The Year 2 students in Room 15 have been exploring the mentor text ‘The Stone Lion’ by Margaret Wild. It is a heart warming tale of compassion and kindness.The lion has one wish, to be alive. Will his wish be granted?

The children have enjoyed exploring this rich text, full of many wonderful new words to add to their already growing tapestry. Working in pairs the students carefully created a story map to enhance their ability of retelling the details of the story. We use retelling as a strategy to reinforce the readers attention to the meaning of a text: highlighting elements of story structure, such as character, setting, and plot. This purposeful teaching has the intention to improve the structure and content of students’ creative writing.