Activities around the online stories:

Drama
Time: 2 lessons of 45 – 60 minutes. Alternatively, take aspects from the session to make shorter ones, which stand independently.
Space: Hall or large classroom with desks against the walls.
Resources: Stories from the website / large pieces of paper / marker pens.

Lesson 1
1. The class work in groups, either all working on the same story from the website or each group with a different story. Groups may have read through the stories themselves and chosen one which gives us some idea of the writer and has a dominant emotion or series of emotions. A sense of time and place may also be important.
2. a. Having read their stories, each group draws a rough outline on the piece of paper of the woman they think has told it. They now add words to describe her: what do they know about her / think they know about her?
b. Next, words are added from the senses – what were the sights, sounds, smell etc in the story?
c. Finally, words are added for any emotions.
3. Each student is now asked to choose a word from each category. Now divide the hall into 3 sections, explaining that each represents a different category e.g. a “sense” word, a word describing the woman, an emotion. The class is split into 2 groups. One group observes while the other positions themselves in a space. As they walk from space to space, the students say the appropriate word, using vocal and facial expression and movement. They are asked to imagine themselves as the person in the story. The observers comment and the 2 groups change places.

Lesson 2
1. Speaking and listening warm up
The groups decide what the dominant emotion is in their story – fear, excitement etc. In pairs, students tell each other of a time when they experienced the same emotion. They discuss how similar or different the situations were.
2. Remembering the work from the previous session, groups now prepare a short dramatisation of the story, beginning and ending with a still image. The dramatisations are performed twice, the first time straight through. On the second time, audience members can stop the action and ask questions e.g. How did you feel at this moment / Why did you do that / What would you have done if ….
3. Alternatively, show the scene once and hot-seat the storyteller.

Art
Having done activity 2 from the Drama workshop, groups work to create a collage, adding words. What would the colours and textures be?

Creative writing
1. Create a short play script from the stories.
2. Write an acrostic poem using a key word from the story.
3. Take words or phrases from the story to write haiku.
4. Use words from activity 2 in the Drama workshop to write a poem with each line representing something different e.g. senses and emotions.

Read:
Floella Benjamin’s “Coming To England” (1997)
Trish Cooke’s “The diary of a Young West Indian Immigrant” (2001)
Lisa Bruce’s “Jazeera in the Sun” (1996)

Poems: J. Agard Half-Caste
M. Alvi Presents From My Aunts in Pakistan
S. Bhatt Search For My Tongue

See
www.qca.org.uk/1578_2538.html
for more KS3/4 work around these poems or to find the poems go to:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english/poemscult/
searchrev1.shtml
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6715&poem=29470

Oral History Activities

Exploring Heritage