** t Who Wh ere ?

Know Want to know Learning

Tales from the Greenwood

Two men crept ever closer. Clouds shifted. Moonlight seeped into the dark night. The figures paused. “How on earth…? ” Will Scarlett’s whisper was swallowed by the blackness as the battlements of Nottingham Castle were revealed. “We’ll never get in there, Robin. ” No reply came so Will turned. He could see Robin’s furrowed brow as his eyes scanned the castle defences. It was six hours since Maid Marion had disappeared. Their clothes still reeked from the smoke of the hamlet the Sheriff’s men had torched and where Marion had been giving food to the poor. Robin’s face, taut with anger and determination, was reply enough. To their right was the drawbridge that led to the gatehouse. The sharpened teeth of the portcullis warned against entering the very mouth of the castle. The outer curtain walls reared above them, arrow slits within the crennelated stone. Sentries’ chain mail rattled as they walked the battlements, their shadows gliding across the keep behind them.

Darkened murder holes that could spit forth rock, or oil or fire lay beneath the walkways. “Mortimer, ” muttered Robin, “they never found out about Mortimer. Come, Will. These walls are too strong for us but they have a weakness. ” With that Robin stepped out onto the highway. He hoisted his heavy sack onto his broad shoulders, nestling next to his bow and quiver. The smell of stale spread from Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem together with the sound of the last singing drunk. Robin ducked swiftly though the inn’s courtyard and to the stables behind. Bemused, Will strode after him, shaking his head. Wherever he was going, he was sure to be going in to trouble. Will saw Robin flitting to the back of the stables, where an outcrop of rock jutted out below the castle. As he came up closer to him he stepped behind a huge tree trunk and began feeling along the sandstone wall. “Help me, Will. ” “What am I looking for? ”

“ There should be an outline of a King’s crown chiselled into the rock. King Edward used it to get into the castle to murder Mortimer, long ago. They never knew how he got in. ” “So how did you know…? ” “My father served King Edward, the hole that is behind here leads right up into the castle, he was with him the night Mortimer was killed. ” Will’s fingers slid across the rock, rough to the touch and cold as bone. Indentations caused him to stop and feel closer but then his would move on, exploring, exploring. He moved Robin’s sack to one side and felt along the ground. “It’s not on the wall at all but here, Robin, on the floor. ” He placed Robin’s palm onto a carved crown. As soon as Robin felt it he stood up and kicked hard. Once. Silence. More silence. Will dared not breathe. Glancing down he saw that inside the crown was a heavy, iron ring. They both grasped it and heaved. The earth beneath them moved aside and revealed a gaping hole, Mortimer’s hole.

We’ve no light, thought Will. No shields, no halberds … no idea where we are going to come out…but then neither have they…. The passage led down on sandstone steps but quickly it begin to rise up, winding their path into the castle. Robin and Will slipped stealthily into the heart of danger. At last their way was blocked by an iron gate that rose above them. “See that, Will. The light? ” Will nodded. “That shines down onto the dungeon where I reckon they’ll have Marion. Some fool seems to have left the gate ajar. Come on. ” Crouching as they eased their way up the steps, they prepared every muscle to spring should there be a trap. Robin glanced through the gaps, his eyes slowly finding the iron grille that covered the dungeon hole.

They slid through the open gate and peered down into the dungeon. Eyes adjusted to the dark, cavernous pit. “There!” Will could see the cloak of a woman huddled and curled around her knees but with eyes of fire. Clink! Robin reeled around in time to evade a towering blow from a gleaming sword. “Trapped!” roared a voice that Robin knew only too well, “like rats at the cheese. ”

Story Ordering

Can you find these suspense techniques? Hiding Ellipsis. . . Questions of the reader Character reaction Varying sentence length for effect Flashback or detail to make reader wait Repetition for impact Similes for added weight to description

Use this picture to develop a vocabulary of powerful verbs (any tense)

Past I, we he, she, it they Present Future

How many different ways could we combine these sentences? Robin was scared of the sheriff. Robin's hands trembled as he picked up the arrow. Reorder the words? Use a comma? Use a connective?

List the new sentences Which do you prefer and why? Make up two sentences for a partner to combine in different ways

L e v e l o f T e n s i o n Page 1 2 3 4 5

Discuss : what would make these sentences clearer? The dungeon dark as pitch spat fear into the bones of any man woman or beast that entered it some of whom of course would never leave. Trembling with cold and the terror of pain Marion crouched gasping with the grave-still air determined to kill the guard about to enter her cell. Why would we want such long sentences? Make up some more with a partner!

Thoughts, feelings, dialogue of Marion

Thoughts, feelings, dialogue of Robin

Thoughts, feelings, dialogue of the Sheriff

Different perspectives Marion Robin Sheriff

Similarities and differences of storytelling and narrative. Similarities Differences

Similarities and differences of storytelling and narrative. Key Questions: What is the difference between the audiences? What is the reader able to do that a listener can't? What can we 'see' (and hear) with the storyteller that we can't when reading?

Similarities Both need to describe the setting and the characters Both use a variety of hooks to keep the audience interested e. g. keeping some information hidden Both use repetition for effect but storytellers also use it to recap. Differences are mainly due to the audience - one is a reader who has little voice or body language, the other a listener A storyteller uses gesture, intonation, accent. The writer has to describe all of this. A storyteller makes the audience aware of the surroundings and atmosphere they are in as they listen. Both have conventions to assist the audience, particularly in their opening phrases. The storyteller does not always complete their sentences, leaving the listener to do so or assume, much like conversation. Others?

Which of these are literal and which are figurative? Darkened murder holes that could spit forth rock Will saw Robin flit ting to th e back of the stable s Will Scarlett’s whisper was swallowed by the blackness Moonlight seeped into the dark ni ght. pened r a h s e h T , w ion t a n i m er nd det er a ang h t i w t au ce, t ’s fa n i b o R ugh. o n e y as repl tcullis r o p e h t eeth of t rough to the touch and co ld as b one.

Literal Figurative Can you think of some more for different parts of the castle : keep, ramparts, murder holes, dungeons, flags, swords, arrows, axes etc