Re-imagining the Past

Yesterday I posted about the possibility of students creating a play script in which they fictionally re-imagine or extend the life of an individual whose story is explored in ‘How Far We’ve Come’.  Additional resources that could be useful include the overview of migrants’ experiences at Immigration Place and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

In a variation of the previously outlined activity, the teacher could, without telling students, provide each with a different section of the profile.  Students could then share their fictional re-imaginings, trying to find the kernel of truth that inspired each of them.  Then, with all the information provided, students could evaluate the plausibility of events represented in the play scripts.

‘How Far We’ve Come’

I am a big fan of SBS interactives, and love using them in the classroom.

I’ve recently been exploring ‘How Far We’ve Come‘ and am keen to use it as the basis for an extension activity.  In particular, I want to offer students the opportunity to explore the experiences described in the interactive and then create a play script that offers a fictional re-imagining or extension of the life of the chosen individual.  This activity would require students to transfer and extend the knowledge gleaned through close study of a dramatic text.

So many pairs!

My list of textual pairings now exceeds 200!  I am keen for suggestions of combinations that have worked in your classrooms so that I can expand my list.

Dramatising One’s Own Story

As part of an upcoming drama study, I am keen for students to demonstrate knowledge of the dramatic conventions set for study by creating an additional act for Sally Mackenzie’s Scattered Lives in which they document a migrant experience drawn from their own family history.

To glean relevant information students will be set the task of interviewing parents or grandparents, thus building cross-generational connections.

Additionally, students will have to storyboard the experiences, and then put themselves in the position of director to decide how to best and most powerfully stage the experiences.

I think it would also be interesting to have students type, edit and refine their work so that it can be collated as a second edition of Scattered Lives that, perhaps, could even be displayed in the library or made available as an e-book for students to share with their families.

Dramatising Australian Stories

I am hoping to study Sally Mackenzie’s Scattered Lives with one of my junior classes next term.  Her play explores a range of migrant experiences.

As part of this unit I also want to show my students Africa to Australia, an interactive website exploring the experiences of African Australians.   I want my students to select one of the stories presented and re-imagine it as an additional act in Scattered Lives.  Through this activity, students will be able to broaden their understanding of the Australian experience while also demonstrating their knowledge of dramatic conventions.

Write the Script

An article entitled ‘#PlaneBae: Alaska Airlines Passangers’ Flight Romance Goes Viral on Twitter‘ has got me thinking about unexpected ways in which the real world provides inspiration for narratives.  The article details how a chance encounter and perceived burgeoning love story was live tweeted by another passenger.

It could be fun homework for students to eavesdrop on a stranger’s conversation, using the few lines gathered as stimulus for a short drama script.  Alternatively, students could be asked to select from a list of genres, creatively re-imagining their overheard conversation so that it embodies the characteristics of a particular genre.

I am an Immigrant

A few years ago (Almost) Infinite ELT Ideas posted an image of a selection of crowd-funded displayed in the London Underground to combat racism and xenophobia.  This image was followed with the question, ‘What would you do with these posters in your classroom?’

I know I am a few years late to the party, but I would ask students to adapt this idea, creating their own posters with an image of an immigrant whose story we have studied in class.  Their posters could document the contributions of these figures (as the stimulus posters do), or they could be modified to reflect what we learn through those people’s stories.

This activity could work particularly well in a unit about Sally Mackenzie’s Scattered Lives which documents refugee stories, or perhaps connected to an interactive like Africa to Australia.

Widening Students’ Reading Repertoire

I am currently working on a project with students in my school’s book club to create a blog to record their reading recommendations.  The project is progressing nicely, with students offering passionate and persuasive reviews of texts that they adore.

I have, however, noticed that many of my students tend towards fantasy texts and those that explore adolescent angst.  While there is nothing wrong with these types of texts, I am keen to broaden my students horizons.  In pursuit of this goal, I am interested in the reading recommendation slides posted by Beth Kemp to her blog.  As the book club becomes stronger and larger, I am keen to have students work on posters like these that can be strategically located around the school and in the library, guiding students to make more daring choices when it comes to their reading repertoire.

Extension Activity #5

Yet another potential extension activity is to have students create a series of short narratives that respond to a shared event or experience.  Students could work collaboratively to decide the defining event/experience and characters.  Each student could then work individually to write a short narrative from the perspective of their chosen characters.  Students could then come together, engaging in peer review and editing activities to enable the different narratives to connect together into a coherent whole.

Best Books

I was reading Laura Randazzo‘s post entitled ‘The Best Book Ever?‘ in which she discusses America’s best-loved novels.  After reading the list included in her post, I couldn’t help but feel that there were some books which I would not have included, and others that appear to be missing.   This got me thinking: do others feel the same way?

I would like to ask this question of students in the school’s Book Club, asking them to work collaboratively to come up with a list of their top 50 books.  Perhaps, we could then work towards reviewing each of these books for the blog they are working on.  Additionally, we could use this as a way of gauging students’ interests, perhaps better tailoring our recommendations for reluctant readers.

A number of the students in Book Club are genre readers.  A spin off project could involve them compiling a list of the top 20 fantasy books, for example.  We could then combine this list with an illustration and make a collection of book marks that could be distributed to students with the next books they read in English class, thus encouraging wide reading.  In fact, students could even work on subject specific lists (sci-fi for science, books about the environment for geography etc), thus allowing other faculties to build students’ love of literature.