CREATIVE LEARNING RESOURCE LITERATURE

LITERATURE & IDEAS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS MON 22 FEB

1 CONTENTS

2 Background

3 Authors & Activities

4 Attending Live Performance

5 Curriculum Links

Perth Festival acknowledges the Noongar people who continue to practise their values, language, beliefs and knowledge on their kwobidak boodjar. They remain the spiritual and cultural birdiyangara of this place and we honour and respect their caretakers and custodians and the vital role Noongar people play for our community and our Festival to flourish.

Acknowledgment developed by Associate Artist Kylie Bracknell with support from Perth Festival’s Noongar Advisory Circle (Vivienne Binyarn Hansen, Mitchella Waljin Hutchins, Carol Innes, Barry McGuire, Richard Walley OAM & Roma Yibiyung Winmar) BACKGROUND

Explore the relationships between conventions and language (and how they change across genre with regards to audience and purpose), as authors Yuot A Alaak and Sophie McNeill give fascinating insight into their writing process.

HONEYBEE Honeybee, the stunning follow-up to best-selling author Craig Silvey’s novel Jasper Jones, is a heart-warming, life-affirming coming-of-age novel set in contemporary . Students will hear about Craig’s writing career, his inspiration for writing Honeybee and what he has in mind for his next project.

FATHER OF THE LOST BOYS Yuot A Alaak’s memoir Father of the Lost Boys is a searing account of the author’s four-year journey across the deserts of Ethiopia and Sudan as one of the 20,000 now-famous child soldiers of Sudan – the Lost Boys – led by his father, Mecak Ajang Alaak. Yuot writes about the boys’ perilous crossing of the Nile, and finally reaching the safety of a Kenyan refugee camp. Students will learn about how he found his way to Australia and will have an opportunity to ask about his family’s flight to Australia as refugees and his career as a mining engineer in Perth.

2 AUTHORS & ACTIVITIES

CRAIG SILVEY Craig Silvey is an author and screenwriter from whose best-selling second novel, Jasper Jones, is considered a modern Australian classic. To further explore his work and his latest book Honeybee, start with these great resources:

LISTEN to Craig talk with the Wheeler Centre’s Stella Charls about Honeybee and the use of dialogue here: wheelercentre.com/broadcasts/podcasts/the-wheeler-centre/take-home-reading- craig-silvey

and also hear Craig talk to Indira Naidoo about his catalogue of writing here: abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/the-writers-craig-silvey-honeybee/12750188

READ about writing from diverse perspectives here: theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/30/craig-silvey-on-writing-from-a-trans- perspective-a-novelist-is-required-to-listen-to-learn

YUOT A ALAAK Yuot A Alaak spent four years travelling the deserts of Sudan and Ethiopia as one of the child soldiers known as ‘the Lost Boys’. His father was trying to save them.

READ this excellent account of Yuot’s early life here (bonus video too): sbs.com.au/news/yuot-s-father-saved-thousands-of-sudan-s-lost-boys-from- war-now-he-s-telling-his-story

EXPLORE the Lost Boys by accessing this interactive story map here: arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=93ebb31662004103828b6bfb973fa643

DISCUSS Yuot’s book Father of the Lost Boys by using the book club questions here: https://www.writingwa.org/for-readers/book-club/father-of-the-lost-boys-yuot-a- alaak-fremantle-press/

3 ATTENDING LIVE PERFORMANCE

Live performance involves performers acting and interacting in real time, before your eyes. The audience is active in the way they view the performance: the performers on stage can hear and see you and your reactions and behaviour can contribute to, disrupt or disturb their performance. The audience can have a big influence on the energy, pace and vibe of the actors and the performance as a whole. Here’s how you can help: BE ON TIME

The show will start promptly, so leave heaps of time to find the venue and go to the toilet. Latecomers will not be admitted until an appropriate break in the show, and for many shows you won’t be let in if you arrive late or leave the theatre during the show.

THINGS WE WANT TO HEAR ...

Live performance is energised by positive audience reactions – laugh when it’s funny, cry when it’s sad and applaud at the end.

... AND THINGS WE DON’T

Food wrappers and plastic packets make a lot of noise. It is generally accepted that the audience does not eat during a performance.

Mobile phones must be switched off (not on vibrate). If your phone rings during a performance, it can be very embarrassing for you and very distracting for the performers. Even silently messaging is not cool, because the glow of the screen is off-putting for performers and audiences.

Chatting and whispering during the show is annoying for other audience members and can be very distracting for performers.

PHOTOGRAPHS

We love seeing you at Festival events. Take photos in the foyer when you arrive or after the show, and tag us using @PerthFest and #PerthFest, or re-post our stories with your hot takes, we love it! Taking photos, videos or audio recordings is not allowed in the shows though. This is because of copyright issues of the designs and because of the whole distracting thing.

4 CURRICULUM LINKS

SUBJECT AREA YEAR LEVEL CONNECTIONS

Unit 4 in which students challenge perspectives, examine contexts and analyse voice and narrative point of view. English Year 11 & 112 Unit 2 through analysis of ideas, attitudes and voices in texts to consider how texts represent the world and human experience.

Craig Silvey’s novels are found on the ATAR prescribed literature lists. In addition, in Unit 1 students investigate the degree to which individual viewpoints, experiences and contexts shape readings of texts. English Literature Year 11 & 12 In Unit 3 students develop knowledge and understanding of the relationship between language, culture and identity in literary texts. The evaluation and reflection on how representations of culture and identity vary in different texts and forms of texts may also prove useful here.

This Creative Learning Resource was prepared by Libby Klysz

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