Lesson plan:

Individually or as a class

Before viewing this episode read "Without a Shirt" by Paul Jennings, the short story upon which this episode is loosely based.

Class discussion

View the episode and discuss the issues involved in adapting a short story for the screen. Use the quotes below from Paul Jennings as prompts for the discussion. The quotations are taken from Jennings, Paul 1990 Round the Twist Puffin Books, Ringwood, Victoria.

"I was given strict instructions. "You must feature the lighthouse because the set was so expensive and it has not been used enough." (p18)

"Esben Storm was a slave driver. I wrote seven drafts of every script before he was happy. Ninety-one drafts in all."

"Never in my life have I worked so hard. By the time I finished I had wasted away to nothing." (p 38)

"People told me that script writers are not wanted on 'the set' once shooting starts. They think that the writer might complain if the show doesn't turn out the way they wrote it. Script writers sometimes throw tantrums if their work is changed." (p 40)

"When you write a script you are not allowed to tell the actors how to say their lines..."

"Good actors like the ones in Round the Twist interpret the lines themselves and often give them a dimension the writer has not dreamed of." (p 46)

"The finish always has to be a big moment. So does the bit before the commercial breaks. I had to work hard to build up to a peak before the commercials. Otherwise you might flick over to another station and we couldn't have that, could we?" (p 82)

Individual activity

Ask students to write responses to these questions:

1. Why do you think the title has been changed from Without a Shirt to Without My Pants?
2. In the story Shovel, the dog, digs up the shoe but in the television episode the shoe belongs in My Gribble's shop window. Why might this change have been made to the story?
3. The short story features the skeleton's leg hopping all over the place and chasing the class across the playground and down the street. Why weren't these scenes included in the television episode?

Narrative climaxes

This episode has a relatively simple narrative structure. The central problem is established early in the story (the need to find old Ben's bones) and there is a clear resolution.

Class discussion

Discuss the concept of narrative climax and mini-climaxes then ask the class to suggest where the commercial breaks (see above) should go in the short story version of the narrative.

Suspense or surprise?

As a plot progresses it arouses various expectations in the viewer about the course of future events. An anxious uncertainty about what is going to happen, especially to those characters with whom we feel sympathy is known as suspense. If what in fact happens is not we expected it is known as surprise.

As a whole class

Teach these distinctions and then identify with the students those aspects of the visual narrative which involve suspense (eg the chase sequence) and those which involve surprise (eg the skeleton puts his pants on).