Mane of Many Colours

Resources for Reading and Exploring

Reading and Exploring

When reading and exploring text, identify the language, structure and format used and explore the author’s intention and readers’ reaction. These are the components that you learn to comprehend and investigate when reading to explore text.

Guided by the English elements below, further explore my purpose for this book and analyse how my audience might respond to my choices in language, format and structure. By considering how other texts are created, including hybrid texts, you will learn to distinguish how language is specific to its medium.

Hybrid Text

This book is a hybrid text. It combines picture book visuality and story length, middle years story themes, and academic principles. By incorporating the straightforwardness and visual support of picture books with academic components, informed by the Australian Curriculum (English), students are introduced to the English units of study in an accessible way.

Consider other hybrid texts and explore their parts and usefulness

Interplay of Imagination: Book Title

A good title either infers or declares the themes of a story. The title ‘Mane of Many Colours’ is an allusion of the Bible story of Joseph and his ‘Coat of Many Colours’. This foreshadows Estelle’s capacity for forgiveness and courage, and like Joseph, her favour with God. For these reasons, it attracts a Christian audience for who it is written.

Consider the title of your class text. Is it symbolic like this title? Or does it: 1. introduce the character? 2. play with words? 3.create curiosity? 4. Or something else? Compare the title of your class text with this title. What similarities or differences do you notice? Explore how the title, themes and audience connect.

Purpose and Context: Literary Devices

Allegory (reveals a hidden story)

Joseph and his coat of many colours (Genesis 45-47) parallels my story in characterisation, motivation and moral.

Both Joseph and Estelle:

· are colourful (Joseph’s coat and Estelle’s mane).

· are unusual (Joseph was born from old age (his dad, Jacob was 91) and Estelle was born of different colours).

· are outcasts (Estelle by the ponies and Joseph by his brothers)

· take courage and take charge when necessary.

· forgive and even save their nemesis’.

Does your class text use allegory? Find an example of this literary device in other texts.

Anthropomorphism and personification

· Both human traits (anthropomorphism) and human qualities (personification) are used in this story. This makes the characters believable and relatable.

Locate the use of anthropomorphism and the personification in this book.

Similes

· Marshmallows and horseshoes in similes to help audience visualise Estelle’s feelings.

Annotate one chapter/section/scene of your class text for literary devices, including similes. Consider how they make you feel.

Sentences

Short exclamation sentences and long cumulative sentences are used in this book. Sentence lengths effect the pace and tone of a story. Sentences can be simple, compound and complex.

Annotate this book and label sentence types. Explore the pace and tone that the sentences create. Discuss this with your teacher and classmates.

Annotate a paragraph of your class text and label sentence types.

Characterisation

While both Misaki and Caspian treat Estelle badly, Misaki has a bold, blunt approach while Caspian has a tormented one. Dialogue, descriptions and interactions create character traits.

Choose one character in this book and highlight the language that develops them. Discuss with your peers.

Annotate one scene of your class text, paying special attention to the protagonists’ dialogue, author description, and dialogue tags. How does the creator use language to reveal the characters and their motivation?

Rhythm and Meter

If not already, in the not-too-distant future, you will hear much about iambic (rhythm – 10 syllables per line) pentameter (meter – 2 syllables, unstressed-stressed combination) from your English teacher. This is the most common rhythm in writing and was made famous by William Shakespeare. When exploring text, rhythm refers to the syllable and stress combination in sentences. Together, this is called a unit of sound. The number of units of sound in each line of text is called a meter. Estelle’s poem loosely follows a combination of anapestic rhythm (3 syllables, first 2 unstressed and the 3rd, stressed) and trochaic rhythm (2 syllables, stressed-unstressed). The poem roughly consists of 3 units of sound per line and is therefore a trimeter – a 3-metre poem.

Attitudes and Moods

This combination of rhythm creates a bouncy and fun feel to the poem which meets the needs of my audience. This also helps the poem stay remembered since its rhythm is different from the rest of the text, and because it is repeated in the rule of thirds.

Focus other sentences in this book (apart from the song already explored). Count the syllables in each sentence and identify the stressed-unstressed patterns. Can you determine the unit of sound? Don’t worry if this is difficult, as even a moderate awareness of the rhythmic patterns of language will improve your writing flow and help you develop an ear for the mood it creates.

Themes

By seeing Estelle from the perspectives of Misaki, Caspian and in the image of Joseph and God, the themes of forgiveness, courage, jealousy, judgement and acceptance are created.

Consider the themes in your class text. With the support of your teacher, identify the ideas, characters and perspectives that create these themes.

What are the similarities and differences between the themes in your class text and the themes in this book?

Structure: Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey

Unlike the other popular narrative structure (Freytag’s Pyramid), the Hero’s Journey focuses less on the rising action and unfolds as a circle. We meet Estelle in ordinary life. We follow her through her call to adventure, challenges and temptations, new thinking, transformation and amendments. Then we leave her where we found her, back in ordinary life but changed.

Annotate this book for structure. Label the Hero’s Journey steps as indicated above.

Does your class text follow the circle of ‘The Hero’s Journey’ or the rising action of ‘Freytag’s Pyramid’?

Form

This book consists of 32 pages, which is the most common size for picture books. Most pages include an illustration accompanied by text. The illustrations help emphasis Estelle’s relationship with God and the importance of accepting people as He made them.

What medium is your class text? How long is it?

TASK:

Respond to one of these prompting questions. Use the analysis above to explore how language creates themes and ideas. Use examples from my book.

How does the author explore forgiveness in Mane of Many Colours?
Mane of Many Colours is more about kindness than it is about cruelty. To what extent do you agree?