Teaching Sequence

20 minutes - Part A: My identity and place
50 minutes - Part B: Exploring identity and place of others
20 minutes - Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: My identity and place

Start by asking students to pair up and conduct a rapid interview with a classmate to find out what elements of a place create a person’s identity. Allow time for students to swap. Encourage students to find out a little more about how their identity is formed in part by where they are and what they see (their place).

Guide students to ask each other:

What role do you identify with at the moment - who are you right now?
What makes you identify as that?
What are you wearing that creates your sense of who you are?
Name 10 things in your surrounds that create that identity.
What are the things that you experience in the place that you are - what do you see/hear/feel that influence the way that you see yourself?

For example, a person may identify as a student because they’re wearing a uniform, they’re in a school building, they can see a teacher, they have other students around them, etc.

Part B: Exploring identity and place of others

Step 1.

Use this clip from THE OASIS to guide the class through an initial analysis of how place forms identity for Haley.

THE OASIS - Haley - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLWh8cXC1tA)

You could focus specifically (but not necessarily only) on:

Critical analysis of how we see Haley in this clip: examination and discussion of the social and personal context, point of view and (the filmmakers') attitude to subject matter.
How do these values and attitudes influence students' view of young people experiencing homelessness?

Guide the class analysis to use the same questions that students asked each other to establish a connection between Haley's place and her identity:

What role do you think Haley identifies with at the moment?
What do you think makes her identify as that?
What is she wearing that creates her sense of who she is?
Name 10 things in her surrounds that create that identity.
What are the things that you see her experiencing in the place she is in - what do you think she sees/hears/feels that influences the way that she might see herself?

Step 2.

Individually, students watch a section of a clip from THE OASIS, and write a diary entry as though they are the character in that section of the clip. Students could focus on including these details:

Where have you been before this scene? (Imagine this, or use evidence from the documentary.)
Who are you with now and what is your view of them?
What does the environment look like?
How do you feel in that situation?
Where do you want to go next? (Think carefully about this - what do you ACTUALLY want, as opposed to what might happen in reality?)

Encourage students to consider the following in the construction of their diary entry:

Formality of the content - given that this is a personal diary entry does it need to be formal?
Narration style - i.e. first person.
The date/time the entry was written.
Any personal reflections included - how will students reflect the character's personality/experiences?

Each student should write a diary entry for at least one of the following clips. The aim is to have at least one diary entry for each of the clips and the class will collaboratively construct a linear narrative for both Haley and Chris.

Haley:

THE OASIS - Haley - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLWh8cXC1tA)

The clip could be broken up into the following sections:

0:00-1:45
1:46-3:50
3:51-5:10
5:11-6:00
6:01-8:20
8:21-10:37

Chris:

THE OASIS - Chris (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCd03JHmFKY)

The clip could be broken up into the following sections:

0:00-0:41
0:42-1:40
1:41-3:53

Step 3.

Once students have drafted the diary entries they should engage in peer-to-peer assessment. Ask students to sit in small sharing circles and review each other's written drafts.

Students should be encouraged to positively critique their classmates’ drafts. This could be done by rotating student work around the circle for two minutes worth of feedback at a time, until the draft comes back to its owner. Remind students to provide kind, specific and helpful feedback to others. A list of assessment criteria could be established collaboratively and used by students to assess each other's work.

Step 4.

Establish the influence that place has upon a person and their life. Compare and contrast the experiences of Haley, who stays on the streets, and Chris, who is welcomed home. As a class, discuss: In relation to the PLACE that Haley and Chris found themselves in, what were the different outcomes in each young person’s life? What was it about the place that they were in that influenced those outcomes?

Note: There is a stark contrast between the situations of Chris and Haley as seen at the end of each character's clip - while Chris appears to be happy, safe and on the road to recovery, Haley's well being has declined steadily while she has remained living on the streets. While a number of different factors could be identified as influencing the situation of Chris and Haley respectively, it could be suggested that PLACE has a significant effect on the capacity of these two individuals to begin their journey to recovery from drug addiction.

Reflection/Homework

Students complete a final draft of their diary entry and extend as required. They submit their writing to be displayed as a linear narrative around the classroom.

Differentiated Learning

Extension: Students explore the concepts of humanisation and dehumanisation in how people are depicted by others. They apply their understanding of the concepts to their imaginative writing.

Provisional Learning Support: Students could take screen shots of separate parts of the focus scenes and annotate them in terms of what Haley and Chris would have experienced. They could also focus on what effect the place might have on them.

The Oasis - Building Empathy Through Creative Writing

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