Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Activating prior knowledge

15 minutes

Find Out: Exploring connotation

25 minutes

Take Action: What’s in a name?

10 minutes

Reflection

Tune In: Activating prior knowledge

Step 1

Commence the lesson by asking students to share their favourite sporting team names, and collate these on the whiteboard - students may like to come up and write their contribution on the whiteboard as a big word cloud. They are welcome to share AFL, basketball, soccer or cricket teams - you are looking to find team names like: ‘Melbourne Magic’ or ‘Victorian Vipers’.

Step 2

Lead a discussion with students about the team names you have collated together. Ask students whether they can make any connections about the sorts of things that sporting teams use as their team name. Help guide students to appreciate that the team names (Magic or Vipers as examples) are usually powerful animals or concepts and suggest a sense of strength, power and victory.

Find Out: Exploring connotation

Step 1

Play this video:

Connotation | Reading | Khan Academy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRt1N0sJJQo)

Step 2

Ask students to choose five of the team names from the word cloud on the board, and write these into the first column of the table on the Student Worksheet. Students should:

For each team name, find a dictionary definition to determine what the team name denotes. Write this in the corresponding box in the second column.
Then, consider what the name connotes - what it symbolises, and the emotion it evokes. Write this in the third column.

Take Action: What’s in a name?

Step 1

Direct students to the two word maps in question 2 of their Student Worksheet. Split students into eight groups, four to work on the word ‘KING’ and four to work on ‘COWARD’. Each group should be allocated one quadrant of one vocabulary map to complete - this might be a timed challenge, with the limit relative to the confidence and autonomy of your class.

Note: Some of the synonyms for ‘coward’ are demeaning and cruel so keep an eye on this group.

Step 2

Project a blank version of the word map onto the board and ask each group to report back to the class their definitions, synonyms and connotations for each of the words. Students in the other groups should be listening and writing the information on their own Student Worksheet.

Sample responses:

Step 3

Lead a discussion with students about the differences between the word ‘king’ and the word ‘coward’. Students will likely identify the two words are very different, even opposite to each other.

Step 4

Direct students to the second set of word maps in question 3 of their Student Worksheet. This time, work as a class to break down the terms ‘king hit’ and ‘coward punch’.

Sample responses:

Step 5

Read the ABC News Excerpt with students. Explain to students that this campaign was born from wanting to spread a message of anti-violence and a desire to reframe the conversation from that of it being a powerful or glorious act, to one that is weak and unheroic. ‘King hit’ and ‘coward punch’ have the same definition, but starkly opposite connotations.

Reflection

Ask students to reflect in writing on the following statements:

How does changing the term from ‘king hit’ to ‘coward punch’ change how we view a perpetrator or victim?
What does the use of a particular term say about the person using it and what they value?

Students should make direct reference to information learned throughout this lesson.

Coward Punch - King or Coward?

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