1. MINT STREET Plan and write a story
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C i t y o f L o n d o n
MINT STREET
Stories from Mint Street A story writing resource for KS2 English
This resource is part 1 of 2: Plan and write a story
See also part 2: Revise your story
This activity is designed to follow:
-- A visit to the Coins & Kings exhibition at the Tower of London.
-- The Key Stage 2 introductory resource – Minted: Making the nations’ coins at the Tower of London
Coins & Kings was produced in partnership between Historic Royal Palaces and the Royal Mint Museum.
Coins & Kings exhibition:
Coins & Kings teaching resources:
Wall texture © iStock photos
Watercolour © City of London, London Metropolitan Archives
Acknowledgements:
© Historic Royal Palaces and the Royal Mint Museum
Unless indicated all images are © The Royal Mint Museum
Illustrations by Tim Archbold
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Sir Isaac Newton by Sir Godfrey Kneller, BT
This National Portrait Gallery work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit
Plan and write a story

2. Our task
To write a story using the history of the Mint at the Tower of London as inspiration.
Setting the task
A slide for setting your learning objective. This may change depending whether the focus is descriptive writing, story structure, re-drafting etc.
Other suggestions:
Discussion
-- Have you ever read a story written in a historical setting? Do you think the Mint would be a good setting for a story?
Q&A
-- Brainstorm the kinds of things you need for a good story – including characters, setting, time, action, descriptive language.
Stimulus
-- Use the image to inspire and for thinking about character or setting
Image notes:
A depiction of the Mint at the Tower in 1809
Watercolour © The Royal Mint Museum

3. Stories from Mint Street
The Queen strikes gold coins
188 tonnes of French gold
Nimble fingers
Medieval coin clippers
The master criminal
Foxley sleeps for a fortnight
Stimulus - six Mint stories
See teachers’ notes for details of each tale:
Six stories from Mint Street
Image notes:
Illustrations by Tim Archbold
Stories from Mint Street

4. Where and when is your story set?
What makes a good story?
Who is involved?
What is going to happen?
Where and when is your story set?
What makes a good story?
Introduce important concepts in writing a good story including the need for character, setting, time and action – and the need to write good description.
See also Historic Royal Palaces’ KS2 CATS storytelling tutorial:
Prompts:
-- Imagine a story where nothing happened…
Image notes:
Watercolour © City of London, London Metropolitan Archives
Illustration by Tim Archbold

5. Describe how the workshop looks, smells, sounds, feels…
A good story also needs to describe people, places, things and actions in interesting ways.
Importance of good description
Mini-task:
-- To emphasise how good description can bring a story to life, through interesting description of characters, settings, objects and actions.
-- Click to transition the slide to the assayer’s workshop image and reveal the mini-task description.
Other suggestions:
-- Ask pupils to choose a workman from the scene and describe the workshop from that workman’s point of view.
-- Pupils may wish to take a narrator’s point of view, or a less usual one, such as a coin’s perspective.
-- Ask pupils to get into groups and brainstorm words for describing the scene. Ask pupils to record several words they would like to use in their own story.
-- Use the image to develop pupils’ Mint vocabulary. Add the Mint words to the image above. Eg, hammer, copper, canvas, silver, melt, burning, heavy, coal.
Image notes:
-- The illustration shows different stages of the assaying process at the Mint.
-- Assaying was the process of testing coins for the amount of precious metal they contained.
-- Sample coins were weighed and then a process using heat, special cupels (porous pot made from bone ash) and nitric acid separated the coins into their different components.
-- Too little precious metal meant someone was replacing it with a cheaper one – which could lead to people losing trust in the currency. Prices would rise. People would hoard their ‘best’ coins, while more and more debased coins would continue to circulate.
-- From the top left – two men are making pottery which was used in the process. The two men on the right are melting bullion or coins. The man bottom left is working with nitric acid, which was used to separate gold from other metals.
Describe how the workshop looks, smells, sounds, feels…

6. Importance of good description
(An alternative illustration for stimulus)
Image notes:
This illustration depicts the different stages of the medieval minting process.
Top left – administration, counting coins/accounting and quality control
Top right – furnace work, melting silver, annealing (softening)
Middle – shaping metal into ingots, flattening metal
Bottom left – cutting blanks
Bottom right – striking coins with hammer and dies

7. What does your character want?
Characters
See teachers’ notes for pupil worksheet:
Story planning framework
Mini-task:
-- Ask pupils to choose a character and practice describing him or her.
Prompts:
-- Describe what your character looks like. What is he or she wearing? Wrinked, beautiful, flowing hair, pretty, ugly…
-- How old is he or she?
-- What are your character’s likes? What do they dislike?
-- Describe your character’s personality. Kind? Nervous? Friendly? Annoying? Terrified?
-- What is your character’s job?
-- One thing no one knows about your character is…
Image notes:
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Sir Isaac Newton by Sir Godfrey Kneller, BT
Watercolour illustrations by Tim Archbold

8. Describe the setting Where? When? Spring time 1649 At midnight…
Stables
Before a visit by the queen
Stone Kitchen Pub
In summer
Spring time
Tower Green
Mint Office
1279
Engraver’s House
At a time of plague
In the
moat
Where?
When?
1649
During a lightening storm
On the cobbles
Mint Street
At midnight…
Gold Melting House
Newgate Prison
In the reign of Henry VIII ( )
Master’s House
Early one morning…
Silver Melting House
Setting and time
See teachers’ notes for pupil worksheet:
Story planning framework
Mini-task:
-- Show pupils how to make a story’s setting more interesting – through good description.
-- Choose a setting and a time and write a few sentences that combines them.
-- Put a chosen character in the setting.
Other suggestions:
-- Choose a historical period and carry out research about it.
-- Bring a story to life with historical detail. Set a Mint story in medieval times, or under the Stuarts during a time of plague.
Describe the setting

9. Hey, what’s the problem? In prison In debt Clip Melt Forge Betray
Workers breathe dangerous fumes
In prison
Clip
Lock workers
in a cupboard
and steal
bags of coins
Job opening at the Mint
Melt
Forge
Betray
Queen orders new coins
Strike
Engrave
the most
beautiful coin
Exchange silver for coins at the Mint
Rescue
Actions: What happens in your story?
Mini-task:
-- An easy way to introduce action into your story is to give your characters a problem.
-- Ask pupils to use the actions, problems and scenarios as stimulus for thinking of a problem for their main character at the Mint.
1st transition: four potential situations to put a character in where they might encounter problems or obstacles. ‘In charge’ might just be that the monarch has changed, which affects everyone at the Mint.
2nd transition: four possible inciting incidents drawn from real stories from the history of the Mint.
3rd transition: nine actions that may stimulate ideas for problems and actions.
4th transition: four actions drawn from real stories from the history of the Mint. Why might a character take such an action? What are they trying to achieve?
Other suggestions:
-- Discuss the types of problems or dilemmas that pupils think might come up at the Mint. Ask pupils to brainstorm actions, dilemmas or problems and come up with a list. Pupils can report their lists back to the class.
Clever criminals make fake coins
In love
In charge
(a new monarch)
Hide
Hold the French king ransom
Dream
Heave

10. Planning a story End Middle Beginning
Planning a story/story structure
See also Historic Royal Palaces’ KS2 CATS storytelling tutorial:
See teachers’ notes for pupil worksheet:
Story planning framework
-- Introduces the characters, action, time and setting.
Beginning
-- It gives the starting point for the story. It also introduces the problem that will occur in the Middle.
-- Begin to build up the action. After describing, start your story: ‘One day…’
-- Your readers are getting to know your main character and setting.
Middle
-- We find out what the experience of the problem is like for the characters.
-- A problem occurs (possibly 3 times).
-- Contains the action.
-- We witness the hero trying to solve or deal with it. How does your main character respond? How does the problem affect them?
-- There is no resolution yet.
Ending   
-- Finally, the hero overcomes the problem/reaches their destination/other hardship is conquered.
-- Don’t try to write about too many characters.
Reminders/tips for pupils:
-- Ways to start: Start with something exciting; Start with a character speaking.
-- Endings: Try to think of something more interesting than ‘happily ever after…’
-- Don’t write too much. Keep it short.
Gold ingot, early medieval © Stranaer Museum, Dumfries and Galloway Council
Image notes:
The ingot is on loan to the Whithorn Trust:
Beginning