Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

15 minutes

Tune In: Watch the episode

20 minutes

Find Out: Socio-dramatic play

20 minutes

Take Action: Writing

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning Intentions:

Students will...

understand some of the key elements of a story
know the value of conflict and resolution in a story.

Success Criteria:

Students can...

identify the features and structure of a text
participate in a call-and-response chant or poem, paying attention to the rhythm and structure
use dramatic play and drama processes to explore narrative ideas
write their own imaginative text.

Tune In: Watch the episode

Step 1.

Share the Bluey episode Typewriter with your students.

INSERT VIDEO

Bluey 'Typewriter' - Clickview (...)

Typewriter synopsis: Bluey, Snickers and Winton are on their way to ask Calypso for help with their problems, but they are ambushed by the Terriers and have to find their unique talents to get past.

Step 2.

Facilitate a class discussion about the structure of this episode. Ask students:

What caused Bluey to start on her quest? She wanted to find her typewriter. This was her 'treasure'. In this episode, Calypso also told a story about an old dog who sat on a chest full of gold coins.
What else could be treasure? As a class, brainstorm what other treasures you might hunt for.

Explain to students that treasure doesn't have to be valuable in a monetary sense. It can also be something that is very important to one person. Pose the following:

I wonder what is important to you. What is very important to students, that they would be upset if they lost? It could be a favourite toy, a really yummy sandwich, or even a baby sibling!

Gratitude is about taking a moment to notice and appreciate the good things in our lives. Making a habit of gratitude has a range of benefits for both our mental and physical health.
Positive emotions open us up to more possibilities and help to balance out negative emotions. Find out more about practising gratitude here.

Add words and drawings to the whiteboard as they are suggested in order to build a word wall for the writing task ahead.

Step 3.

Continue the discussion by asking:

What was a major problem or conflict Bluey encountered on her quest? One example was the Terriers shooting arrows at Bluey.
And how did Bluey beat or resolve this challenge? In this case, she used a shield to protect her from the arrows.

Divide the board into two halves (see below). Add the example we've just above and any others students have identified.

CONFLICT (PROBLEM)	RESOLUTION (FIX)
Arrows	A shield

Find Out: Socio-dramatic play

Preparation

If students are unfamiliar with a call-and-response text, you could begin by reading out the story

'We're Going On A Bear Hunt' book (see here or here). Use several pages of this book to explain to students how a call and response chant works, for example:

First, the teacher reads aloud one line.
Then, the students repeat the line. Everyone has to mime the actions of the bear hunt in time with each line read out.

Step 1.

Now explain that the class is going to work together to come up with a quest and together they will imagine the journey that is taken for this quest. They will need to think about what treasure they might be looking for and what conflicts they might encounter along the way. You could do this by posing the following sentence starters and inviting different students to suggest answers for each sentence, building your story as you go (see example below).

In addition, students could work together to develop mimes or actions to accompany each step of the story.

Sample story:

Begin: 'The heroes were walking through the bush, looking for the ....' Mime walking along and looking for something.
'Suddenly, something leaps out from behind a tree. It is a...' Mime being shocked and ducking from something.
'The heroes get out their...' Mime pulling something out of a backpack - this could be a bow and arrow like in the episode.
'The heroes are victorious!' Mime cheering.
'The heroes were walking through the bush, looking for the....' Mime walking along and looking for something.
'Suddenly, something leaps out from behind a tree. It is a ...' Create an appropriate mime.
'The heroes get out their...' Mime pulling something out of a backpack - this could be a bow and arrow like in the episode.
'The heroes are victorious!' Mime cheering.
Continue your call and response story for several more rounds to ensure students understand the process.

Encourage students to start making their own suggestions about potential conflicts, and developing their own creative resolutions. You might call on specific students, or students might offer their own suggestions, having warmed up creatively.

Students may have ideas about resolutions to their own conflicts, or they might only propose the conflict, allowing others to brainstorm and suggest possible resolutions. Some conflicts might have multiple solutions, and students might build upon and add to inspiring ideas.

Encourage play and experimentation to discover and deeply explore elements. The narrative doesn't have to be perfect at this stage. It's about having fun with ideas, seeing what might work, and what that might look like.

You can always just suggest running away from a conflict if there's no way to overcome it.

The power of pauses
Pauses have been shown to be an effective tool for encouraging students to participate in conversations because they:

* Slow down the interaction
* Provide a student with time to think, to process, and construct a response
* Allow other students to initiate turns to talk
* Enable teachers to plan their follow-up moves in response to a student’s suggestion.
* Allow space to acknowledge and praise student thinking. “I really like the way you thought about…”

For more evidence-based advice on developing oral language in students click here.

Step 2.

Work with students to update your conflict/resolution table with all the fun ideas you covered in the dramatic exploration, properly fleshing out the ideas and providing vocabulary for students to use in their writing.

Take Action: Writing

Step 1.

Students return to their desks and independently write a story based on the episode they watched earlier and the explorative dramatic play.

Some students can be better enabled by using the characters of Bluey and her friends, even retelling the episode they watched.

Most students will be able to use the ideas generated by the dramatic play to create their own adventure.

Students could also illustrate their stories.

Step 2.

Some students might like to share their writing with the class and could lead the class in any associated actions and mimes.

Telling their own stories allows students to practise their verbal communication skills, such as pronunciation, pitch, tempo and sentence syntax. Storytelling also requires students to actively engage with meaning-making, either through comprehension of someone else's story, or through the structure of their own imaginative stories.

Reflection

Engage students in a class discussion around the following questions:

What do you think we were practising today? When were we doing that?
What are some important parts that every story has to have? A beginning, a problem, a solution, and an end, characters, a setting etc.
Do you find any parts of telling a story to be difficult? Why? Can you think of any ways to help with that?

Social Emotional Learning - Storytelling #2

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Social Emotional Learning - Storytelling #2

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