THE GRAVEYARD BOOK Using narrative techniques creatively and perceptively to engage an audience How do characters (and authors) use narrative techniques to tell a story? Samantha Churcher 1 Z3033723 ENGLISH STAGE 5 UNIT OVERVIEW YEAR: 9/10 FOCUS/TOPIC: Narrative Style and Writing Concept: Using narrative techniques creatively and perceptively to engage an audience. Key Question: How do characters (and authors) use narrative techniques to tell a story? Key Learning Ideas: • How literary techniques shape narrative texts • Using varying narrative texts with different narration modes to recognise and analyse narrative techniques • To develop their own writing by utilising creative narrative modes, voices, & techniques to create original and imaginative texts Main Text/s to be Explored in Unit: ‘The Graveyard Book’ by Neil Gaiman ‘Thirteen Reasons Why’ by Jay Asher Outcomes: Cross curricular content: Assessment Task/s: Literacy: punctuation, figurative devices, Outcome 1: A student responds to and imagery, spelling and vocabulary One substantial piece of creative writing composes increasingly sophisticated and ICT (1000 words), focusing on narration, and sustained texts for understanding, interpretation, Aboriginal & Indigenous ‘showing not telling’. critical analysis and pleasure. Difference and diversity Short story, worth 20% Outcome 5: A student transfers understanding Outcomes: 1, 5, & 6 of language concepts into new and different AND which language modes are being contexts. specifically addressed: Outcome 6: A student experiments with Reading, speaking, listening, writing, different ways of imaginatively and representing, speaking, applying knowledge interpretively transforming experience, information and ideas into texts. Samantha Churcher 2 Z3033723 Rationale This unit teaches students to engage with different narration styles within texts, and to compose texts with differing narration styles. By the end of this unit, students will have learnt to express themselves in clear and creative ways. English is mandatory to learning as it nurtures skills in confident communication, critical and imaginative thinking, and academic and creative writing. This unit covers important models of teaching such as: personal growth, particularly in students writing skills; Literacy, this is covered widely in this unit as it deals with narrative features and language features; and to an extent Cultural Studies, students look at two British texts, two American texts and an Indigenous text. Narrative structure and features can be particularly important in stage 5 if being looked at prior to NAPLAN in year 9, as narrative writing is included in this testing module. Narrative studies are highlighted in the NSW Syllabus, specifically in outcome 1.9 – the ways sustained texts use elements such as evidence, argument, narrative, dialogue and climax – this ties into students learning skills and knowledge that contributes to their reading, writing and speaking skills. The Graveyard Book, while not focusing on diversity, subtly insinuates that regardless of race (which is barely mentioned in the book) or gender, even life status, everyone can co-exist happily together, this works well in a multicultural classroom, as no one is singled out or made to feel uncomfortable. Bod and the other characters in the book are by no means gender stereotypes, and there is no sexism present in the novel – while Mrs Owens ghost seems to be a typical mother figure, Scarlett’s mother is a university professor. The character of Bod is interesting and non- conventional, making him appealing to most members of a teenage audience. The supplementary text, Thirteen Reasons Why, focuses on common issues within the teenage world, such as bullying, image and suicide. While suicide is a sensitive subject, the unit focuses on the narrative styles, and how the story is being told, not entirely on what is being told –however, the content is contemporarily relevant and the story is engaging and easy for students to read. Other texts being looked at in this unit include excerpts from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, The Hunger Games and The Rainbow Serpent. The first two texts are popular, and engage students easily, while the third is a popular dreamtime story, which includes Indigenous students, and opens non-indigenous students in the indigenous culture and history. This unit’s writing exercises are predominately creative, and allow students to write at a level with which they are comfortable, about content they are familiar with. The teacher should be familiar with each students learning needs, and will know what level of language to expect from each student. In order to access each students’ abilities, they perform creative writing exercises at the beginning of the unit, and continually throughout, allowing the teacher to clearly see where each student lies in their ability. Vocabulary exercises are inferred to have been undertaken earlier in the unit, to assist with ESL and Life Skill students understanding of the texts. Samantha Churcher 3 Z3033723 This unit contains individual and group work, allowing kids to engage in personal growth as well as collaboration, giving them a chance to learn not only from their teacher, but also from their peers. This kind of learning can be crucial, particularly for ESL and Life Skill students, who may struggle to understand something that a teacher might explain, however understand something when explained more simply by a classmate. The activities and the texts are of varying levels, yet still engage the majority of students. The unit uses a lot of graphic organisers, these are a good tool for simplifying and laying out ideas and concepts that might otherwise be too complex for some students, and allow students to immediately relate these constructs to texts. The unit is based predominately around writing. Writing is essential in all learning, and promotes: deep learning, complex thought, focus, translating thought into language, exploration of students personality and their world, and pleasure in the manipulation of language. Writing is flexible, and mouldable to a students’ abilities. This allows fair and more precise marking and monitoring of students and their progression, as students are able to start expressing themselves more individually and in such a way that marks their work as their own. Quality teaching has been considered in the writing of this unit, it promotes high levels of intellectual quality, a high quality learning environment that supports and nurtures each student, and aims to show students the significance of their work. With high levels of intellectual quality in the classroom, all students have the chance to be individually assessed based on individual performance and not against a generic benchmark, with creative writing behind the main focus students are creating personal texts based on a range of achievable outcomes. A high quality learning environment is being nurtured, with activities being included that promote mixed ability, group work, visual learning, auditory learning and kinetic learning; students are continually monitored as they produce writing on the skills being learnt as they learn them. The students’ work is predominately personal, allowing them to, at time, relate to the world around them, outside of the classroom, perhaps personally or culturally; this allows students to attach significance to the work they are completing1. Overall the unit is engaging, inclusive, exciting and promotes an in-depth study of the set text, The Graveyard Book, to encourage a deep understanding of language and narrative features, that can be utilised in their own writing in this unit, in this subject and in other subjects and endeavours that they undertake. This unit in turn, also promotes personal growth, and teaches self-reflection; both of which allow students to have an understanding if their learning, why they are learning it and the significance it has on other aspects of their world. 1 Quality teaching in NSW public schools: Discussion paper © 2003 State of NSW, Department of Education and Training, Professional Support and Curriculum Directorate, SYDNEY, NSW accessed https://lms- blackboard.telt.unsw.edu.au/bbcswebdav/courses/5124_00294/QualityTeachEPSColor.pdf Samantha Churcher 4 Z3033723 SYLLABUS TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES EVIDENCE OF CONTENT LEARNING (N.B.: In previous lessons, students will have taken part in a vocab exercise, the activity for this is appendix A, and they will have looked at and received a handout on ‘Narrative Structure’, appendix B. Students have read Thirteen Reasons Why at home, and The Graveyard Book in class, as a class(approx. 7 lessons)) Learn to: Lesson 1 5.2 compose written, oral and visual Characterisation. Students look at what makes a character stand out, what texts for personal, historical, cultural, social, technological and workplace distinguishes one character from another. contexts This class will start with students writing a short narrative piece, slightly guided, to Short piece of narrative 1.1 respond to and compose a range of imaginative, factual and critical show what they have learnt in the beginning of this unit (narrative structure). This is to writing, to be kept for future texts which are increasingly gauge an idea of each students writing styles and level of writing skill – this should be comparison. demanding in terms of their linguistic, structural, cognitive, kept to monitor progress through the unit. emotional and moral complexity