Bring a bestselling children’s author into your classroom and help pupils plan and write a story featuring a supervillain.
In this episode of Author In Your Classroom, award-winning author and illustrator Liz Pichon (author of Shoe Wars and the Tom Gates series) shares practical advice on how to create memorable villains and the worlds they inhabit. She explains how everyday events and real-life stories, like a dispute between two brothers who made shoes, can inspire hilarious and exciting tales.
This teaching sequence is designed to support pupils in developing characters, plotting scenes and using descriptive writing techniques. It helps them move from generating ideas to creating their own supervillains and writing scenes that bring them to life.
Short extracts from the podcast are suggested throughout the unit to introduce each stage of learning. They give pupils insight into how a professional author and illustrator works and encourage them to see themselves as storytellers too.
Resource pack contents
This free classroom pack supports a complete supervillain-writing unit and includes:
- A ready-to-use PowerPoint
- Extract from Shoe Wars
- Planning sheets for ideas, characters and scenes
- Working wall images and quotes
Teaching overview
Across four sessions, pupils will:
- Collect ideas for stories – Explore where story ideas come from and build a bank of potential story ideas from personal experiences, observations and interests.
- Create a supervillain – Design a main villain, developing their appearance, personality, behaviour and backstory. Pupils learn how depth and motivation make characters compelling.
- Write a villain scene – Plan and write a scene introducing their supervillain, using techniques modelled by Liz Pichon, including alliteration, dialogue, humour, similes and descriptive language.
- Develop a world for the villain – Expand their story universe with objects, settings and doodles that help bring their villain to life, using a working wall or personal notebooks for inspiration.
How to listen
Search for Author In Your Classroom wherever you get your podcasts. A free resources pack is available with every episode.
Subscribe to hear more brilliant children’s authors share insider tips that help pupils write with confidence, imagination and flair.
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