Identifying Characters’ Emotions in The Shouting Girl

The Book

The Shouting Girl

Written by Steven Huynh, illustrated by Gehenna Pham, published by Steven De GC

The poem follows a young girl who struggles to express herself calmly, often shouting when she feels frustrated or unheard. Through her journey, she learns to recognise and understand her emotions (AC9HPFP03, AC9HP2P03 – Foundation to Year 2, Health and Physical Education) and works to develop positive strategies for expressing her thoughts and feelings in respectful ways (AC9HPFP02, AC9HP2P02 – Foundation to Year 2, Health and Physical Education).

The story also encourages children to explore characters’ perspectives and emotional responses, fostering empathy (AC9HP2P01 – Health and Physical Education, Years 1 and 2). It helps them define safe and unsafe environments through interactions with friends in a classroom, establishing help-seeking strategies in such situations (AC9HP2P05 – Health and Physical Education, Years 1 and 2). Additionally, the book highlights how environments, such as a calm corner or designated green boxes, can be designed to support emotional regulation and meet classroom needs (AC9TDEFK01, AC9TDE2K01 – Foundation to Year 2, Design and Technologies).

With its poetic language and engaging illustrations, The Shouting Girl helps students understand how rhyme and rhythm create cohesion in poems. It also explores how words and images shape settings and characters, along with other literary features such as lists of three and similes.

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Resource creator

Steven Huynh

Subject

Health and Physical Education,

Level

Foundation,

Description

In this lesson, pre-primary students explore the book The Shouting Girl to identify and name the emotions of the main character. Through shared reading, discussion, and a Zones of Regulation matching activity, students practise recognising feelings and linking them to different Zones.

Learning Intentions

• We are learning to identify how a character is feeling and match emotions to Zones of Regulation.

Successful Criteria

• I can verbally name the emotions the character feels.
• I can match the emotions to the correct Zone of Regulation on my worksheet.

Curriculum Alignment

AC9HPFP03 9.0 (Health and Physical Education Foundation): Express and describe emotions they experience

• identifying and describing the emotions of people who are happy, sad, excited, tired, angry, scared or confused
• learning and using appropriate language and actions to communicate their feelings in different situations
• recalling and sharing emotional responses to different situations and representing these in a variety of ways
• reading and viewing stories about adventures, and talking about how characters feel and react when taking risks or responding to emergencies
• talking about connections between feelings, body reactions and body language
• expressing a variety of emotions, thoughts and views in a range of situations

Materials

Big book or large print version of The Shouting Girl
Identifying Emotions Worksheet
Coloured pencils or crayons

Instructions

Warm-Up Discussion

Briefly show a Zones of Regulation poster.
Say: “Today, we are going to read a story about a girl who feels some BIG emotions. After we read, we’ll talk about how she feels and what Zones those emotions belong to.”
Quick brainstorm: “Can you name some feelings you know?” (Write or draw simple faces for emotions like happy, sad, angry, calm.)

Shared Reading of The Shouting Girl

Read the book aloud, stopping at key moments to model thinking aloud.
Examples:
- When the girl starts shouting: “Hmm, she looks really upset. I wonder what she is feeling right now?”
- When the girl calms down: “Oh, now her body looks softer. What do you think she is feeling now?”
Mini-Questions during reading:
- “What do you see on Jim’s face?”
- “What do you think his body is telling us?”
- “Is he in the Green Zone, or another Zone?”
After reading, allow students to have a chat about the girl’s big feelings throughout the story.
- “What were some of the feelings the girl had?”
- “What happened when she shouted a lot?”
- “How did her shouting affect her friends?”

Mini Role-Play

Teacher models one feeling first (e.g., crossing arms and frowning = “angry” = Red Zone).
Ask: “What feeling is that? Which Zone?”
Then invite a few volunteers to come up and act out an emotion.

Activity: Emotion and Zone Matching

Hand out the Identifying Emotions Worksheet.
Children first colour in the Zones of Regulation on their worksheet, then match the character’s emotions to the correct Zones.
The teacher or EA will observe and assess whether each child can accurately name the emotions shown in the worksheet.

Reflection

Bring everyone back to the mat.
Quick sharing:
- “Who can tell me one feeling the girl had?”
- “Which Zone were you in during our lesson?”
Celebrate efforts: “You were all amazing emotion detectives today!”