Identity/Belonging

Activity 1

Introductory game – the class sit in a circle. They have a couple of minutes to talk to the person on either side of them to find out one thing they have in common and one thing about them that is different. Now work around the circle with students introducing the person to their left and saying what the similarity/difference was.

Discuss if the focus was on anything in particular.

Activity 2

Pick an area such as favourite TV programme and ask for four suggestions. Each corner is labeled to represent one of the shows. Without any discussion, ask the class to pick one of the programmes, and on a signal to move straight to it. Do they have friends in other groups? Do we need to share everything in common in order to get on with someone or can we be different?

Activity 3 – What’s in a name?

Ask the class to research the meaning of their name (either forename or surname) and to find out why they were given that name (this may be missed out if there are children who have changed their names or are adopted/looked after). There are websites available to help with this.

Once they have gathered the information, the class shares their findings with a small group.

Discuss:

• Do the class think their names are important?
• How would they feel if asked to change their names or if they were always called by a different name?
• What about nicknames – these are sometimes given unkindly or sometimes reflect something about the person in a positive way
• How much are our names part of our identity?

    Activity 4 – identity collage

Ask the class to use magazines, newspapers, pictures from the Internet and personal photos if appropriate to create a collage which expresses their identity. Words can also be included, individually or in phrases or sentences.

The class now works in pairs or in small groups to share their collages, discussing similarities and differences. As a class, are there points in common?
What are these?

If class members had to choose on thing only to express their identity, what would it be?

Discuss:

• How many people chose race/colour/nationality? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Why?
• If the class is culturally diverse, was this an issue more to some children than others? Why might this be?
• How important does the class think it would be for Andrea and Riva?

Activity 5 – an identity collage for Riva and Andrea

After the play, ask the class to work in groups to produce collages for Andrea and Riva. Putting themselves into the children’s position, what do they think would be important?

Think about:

•  What home means in terms of identity and where home might be. Is it more than one place?
•  What we found out about them – what games they liked, friends they had.
•  What are the children’s memories - the play moves around in terms of time so that we have earlier memories of the children’s father plus any they may have about their home country and times before the conflict.
•  Names and their importance in the play; Andrea is called Andy when he arrives in England. At first he accepts the name but later but asks the boys to “call me Andrea from now on”. Why is this?
• Language – Riva in particular is keen to learn to speak English. How important is it for the children to also keep using their mother tongue? Why?
• As the play is not specific about the country they come from, the class might like to invent a name for the country, as this might be important for the collage.