Karen Foxlee's "Dragon Skin" teachers' review

Brief description and distinctive features

Ways to use Dragon Skin in the classroom

If using Dragon Skin as a close study consider using a pre-reading activity quotation mingle, as suggested in Novel Ideas Erika Boas and Rosie Kerin (2021) AATE. The teacher selects text quotations which, when put together, could form the plot, or reveal key themes or characters. Each student receives a quotation. The class mingles to music and when the music stops students share quotations with a partner. They can voice their quotation in different ways e.g., yell it, whisper it, declaim it with an accent. The process is repeated several times and then students display the quotations together with commentary in the classroom. Erika Boas says the students take ownership of their quotation and identify it in the text. The exercise provides a strong inducement to read the novel. The four quotations below could be the start of your quotation mingle.

• “The thing with dragons was no one expected to find one. No one in the world would be ready for such a thing.”
• “He put down roots and changed other things. He changed what Pip’s mother wore. He changed what they ate. He changed what they watched on his giant television.”
• “Mum said you’re probably still sad about Mika…everyone is. You still got to go to school Pip.”
• “He flew into her light, which he gathered up around him in a fraction of a second, in the blink of an eye, in a single heartbeat.”

If using Dragon Skin as a part of a wide reading unit or a unit with a particular focus consider exploring other representations of dragons or place Dragon Skin in a series of texts in which young people show resilience and courage and that friendships really matter (see list below of connecting texts).

Relevant details in relation to the new English 7-10 syllabus

Text requirements: Dragon Skin is a novel by an Australian author, with references to cultural, social gender perspectives and youth cultures.

Concepts could include Character • Narrative • Genre

Main syllabus content:

Reading, viewing and listening to texts | EN4-RVL-01 

• Explore the main ideas and thematic concerns posed by a text for meaning
• Explain personal responses to characters, situations and issues in texts, recognising the role of written, oral or visual language in influencing these personal responses
• Read texts of interest for sustained periods of time and respond to this reading in a variety of ways
• Understand the ways reading helps us understand ourselves and make connections to others and to the world

Understanding and responding to texts A | EN4-URA-01

• Analyse how engaging characters are constructed in texts through a range of language features and structures, and use these features and structures in own texts

(English K-10 Syllabus 2022 © NSW Education Standards Authority for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2023)

Connecting texts

Other texts with dragon representation

Other texts with a focus on kids with resilience who survive and thrive