War and conflict
This Daily Mail article [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247157/How-survivors-Auschwitz-escaped-nightmare-faced-unimaginable-ordeal.html] describes the ordeal of prisoners freed from Auschwitz, a German WW II death camp.
Andersen, Laurie. Impossible Knife of Memory. Like, Go back to where you came from, this is a case of a character choosing to find out about a particular issue, but actually finding out about herself. When Hayley returns to her hometown for her senior year after years of travelling with her father, an ex-solider suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, she discovers some disturbing memories of her own. As always in Andersen's books, pay close attention to the ways the author represents the characters' voices. Her writing is often deceptively simple. Treat it like poetry and look for all the usual literary techniques, as well as the way she uses simple and complex sentences to control pace and tension.
Websites
Goldie Dahdal New Media. Long Journey. http://www.abc.net.au/longjourney/index_flash.html.This website collates the experiences of refugee children through short videos organised in four stages: homeland conflict, the journey, detention, and on reflection. Discuss the graphics, structure and layout (including symbolism of colours and barbed wire) as well as the language used by the children.The composers had a very specific audience in mind – who is it and how do the techniques represent belonging to this audience. This text is specially relevant to the study of Go back to where you come from.
Speeches
Bush, George . (2001). Axis of Evil. This speech is the original response to September 11 disaster. It presents a coherent argument for going to war against terrorists, but contains all the imagery used today to create racism and fear of “foreigners”, including the implication that people in Islamic countries need Americans to bring the values of freedom, education and prosperity. Very useful if your text has an "us and them" mentality. It would work very well with Go back to where you came from but would also stand up to more complex analysis of the speech as political propaganda from a postcolonial perspective.
Films
Herman, Mark. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. A chilling portrayal of the power of society to define belonging, this film depicts the holocaust from the point of view of a young German boy who develops a friendship with a Jewish boy the other side of a barbed wire fence (Auschwitz). Discuss the way the soundtrack (detailed analysis available at http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/boy_striped.html), lighting and camera angles frame the innocence of the protagonists. http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=50113 has an interview with the director and http://www.scribd.com/doc/17366679/Boy-in-Striped-Pyjamas-film-viewing-worksheets has a viewing guide.
Novels
Hill, Anthony. Soldier Boy. This biography begins with Jim Martin’s death at Gallipoli, aged 14. Even though the ending comes first in this story, tension is built through the Jim’s changing relationships with his family and with his soldier mates. Describe the impact of the ‘flash-forward’ at the beginning and the historical documents included in the text, as well as the emotive language that develops the theme of discovery. Recommended for standard students.
Higgins, Simon. Thunderfish. After her father dies, heiress Kira hides from the media on a world cruise. Along the way she encounters a brutal attack on a refugee ship, and decides to do something about it. She buys a submarine and attacks the boats that prey on vulnerable craft, and discover a renewed purpose in her new ‘job’. Focus on the structural device of celebrity newspaper clippings about Kira and her real life as a vigilante as well as the many literary allusions to “40, 000 leagues under the sea”.
Marsden, John Tomorrow when the War Began. A group of teens return from the Easter camping trip in a hidden valley to discover their town (and all of Australia) has been invaded by a military force. Analyse the way this crisis creates tensions and connections between different members of the group, and pay particular attention to Ellie’s first person narrative voice and the way the landscape defines them when they discover unexpected courage and tenacity as they develop into a group of skilled guerrilla warriors. Pay special attention to tropes and metaphors such as the ironic use of “Hell” as a place of safety.
Serrailier, Ian. The Silver Sword. Set in Poland during WWII, this children’s classic traces the adventures of a family torn apart when the father is imprisoned for turning over the photos of Hilter on his class room wall. Examine the role of family and culture in defining a a space for discovery and analyse the descriptions of characters and places. Recommended for ESL and standard students – it goes very well with Go back to where you came from.
Rhue, Martin. The Wave. This quick read tells the true story of a history teacher who accidentally created a neo-Nazi club in his school as an experiment to show his class why people followed Hitler. A fantastic text highlighting the benefits and problems associated with a rediscovery of the past. Ask Ms Carmyn for a study guide which highlights the techniques in this novel. There is a film of this text, but it doesn’t have many techniques to talk about; the novel is much better.
Poems
Armitage, Simon. (2008). "Out of the Blue" online at Scottish Poetry Library [http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/out-blue-12]. This heart-wrenching poem commemoratesthe 5th anniversary of 9/11. Because it is told from the point of view of a man waving a shirt from high up in the building, it highlights the irony that the attention he is attracting cannot save him because it is the attention of TV viewers far from the site. This poem allows you to discover the power of the media representation of an event, as well as the powerlessness of media/viewers to change a situation - or, from an alternative perspective, the ruthlessness of media's quest for a story that will "sell". Focus on the first person narrator, the endless rhetorical questions and use of the present particle (-ing verbs) and gerund (-ing nouns) to put you inside the narrator's mind. An analysis of this poem can be found at BBC Bitesize [http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetryconflict/outoftheblue1.shtml]
cummings e e. "next to of course god america" online at The Poetry Archive [http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/next-course-god-america. This satirical poem uses unconventional punctuation and simple language to carry a serious antiwar message. Nationaist Us cliche's are juxtaposed against grasphic descriptions of the "heroic dead", enabling readers to discover the need for a pacificst political stance.
Hughs, Ted "Hawk Roosting" online at the beckoning [http://www.thebeckoning.com/poetry/hughes/hughes2.html] describes the bloody observations of a hawk as he contemplates his life of destruction and power. Read literally, it could be contrasted with an interpretation of the tiger's role in Life of Pi (who is who?). It could also be used to unpack the way the dictators use power and aggression to control how others live and feel, allowing you to make similar social discoveries to the narrator of The Morocycle Diaries. An analysis of the poem (not of discovery though) can be found at BBC Bitesize [http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetryconflict/hawkroosting1.shtml].
Homer. (). The Illiad []
Journal articles De Soyza, Niromi, (2011). “I was trained to kill at 16” in Marie Claire, April 2011. (Belonging folder at 820.9) This is the author’s story of why she joined and later left the Tamil Tigers, a resistance group fighting the Sri Lankan government to establish their own independent country. Discuss the sensual imagery of the hook and the chronological structure of the rest of the article, focusing on how living in a state of civil war made her try to discover a new identifity as a “soldier”, and the discoveries she later made about this decision. Identify some of the powerful emotive vocabulary (eg “betray”) This text would work very well with Motorcycle Diaries because it illustrates one response to the discovery of inequality around the main character.
Non fiction - documentaries Once my mother