PROJECT TITLE: Hunger Games and Crossing Cultures

School Name: Joseph Banks Secondary College

Teacher’s Name: Joanne Duthie

Year Group: Year 8

Number of students: 25

Creative’s Name: Jodie Davidson

Creative Practice(s): Visual Art

Main Curriculum Focus – English

LANGUAGE

LITERATURE

CROSS-CURRICULAR LINKS

Ethical Understanding

Critical and Creative Thinking

Personal and Social Capability

The target for the class of Aspire English extension students was to develop their critical and creative thinking skills by extending them laterally through less explicit instruction and increased use of creative habits. Exploring how dystopian fiction can help with critical thinking through to understanding the role of documentaries and documentary conventions, sessions were designed to consider challenges and cultural implications for minority groups. Finding the balance between covering content and creative delivery is as much a collaboration between teacher and creative as it is by students.

“Creative Schools is important. It’s good to get kids to be more creative. Kids can be academic but creativity can impact the way you act and the way you learn.” (Student)

WHAT WE DID  

To generate understanding of narrative dystopian fiction featured in The Hunger Games, students participated in small group collaborative reading and simultaneous note taking on setting and characters. Rather than direct answers, a lens of curiosity about what makes a dystopian text was encouraged. Rotational activity stations challenged groups to generate dystopian ideas on settings, conflicts, archetypes, themes and morals. Timers and games incorporated writing on the board to share ideas, producing more content overall than working independently.

“These actually give them way more ideas than I would’ve been able to give them. When I teach them about the narrative conventions within a dystopian book, they will have clear ideas of what that would look like in a text because they have come up with them themselves.” (Teacher)

“People seem bored in normal lessons. In Creative Schools you get to show people your creativity. You get to show your thinking. In normal class you just show that you are thinking the way the teacher wants you to show your thinking. But Creative Schools you get to show your own creative thinking.” (Student)

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HOW DID WE MAKE THE CURRICULUM COME ALIVE?

Model making of settings, drawing characters through stylistic choices and videoed peer to peer character interviews and speaking tasks formulated various ways for creative assessment that could be used to determine interpretation and comprehension. Small group discussions familiarised character behaviours and archetypes in dystopian fiction and explored themes and ideas in both this and the documentary In My Blood It Runs. Term 3 group activities reflected on the importance of the student’s various cultural backgrounds, use of natural materials to link back to the land and a consideration of how their current education system does, and could, look.

“I prefer to slow things down and not rush through content. After these lessons I can do some consolidation. As a teacher we often have preplanned lessons with so much content. What we really want is to consider what do I need them to learn and have they learnt it. It doesn’t really matter if they complete all of the activities.” (Teacher)

“It’s helping me solve problems in a different way. And to have more fun while learning. Being in an academic extension class is something I enjoy. But usually, I’m not a hands on person. But this gives me a new perspective on how to learn. It’s extended me in a different way.” (Student)

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HOW DID WE MAKE THE 5 HABITS OF LEARNING COME ALIVE?

“Students see themselves as being collaborative and imaginative but not inquisitive, persistent or disciplined.” (Creative Practitioner)

Warm ups that removed the opportunity to talk meant students focussed on what they could see rather than what they were listening to or saying, promoting collaboration and persistence. Random grouping of students and rotational activities enabled students to brainstorm and share ideas resulted in increased collaboration as students began to listen to one another, share perspectives without judgement and work together beyond their previous established friendship groups. Activities set up as a challenge and timed tasks such as finding groups based on a set criteria generated higher levels of participation and engagement.

“I think the creative activities are good at the start of a topic as it helps us to understand where the student knowledge is currently sitting and gives us a starting point. But after that, it has to be reined in and driven by the teacher with a push towards specific content because there are expectations of where students need to be by the end of the term.” (Teacher)

HOW DID WE ACTIVATE STUDENT VOICE AND LEARNER AGENCY?

It became obvious that ongoing success would be achieved only through Teacher/Creative collaboration to work out how much scaffolding was required for particular activities. Being an ‘Aspire’, academic class, students required more context to some questions before they were able to think laterally. They were used to being provided with information to decipher rather than less information and thinking creatively. If something was too open ended, they didn’t have an anchor point with which to start. Competition and games generated inquisitive habits while ‘making’ processes were met with enthusiasm. With only 60 minutes of class time, it became important to determine methods in which creativity could be utilised in a way that was time efficient and collaborative. Combining student interest in digital technology with creativity tackled this.

“I think it’s a stereotypical thing to say that academic kids aren’t creative. But I think I’m very creative. In normal school I don’t usually get a chance to show my creativity. Usually, we just answer questions and do a worksheet or write an essay. But here we get to develop our creative mind.” (Student)

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WHAT WAS THE IMPACT?

Making sessions prompted more discussion and negotiation than when simply creating a mind map. Collaboration generally improved with some of the quietest students being active in the conversations rather than only observing. Random grouping enabled the teacher to see how some groups who may not normally be put together can result in positive collaboration. Warm ups tailored to memory recall from previously taught content are quantifiable, are quick, collaborative and enable students to practice persistence.

“They are improving each week with the different challenges of getting into groups and for finding their groups without words. We have less people left out at the end meaning they are staying in the groups they are given and less likely to want to sit with friends. They are developing effective and efficient strategies for group work demonstrating both persistence, collaboration and imagination.” (Creative)

“I’m learning how to use my mind to explore different ideas. Usually in other classes I think about how I could do things differently, but you don’t get a chance to do things differently in other classes. But in Creative Schools, it lets me explore how to think outside of the box.” (Student)

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