Learners in Year 8 had a dramatic start to their new unit. Together they read and listened to a short story: A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury. The story was set in the future where time travel was possible and people could pay to go on a safari to kill a dinosaur. The story focused on how an event that may have appeared trivial and inconsequential in the past, turned out to have major repercussions in the future.
Learners were then asked to create their own drama inspired by the events of the story. They worked together in groups to create and perform 5 scenes to tell a story of them going back in time and the unfolding consequences of their actions. The ideas behind their scenarios really showed they had understood what the author had been trying to convey through his short story.
After their enthusiastic performances, the learners reflected on what they thought were the messages of the story and of their own dramas. This led them to consider what they thought the Big Idea was. Several groups got it almost spot on:
Every individual thing affects and is affected by other things.
They then wrote in their journals answering a choice if questions, such as “If you could go back in time to change something that happened to you, would you change it?” or “What things have happened to you recently, or in the past, that you think affect you now each day?”
Learners were then asked to create their own drama inspired by the events of the story. They worked together in groups to create and perform 5 scenes to tell a story of them going back in time and the unfolding consequences of their actions. The ideas behind their scenarios really showed they had understood what the author had been trying to convey through his short story.
After their enthusiastic performances, the learners reflected on what they thought were the messages of the story and of their own dramas. This led them to consider what they thought the Big Idea was. Several groups got it almost spot on:
Every individual thing affects and is affected by other things.
They then wrote in their journals answering a choice if questions, such as “If you could go back in time to change something that happened to you, would you change it?” or “What things have happened to you recently, or in the past, that you think affect you now each day?”