1. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
The letter to Grandmother

2. Task
This lesson we are going to try and write what we think the letter was like that Bruno wrote to Grandmother. This will help us have a better understanding of what is going on in Bruno’s head.
We know that he wrote the letter and some of what he put in it…but do you think you can really CAPTURE what and how he wrote?
Firstly we will take some prior knowledge into account.

3. What do we know about Bruno so far
Can you come up with 4 things you know about Bruno and list how you know: through inference or fact?
What I know
How I know
Bruno is 9
Fact on page 74 Gretel tells Kotler
Bruno is caring
Boyne implies this with is conversation with Maria in chapter 6.
Think about…if Boyne has inferred something can we write about it in the letter?

4. Listen to the way Bruno talks to his mother about the move.
tone
Have you ever thought about the way Bruno speaks?
Listen to the way Bruno talks to his mother about the move.
Pg. 14. “I think the best thing to do would be to forget all about this and just go back home. We can chalk it up to experience… I think you should just tell Father that you’ve changed your mind and, well, if we have dinner here this evening and sleep here tonight because we’re all tired, then that’s all right, but we should probably get up early in the morning if we’re to make it back to Berlin by tea-time tomorrow.”

5. Tone
Can you find a passage of Bruno talking that you like and describe the way he speaks?
Passage/ page
Descriptive words
‘“I don’t like it here,” insisted Bruno’
Honest, blunt, short and to the point

6. Bruno’s Age
Last week we discussed that Bruno does not recognise that there is a War about to happen as he has no text to world knowledge of one.
How else do we know how old Bruno is by his actions or what he says? Can you come up with 2 incidents?
Actions/ page
How it makes you the reader identify with his age
Pg. 19. “ he felt as if he was about to cry again but stopped himself”
To me this makes me think he is still little as he wants to cry but old enough to know that he shouldn’t.
Pg. 85. “ this made Bruno happy because surely it was obvious to everyone that if it hadn't been for him, he would have bled to death”
To me this is Bruno completely over exaggerating his sore knee and this is what a small child would think.

7. The letter
What information do you think should be in a letter to Grandmother?
What should not be in this letter?

8. The Letter. Page 93-94
“ Bruno hadn't seen much of Grandmother after that and hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye to her before they moved to Out-With, but he missed her very much and decided to write her a letter.
That day he sat down with a pen and paper and told her how unhappy he was there and how much he wished he was back in Berlin. He told her about the house and the garden and the bench with a plaque on it and the tall fence and the wooden telegraph poles and the barbed wire bales and the hard ground beyond them and the hut and the small buildings and the smoke stacks and the soldiers, but mostly he told her how much he missed her and he signed off his letter ‘your loving grandson, Bruno’.”
TASK: WRITE THE LETTER BRUNO WOULD HAVE WRITTEN THINKING ABOUT THE RIGHT TONE, STORIES TO TELL AND TAKING INTO ACCOUNT HIS AGE.