The Spinning Heart Classroom Questions is a teacher’s resource intended for use in lesson planning, and in the classroom. It contains 248 questions, divided by chapter, to provoke student engagement and personal response while studying Donal Ryan’s novel.

Why choose to study The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan?

• Themes of family, relationships, communication, loss.


• Set in the Irish countryside during the recent economic recession.


• Alternative perspectives, each chapter is written in a new voice, developing the story in layers.


• Examines the gulf between our public and private selves.


• Exciting, compelling storyline.

Scene by Scene guides are teaching resources. They are short books of questions, designed to save teachers time and lead to rewarding classroom experiences. Each guide is broken down by scene or chapter, to match and complement the text it accompanies. This means that the teacher is provided with a clear list of questions, at every stage of teaching the text. These questions can be used in class, or as homework, and so provide underlying structure to lesson planning.
Classroom Questions teaching guides contain both closed, comprehension testing questions, and open, higher order questions, exploring student response, opinion and analysis. Closed questions can be used to check understanding and make sure students are on-task, while open questions promote thinking and reflection. In this way, Scene by Scene Classroom Questions keep students engaged with and focused on the text, and involved in classroom discussion.