Learning task 2
Motifs
Teacher Instruction: Write a definition of "Motif" on the whiteboard: "Theme that is repeated and developed in an artistic, musical or literary work."
View: Opening montage from the film, where Ada has her hands in front of her face. Look at what areas are dark and what areas are light. Brainstorm associations and ideas of white/light and black/dark on the whiteboard. Explain the one motif from the Piano is the contrast between darkness and light and the associations that we bring to them. Divide the class into 4-5 groups and give each group a copy of the
motifs (RTF 19KB)
.
Student Instruction: Assemble the pieces into some arrangement that makes sense. Once the pieces have been compiled, choose which four rows are the most thought provoking for them and write them down.
Motifs, Confinement and Fingers
Teacher Instruction: Copy the
confinement (RTF 31KB)
onto card and cut it up so that each sentence is on a separate piece of paper. Hand these out to the class one each or one between two. Instruct the students that there are two broad areas under which all of their notes will fit. The class must decide amongst themselves what these areas are and each student must be able to place their piece of information under the correct heading.
Close Viewing
Teacher Instruction: Divide the class into six mixed ability groups, and assign each of one particular area of the scene to look at. Each group must look at their particular area and develop a series of key points summarising the most important information. Groups can view the scene three times before beginning their notes. These are to be reported back to the rest of the class. Each group member must have a copy of the notes.
Reporting back
Student Instruction: Each group allocates a scribe to write the notes on the whiteboard for each of the other groups to copy down. Discuss findings.
Other Eyes: A Post Colonial View of the Piano
Define Post Colonialism. Discuss the idea of the impact of the colonial experience on New Zealand. Divide the class into four even groups and give each group one of the four handouts below:
dictation1 (RTF 6KB)
dictation2 (RTF 6KB)
dictation3 (RTF 6KB)
dictation4 (RTF 6KB)
dictation_teacher (RTF 6KB)
See Shared Dictation from ESOL Onlne.
When combined, these handouts form a set of notes. Start with the group who has the first word on the page. (In this case Group 2) Somebody reads this word, which is copied down by the whole class. This is followed by the group that has the second word, and so on. Once somebody has read a word, they must pass the page to the person beside them. This ensures that everyone keeps up with the notes and that the groups are not dominated by one or two people. It sounds chaotic, but it works well. (It is not until the end of the exercise that the class actually realises they have written an entire page of notes.)
