Unpacking Stories of Homelessness

The film is available on ClickView (clickview.net/au/videos/80775107). ClickView is home to curated curriculum-aligned videos for every learning level, subject and topic - making it easy for teachers to find the perfect video in seconds. If your school does not have a ClickView account, you can still access the film using your school email address to access the free 30-day trial.

This lesson is designed to build students’ competencies in the following skills:

• critical thinking
• empathy
• reflection

Australian Curriculum (v9.0) content description: 

Year 9 English

• Analyse how representations of people, places, events and concepts reflect contexts (AC9E9LY01)

Year 10 English

• Analyse and evaluate how people, places, events and concepts are represented in texts and reflect contexts (AC9E10LY01)
• Analyse and evaluate how authors organise ideas in texts to achieve a purpose (AC9E10LY04)

Relevant parts of Year 9 and 10 achievement standards: Students read, view and comprehend a range of texts created to inform, influence and engage audiences. They analyse and evaluate representations of people, places, events and concepts, how texts respond to contexts, and how interpretations of these may be influenced by readers and viewers. They analyse the effects of text structures, and language features including literary devices, intertextual references and connections, and multimodal features, and their contribution to the aesthetic qualities of texts.

NSW Syllabus outcomes: EN5-RVL-01, EN5-URB-01

General capabilities: Critical and Creative Thinking, Ethical Understanding, Literacy, Personal and Social Capability 

Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium - teachers require the ability and confidence to safely facilitate classroom discussion about key issues associated with homelessness.

UN SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

• Target 1.4: By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance.

• Clips of the film Some Happy Day
• Student worksheet from Lesson 1
• Student worksheet for this lesson
• Writing materials

Soup Kitchen Productions creates social-impact films. We tell stories that inspire change to create a better world. Our film Some Happy Day is the story of Tina, a homeless woman in desperate search of a better life who meets Frances, a social worker with troubles of her own. Director Catherine Hill has worked with street homeless people for over two decades and it was their stories that inspired this film. We all know about homelessness, but we need to humanise it. When we empathise we connect deeply, we invest, we act. Find out more about our film and what you can do to address homelessness here: https://www.somehappydayfilm.com/

You are invited to take part in Soup Kitchen Production’s study.

Soup Kitchen Productions have teamed up with Cool.org, Screenkind and Lonergan Research to conduct a study measuring the effectiveness of these lesson plans and the movie Some Happy Day on changing students’ attitudes and behaviours towards homelessness.

We are interested to hear the thoughts of students who complete the lessons about their attitudes and behaviours towards homelessness, as well as your feedback about the lesson plans and their effectiveness. If you are an English teacher with a Year 9 and/or Year 10 class and would like to take part (or know someone who does), please contact us at shd@lonergan.team for more information, including research materials (student and teacher questionnaires).

How to Teach Critical Thinking – Secondary 

Quick Summary: This course will help you to view the world with a more critical eye by introspectively exploring your own biases of thinking.

Exploring General Capabilities: Ethical Understanding

Quick Summary: This course offers approaches to teaching ethical understanding, including applying ethical principles, developing and applying values criteria, and reflecting on ethical understanding.