A Virtual Library Lesson using Maz Evans' Who Let the Gods Out?

Here's a lesson I've been doing with Year 7 and 8 this week. Our Year 8s in particular are studying Myths and Legends so I thought it might be relevant.

I've provided what I do step by step, I hope you find it useful. It should take around 40 miutes.

I try to break up our library lessons into min-chunks of activities. 

Greek Myths:

I introduce them to Who Let the Gods Out? by Maz Evans.

Without telling them what the novel is about, I read to them the first paragraph which you can find on Chicken House's web site.

I then quickly get five or six students to predict what they think will happen next. 

What will happen to Elliot in the headmaster's office? 

What will happen to Elliot once he leaves the office?

We use the cover for inspiration, this usually takes up 3-4 minutes.

I then show them a video of Maz Evans reading the first few pages on Authorfy.

Authorfy is free and it's very easy to get started. 

The video of Maz reading takes up approximately 3 minutes.

Once the reading is finished, I pick up where she left off, using the Chicken House web site, I get students to take turns reading the rest of the chapter. This takes another 5 minutes.

Once we are finished, we go over some of the vocabulary:

"lumbered jubilantly"

"loathsome"

"revulsion"

Then we watch the intro to the novel on Authorfy. This allows the students to get an idea of what happens next in the novel, and I call back to their predictions and compare.These two activities takes another 3-4 minutes. 

Now that they have been introduced to the novel, I run a short, 15-question quiz on Quizizz to test their comprehension. You can access this quiz here. 

Quizizz is free and easy to use. I enjoy sharing the leader board on MS Teams and calling out who is in what place in real time like a race announcer. 

Once the quiz is over, I go through the results question by question. This process takes around 15 minutes. 

I then take 5-10 more minutes going over other great books that focus on this topic, like the ones below.

Of course, in lockdown, accessing the comics, unless you are doing books by mail, can be a challenge. We are fortunate to have audiobooks and ebooks so they can access Percy Jackson at the least. 

The entire lesson should take around 40 minutes, it has proven to be a fun, gentle way to introduce a great novel and a topic they will be focusing on in school.