| Rap points
These discussion
questions guide the rap. The coordinators post the question
for the week at the beginning of that week. Class groups post their
answers and can respond via the rap to other schools’ replies
during the week of that rap point.
Introduction
Rap point 1
Rap point 2
Rap point 3
Rap wrap-up
Introduction
English Stage 5 programming and planning
Term 4, Week 2 (commencing Monday 20 October 2003)
Using information and communications technologies (ICT) capabilities
in teaching and learning.
This rap assists
Stage 5 students to demonstrate aspects of Outcome 3: A student selects,
uses, describes and explains how different technologies
affect and shape meaning.
Students learn to:
3.2 identify and critically evaluate the ways information, ideas
and issues are shaped by and presented through technology.
Students
learn about:
3.5 different techniques
used to compose multimedia texts
3.6 the ways in which
modern technologies of communication are used to inform, persuade and
entertain.
Students also cover the ICT
cross-curriculum content of the English Years 7–10 Syllabus through:
-
using
ICT to locate, access, evaluate, manipulate, create, store and
retrieve information
-
expressing
ideas and communicating with others, using ICT.
Introductory task
During
this week, rappers send a short introductory message to the
book rap.
As preparation, discuss the information that you would like to include
in your class introductory message.
You may choose to provide some information about your class and
where your school is located.
After reading the introductory messages of other schools, you could
locate participating schools on a printed Rap map.
During this week, you could also refresh your understanding of the
novel and the 1962 film version of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Stage
5 Outcomes and content |
Teaching
and learning strategies |
Outcome
1
A student
responds to and composes increasingly sophisticated and
sustained texts for understanding, interpretation,
critical analysis and pleasure.
Students learn to:
1.1 respond to and compose a range of imaginative,
factual and critical texts which are increasingly demanding
in terms
of their linguistic, structural, cognitive, emotional and
moral complexity.
Students learn about:
1.7 the ideas, information, perspectives
and ideologies presented in increasingly demanding imaginative,
factual and critical
texts and the ways they are presented.
- Students will identify the ways purpose, audience and
situation affect their writing for the book rap introductory
message.
Outcome 4
A student selects and uses language forms and features,
and structures of texts according to different purposes, audiences
and contexts, and describes and explains their effects on meaning.
Students learn to:
4.5 identify purpose, audience and context
of texts through consideration of the language forms and
features, and structures used in
the texts.
Students learn about:
4.14 the appropriateness of the use of
Standard English, its variations and levels of usage.
Outcome 5
A student transfers understanding of language concepts
into new and different contexts.
Students learn to:
5.1 apply knowledge of language forms and
features and structures of texts to respond to, compose and
adapt texts
to suit new
and unfamiliar contexts.
5.2 compose written, oral and visual
texts for personal, historical, cultural, social, technological
and workplace
contexts.
Students will jointly construct an introductory message
for the book rap.
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What do
students already know about book raps? Complete a KWL
activity with the class. After discussion, students record
what they already know about book raps, what they would like
to know and, at the end of the book rap, what they have learned.
In discussing
the purpose and conventions of a book rap, the teacher could
refer to Rap
lingo, appropriate book
rap FAQs, and examples of email messages from previous
book raps in the Archives of email discussion.
The teacher
selects a range of introductory messages and models the structure
and language features for the class, including email etiquette
and email addressing. Language features might include use
of dot points, sentence structures, present tense and first
person.
Or
Students
might like to search previous book rap sites to select model
texts. The teacher can then discuss the structure and language
features of the text with the class.
Focus
on Literacy: Writing is a useful teacher resource
for information about purpose and audience in written tasks.
Refer to pages 12–20 for a social view of writing
and pages 28–29 for modelled writing techniques.
In small
groups, students develop a set of criteria for the book rap
introductory message, which is then agreed on by the whole
class or group.
In small
groups or pairs, students can jointly construct an introductory
message for the book rap using their agreed criteria. The
class or group then decides on the message to be sent to
all rappers.
Students
then nominate a class representative to use a word processor
to record the message and post it to the rap. |
Extracts
from English Years 7 –10 Syllabus © Board of
Studies NSW 2002
Rap point 1
English Stage 5 programming and planning
Term 4, Week 3 (commencing Monday 27 October 2003)
Focus question
How heroic is Atticus as he battles
prejudice?
Prejudice is a major theme in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Atticus is usually seen as the figure who struggles heroically
against the town’s
prejudice, asserting the values of truth, justice and freedom in
a world given over to lies, prejudice and restriction.
Do Atticus’ strategies work?
Remember, he loses the court case, cannot save Tom Robinson and
nearly loses both of his children. Nonetheless he is seen as the
embodiment of noble and heroic qualities: he is wise, calm, thoughtful,
considerate, brave and capable.
What kind of a hero is he, then?
Other characters also have heroic qualities: Judge Taylor, Boo Radley,
Jem, Scout and Dill, Calpurnia, Mr Underwood, Tom Robinson and Helen
Robinson.
Are they actual heroes, or just brave people?
Stage 5 Outcomes and content |
Teaching and learning strategies |
Outcome 1
A student responds to and composes increasingly sophisticated
and sustained texts for understanding, interpretation, critical analysis
and pleasure.
Students learn to:
1.1 respond to and compose a range of imaginative,
factual and critical texts which are increasingly demanding
in terms of their linguistic, structural, cognitive, emotional
and moral complexity.
1.2 respond to and compose more sustained
texts in a range of contexts.
Students learn about:
1.9 the ways sustained texts use elements
such as evidence, argument, narrative, dialogue and climax.
1.12 how inference and
figurative language can be used in complex and subtle ways.
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Issues
Prejudice and racism:
Character “hot seat”: Students role play
different characters who have contrasting views. Other students
interview
them about the trial and its result.
In pairs, students write a dialogue between two of
the Maycomb community members discussing the trial and its
aftermath.
As a class or in groups, students discuss Aunt Alexandra’s
views, especially as set out in Chapter 13.
Students compose a front page newspaper article on the day
of the sentencing, or the day Tom Robinson is killed, or the
death of Bob Ewell.
As a class or in groups, students discuss how the issue of
courage works in the lives of: Atticus, Scout, Tom Robinson,
Boo Radley, and others as outlined in Rap Question 1.
As a class or in groups, students analyse Chapter 15 to consider
the types of bravery and heroism displayed here, as well as
the types of cowardice.
Class discussion:
What point is being made at the end of Chapter
11, when Atticus says of Mrs Dubose:
"I wanted you to see something about her – I
wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting
the idea that
courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you
know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway
and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but
sometimes you do… She was the bravest person I ever knew."
How
relevant is this to what will happen later to Atticus?
Maycomb
had a problem with the “usual disease”.
Where else have you seen this problem? How is it present in
today’s society? When is a time that you have seen
or experienced this problem?
Resources
The Nature of the Hero
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Outcome 7
A student thinks critically and interpretively using
information, ideas and increasingly complex arguments to
respond to and compose
texts in a range of contexts.
Students learn to:
7.2 ask perceptive and relevant questions,
make logical predictions, draw analogies and challenge
ideas and information in texts.
Outcome 2
A student
uses and critically assesses a range of processes for responding
and composing.
Students learn about:
2.8 the ways that the processes of planning
including investigating, interviewing, selecting, recording
and organising ideas,
images and information can and should be modified according
to specific
purposes and texts.
Outcome 6
A student experiments with different ways of imaginatively
and interpretively transforming experience, information
and ideas into texts.
Students learn about:
6.9 the ways in which imaginative texts
can explore universal themes and social reality.
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Additional activities
If time permits, the following issues could be considered.
Title
How does the title relate to the story? How many ways
can we see the word “mocking” used as an idea?
Note: The word has both
positive and negative connotations.
Negatively, Bob Ewell mocks the innocence of Tom
Robinson by accusing him on a false charge. The town's folk mock law
and order in their attempt to lynch Tom; the jury mock justice
in their sentence; the ladies make a mockery of Christian values
in their talk; Miss Caroline mocks education
in her response to Scout, Miss Gates mocks Democracy and education
in her views on Negroes, compared to her views on the Jews
in Germany.
Positively, the mockingbird can be seen to stand for an amplification
of ideas. Tom Robinson, in his innocence, is a mockingbird,
as he only attempts to help others. Atticus amplifies the theme
of true justice; the children, especially Scout, amplifies
the theme of innocence; Boo Radley amplifies the theme of freedom,
he is a caged mockingbird.
Finally the novel itself is a mockingbird as it echoes the
world of Maycomb, imitating the voices of the community.
Resource
Lecture Notes: To
Kill a Mockingbird
Why did Lee take the title from this quotation:
"I'd
rather you shoot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you'll
go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can
hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
What symbolism is used in this quotation?
Family
How does the family work as the central unit in the
novel to convey the values of the characters? Consider the
following
questions in the novel and in life:
- child rearing and the education of children
- single parents
- childhood initiation into an adult world
Remember, both
the Ewell’s and Scout’s family don’t
have a mother.
Maturing and growing up or loss of innocence
What
are the life-changing experiences that enable us to see Scout
or Jem grow
up during the course of
the story?
How might Jem have changed to have a more mature understanding
of the world around him?
How do you know Scout was changed by these experiences?
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Extracts from English Years 7 –10 Syllabus © Board
of Studies NSW 2002.
Rap point 2
English Stage 5 programming and planning
Term 4, Week 4 (commencing Monday 3 November 2003)
Focus question
How effectively does Harper Lee create a sense of
time and place in the novel?
The novel is set in a time period that is more than twenty years
before it was actually written. What techniques does Lee use to create
the impression of a real place at a real time? Don’t forget
that the narrator, Scout, would have been in her mid-twenties as
she is writing the story. Does Lee create a believable child’s
voice?
Stage 5 Outcomes and content |
Teaching and learning strategies |
Outcome 4
A student selects and uses language forms
and features, and structures of texts according to different
purposes, audiences and contexts, and describes and explains
their effects on meaning.
Students learn to:
4.2 describe, explain and evaluate the composer’s
choices of language forms and features and structures of
texts in terms
of purpose, audience and context.
Students learn about:
4.13 codes and conventions, including
emotive, evocative and impersonal language and signs, used
to signal tone, mood
and atmosphere in spoken, written and visual texts.
Outcome 4
A student selects and uses language
forms and features, and structures of texts according to
different purposes, audiences
and contexts, and describes and explains their effects on
meaning.
Students learn about:
4.8 the ways in which spoken, written
and visual texts are shaped according to personal, historical,
cultural, social,
technological and workplace contexts.
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Setting
As a whole class or in small groups students:
- research the time the book was published, the late
50s and early 60s.
- investigate who the American President and US state
governors were at the time the book was written and look
at significant events that occurred around the same time.
- research the Civil Rights Movement, the war in Korea
and the start of the Vietnam War.
Students draw a map of Maycomb from the information in the
novel. Then they locate Monroe on the Internet to get a map
of the original town where Harper Lee was brought up and compare
this with their own map.
Resources
Harper Lee Biography
Monroe County heritage Museums
Harper Lee: Links
Composing activities
In pairs or in small groups students
design a PowerPoint presentation or an Internet site
for Maycomb in the present time. Include
information under headings such as History,
People, Map, Places of interest, What’s new & what’s
old.
Possible headings
Under History retell the story of To
Kill a Mockingbird succinctly. How would the story be told today?
What would be included,
what would be left out? Consider the role historical revisionism
might play. Would there be more than one version?
Under People include short biographies of
Atticus, Scout, Jem, Boo Radley, Calpurnia, Judge Taylor, Mr
Underwood,The
Ewell Family, Miss Caroline, Miss Dubose, Mr Gilmur.
Under Places include the courthouse, the street where Boo
and the Finch family lived, the schoolhouse, the newspaper
office, the Methodist and Baptist churches, the OK Café,
Finch’s Landing, the Quarters, the First Purchase Africa
Church.
Under What’s new & what’s old you may consider
what would have remained from the old days and what changes
might have been made. Consider the descriptions that are made
of the buildings, especially the courthouse and the jail. For
example, would the courthouse still have a coloured section?
Write an article for inclusion in the book, The Way We
Were on life in either America or Australia in the 1930s.
Who said the people had “nothing to fear but fear itself”?
What was meant by that statement?
The novel, though centred on a small town, does hint at the
greater picture of events overseas, especially Germany.
Resources
Lecture notes: To
Kill a Mockingbird
Discuss the importance of boundaries
in the novel:
- boundaries of houses: Boo Radley's, the Ewell's
- boundaries of bodies: Mayella Ewell and Southern womanhood.
Is there a significance to the architecture of the "colored
jail" (page 150)?
Web quest
Growing up in the 1930s
Have students interview grandparents or other relatives and
friends who remember the Depression.
Additionally parents as well as grandparents and others might
be interviewed for their views on how life, especially growing
up, has altered over the years.
Some students may have grandparents who came as migrants.
Their experience would also touch on the theme of the outsider
that we see in Boo and Tom Robinson and this could relate to
the subject of prejudice.
Other stories set in the same time could be considered:
- both the novels and film versions of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men give a good sense
of the time and the troubles in the United States.
- My Brother Jack by George Johnston. The novel and the
TV series provide a sense of the Australian experience.
Don Bradman was a key figure in Australia at this time, and
a number of books and articles talk about him during the Depression
as well as Foulcher's poem Bradman's Last Innings.
Local historical societies may also have information about
the local area during this time. |
Extracts from English Years 7 –10
Syllabus © Board of Studies NSW 2002.
Rap point 3
English Stage 5 programming and planning
Term 4, Week 5 (commencing Monday 10 November 2003)
Focus question
Both the novel and the film have been widely
admired. Does the film duplicate, expand or diminish the book,
in whole or in part?
Often writers feel badly done-by in the films made from their
books. Directors can leave things out of the film, change the emphasis,
even alter endings, to satisfy what they feel are the needs of
the film. Stephen King was so disappointed by Stanley Kubrick’s
film of The Shining that he re-shot the work for television.
Unusually, then, for an author, Harper Lee was full of praise
for the film, especially Gregory Peck’s portrayal of Atticus.
She enjoyed the film with unbridled pleasure, and
felt the film did justice to the book. Do you agree?
Stage 5 Outcomes and content |
Teaching and learning strategies |
Outcome 6
A student experiments with different ways of imaginatively
and interpretively transforming experience, information
and ideas into texts.
Students learn about:
6.8 ways in which film-makers transform
concepts into film, including consideration of script,
story lines, sustained
perspective, and visual and aural components of film-making
and their interaction.
Outcome 4
A student selects and uses language forms and features,
and structures of texts according to different purposes, audiences
and contexts, and describes and explains their effects on meaning.
Students
learn to:
4.2 describe, explain and evaluate the composer’s
choices of language forms and features and structures of
texts in terms
of purpose, audience and context.
Students learn about:
4.9 appropriate language forms and features
and structures of texts to use in an increasingly wide
range of contexts.
Outcome 8
A student investigates the relationships between
and among texts.
Students learn about:
8.8 the metalanguage for identifying,
describing and explaining relationships between and among
texts.
Outcome 6
A student experiments with different ways of imaginatively
and interpretively transforming experience, information
and ideas into texts.
Students learn about:
6.8 ways in which film-makers transform
concepts into film, including consideration of script,
story lines, sustained
perspective, and visual and aural components of
film-making and their interaction.
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As a class or in small groups, students compare the opening
credits of the 1962 film with the opening chapters of the
novel.
- Does the film benefit from being in black and white?
- Whilst the opening credits are being played we see a
box and a variety of items being unpacked. What is the
significance
of these?
- How effective is the voice-over for orienting the audience?
- What items give us an idea of the time the film is set
in?
Point-of-view:
- How is our perspective changed throughout the Courtroom
scene.
- How is tension created in the scene where Bob Ewell
attacks the children?
- Why is the book in two parts?
- Does Part One reflect Part Two, and if so, how?
- Do the two parts hang together or are they really two
separate stories?
The book includes a number of genres
including the Bildungsroman, a
mystery story, elements of the picaresque,
courtroom drama, gothic elements, satire, social realism
and adventure.
Discuss how your class would categorise the book list evidence
from the text for each one.
- Harper Lee has only written one novel. Why do you
think this might be? She has written a small number of essays.
Students research her work through the Internet, especially
interviews with her and see how her childhood impacted on
the book. Do her essays tell us any more about her?
Students compose a set of interview questions to ask Harper
Lee about her book and her life.
To Kill a Mockingbird in its original form was rejected
by the publishers as being a collection of short stories.
How many stories can be located within the novel?
Composing activity
Students write their own short story
of Dill as he recounts an event from the time he spent
with Scout and Jem.
The 1962 film version
Class discussion
Gregory Peck, who played Atticus Finch,
regarded the film as his best movie. Harper Lee thought he
was ideal for the
character.
- What is your opinion of this casting?
- What from the book was left out of the movie ?
- Do you think it is a good adaptation?
In pairs or individually, students write a report of the
reviews and reactions to the film when it was first screened
in 1962 or after the death of Gregory Peck earlier this year.
Resources
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) for film information
and reviews, To
Kill a Mockingbird 1962 film version.
Brainstorm
If you were going to direct a new version of the
film, would you cast as:
- Atticus
- Boo Radley
- Mrs Dubose
- Tom Robinson
- Bob Ewell
- Mayella Ewe
Would you film it in black and white, as the original
film was?
List the advantages and disadvantages of
your choice?
Individual composition
Choose one scene from the text and
devise your own storyboard and screenplay. If you can,
try to film the scene.
Students could write a review of their own screenplay, treating
it as a film, comparing it to other films. |
Extracts from English Years 7 –10 Syllabus © Board
of Studies NSW 2002.
Rap wrap-up
English Stage 5 programming and planning
Term 4, Week 6 (commencing Monday 17 November 2003)
Task
After participating in the book rap, share your experience with
other rappers.
What did you learn about and enjoy doing during the rap?
Stage 5 Outcomes and content |
Teaching and learning strategies |
Outcome 11
A student uses, reflects on, assesses and adapts their
individual and collaborative skills for learning with increasing
independence and effectiveness.
Students learn to:
11.5 use individual and group processes to
generate, investigate, document, clarify, refine, critically
evaluate and
present
ideas and information drawn from books, the Internet and
other sources
of information.
Students learn about:
11.13 management strategies including drawing
up schedules, timing, delegation and sharing in group work.
11.14 ways of managing information
and communication technologies for effective learning.
Students examine the language of written evaluative response.
Students jointly construct a group response to the rap
wrap-up.
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The teacher models short response style texts (e.g. film or book
reviews) considering purpose, structures and use of evaluative
language to comment on the value of the rap to their learning.
Students discuss the appropriate structure and style for an evaluative
online response to the book rap. Students need to be specific in
their comments so that it will have value to the other rappers.
A joint rap wrap-up message is drafted, reflecting a variety of
views and responses to the rap.
Students then nominate a class representative to use a word processor
to record the message.
When the teacher has approved the final text, the message is posted
to the rap.
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Extracts from English Years 7 –10 Syllabus © Board
of Studies NSW 2002.
Credits
- David Nethercote, Ambervale High School.
- Kerry Underhill, Professional
Support and Curriculum Directorate
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