This learning module for year 3 and 4 students focuses on intercultural understanding and citizenship through a study of the picture book, 'Lin Yi's Lantern'. Students redesign the book as a drama that they act out, transferring the narrative from the written and visual modes into the spatial and gestural modes.
Intercultural Understanding, Drama, Gestural, Spatial, Audio, Studies of Asia.
Australian Curriculum
English
Year 3: Draw connections between personal experiences and the worlds of texts, and share responses with others (ACELT1596)
Year 4: Discuss literary experiences with others, sharing responses and expressing a point of view (ACELT1603)
Civics and Citizenship
Years 3 and 4
Reflect on their cultural identity and how it might be similar and different from others (ACHCS010) and (ACHCS021)
Explore the diversity of the Australian population
Year 3: Why people participate within communities and how students can actively participate and contribute (ACHCK003)
Year 4: How a person’s identity can be shaped by the different cultural, religious and/or social groups to which they may belong (ACHCK014)
Years 3 and 4
Explore ideas and narrative structures through roles and situations and use empathy in their own improvisations and devised drama (ACADRM031)
Use voice, body, movement and language to sustain role and relationships and create dramatic action with a sense of time and place (ACADRM032)
Shape and perform dramatic action using narrative structures and tension in devised and scripted drama (ACADRM033)
Identify intended purposes and meaning of drama, using the elements of drama to make comparisons (ACADRR034)
Learning Intention: To draw on your prior knowledge to communicate ideas through mime.
Join with your partner and sit on the floor facing each other. We are going to do some mimes. Mimes communicate without words. Instead they use facial expressions and gestures.
1. Firstly , you are going to show facial expressions. You will both being doing these mimes at the same time; it's a bit like you are a mirror for each other. As you do them, look at your partner's face. You can learn from each other as you each show your facial expressions. Show that you are:
2. Now stand up and face each other. This time use facial expressions and gestures (hand and body movements) to communicate the same ideas.
Think-Pair-Share: Which one communicates the ideas best? Facial expressions or facial expressions plus gestures? Why?
3. Still standing and facing each other, communicate these ideas.
Now work in pairs with one person being the parent and one person being the child. Remember you can't use words in mime - only facial expressions and gestures.
Swap roles and repeat.
Think-Pair-Share: Was it hard to communicate those ideas when you don't have words? Words in plays and mimes are called dialogue. Do facial expressions and gestures help you to communicate?
Comment: Look at the image below and describe what the gestures and facial expressions communicate. Read other students' comments and comment on one that you agree with, explaining why. Start with @Name so they know that you are commenting on their comment.
Purpose: This update allows students to draw on their prior knowledge and experiences as they communicate ideas and emotions through mime.
If the students have not had much experience of mime, there is a range of mime activities at Mime Workshop for All Ages. These should precede the activities in this update which are designed as an introduction to the text, Lin Yi's Lantern by Brenda Williams.
This learning module initially focuses on making meaning of the text through drama activities. Students create mimes and dialogues of scenes from the text which are combined to create a dramatic performance of the text. This is followed by a study of cultural traditions, starting with China and drawing on the cultural traditions of students in the class. This culminates in the students creating their own short script based on valuing difference.
Learning Intention: To read and respond to the story, Lin Yi's Lantern through talk and mime,
Firstly, look at the cover of Lin Yi's Lantern by Brenda Williams and Benjamin Lacombe. In a Think-Pair-Share, predict what the story will be about.
Listen to the teacher read the story. Half way through, stop and discuss your predictions. Are they on the right track? You can make a new prediction to your partner if you like.
At the end, discuss your predictions. Were you right? What surprised you? Is it a good story? Why/why not?
Now with your partner, decide on your favourite part of the story. Together you will create a short mime about that part of the story. Plan it together first. Think about your facial expressions and gestures.
Then perform your mime to the class. See if they can guess what part of the story you are miming.
Comment: Comment on one mime that you thought was good. What made it good? What facial expressions and gestures did you observe? What did they communicate?
This update introduces the focus text to the students. Background
The text tells the story of a little boy living in China named Lin Yi whose mother sends him to the market to buy a list of items for their upcoming Moon Festival Celebration. His mother explains to him that he may purchase a red lantern (something he has always wanted) if he has enough money at the end.
Vocabulary
During and after the reading, discuss meanings, similar words, examples and non-examples. Some key vocabulary you may wish to highlight includes: bargain, reciting, trader, pounds, fragrant, lantern, resist. Encourage students to add words to a class word wall.
Learning Intention: To infer the deeper meaning of the story.
Let's read the story again.
In a Think-Pair-Share, discuss:
Let's look at some of the main ideas in the story by inferring. Inferring is when you look at what the text says on the surface - this is the literal level. Then you infer what the author is saying at a deeper level.
As a class we will compete the first two lines of the Inferences Chart. Then with a partner, you can add 5 more images that you can analyse at the literal and inferential levels. You can sketch the drawing in the first column of the box.
| Picture | What I see | What I infer |
 |
Lin Yi is remembering what is on the list (he is counting them on his fingers) and his mother is straightening his collar. | His mother's expression shows that she loves and trusts Li Yin; Li Yin intends to remember and buy everything on the list. |
|
Li Yin is looking at the rabbit lantern and the shopkeeper is telling him how much it is. | Li Yin's expression shows that he really wants the lantern and he is tempted to buy it. The size of the shopkeeper shows he is older and more powerful and maybe he can persuade Li Yin. |
Comment: Share some words to describe Li Yin. Keep adding words until you run out. Keep reading what other students add and try not to repeat any. You can look up a thesaurus to find more words too. We will have a long class list of words.
This update focuses on identifying the main themes of the text. It enables students to practise the reading strategy of inferring as well as scaffolding the update that follows.
As students complete the chart, work with pairs who might need help to infer. Promote further collaboration by pairs joining so a group of 4 compares and contrasts their inferences, adding more information to their charts.
Learning Intention: To understand the main ideas of the story through acting them out.
You and your partner will be allocated a scene of the story to act out.
First of all, create a freeze frame of the scene.
Create that scene.
Then add words. You can use the words from the story or make up your own based on the story.
Present your scenes to the class.
Comment: What was your favourite? What made it successful? Read other students' comments and comment on one that you agreed with. Explain why.
The purpose of this activity is to interpret the main ideas of the story through role plays. Ask students to identify the pages from the story as well as the main idea that they are acting out.
This activity will be repeated again after students have learned about dramatic structure and more about the gestural, audio and spatial modes.
The shopkeeper shows he is more powerful as he is taller and looking down while Li Yin is looking up. His hands on his hip also shows he is confident. Li Yin looks unsure - he is tempted to buy the lantern first.
Learning Intention: To understand how books and plays are the same and different.
1. Let's read the story again. We will stop at certain times so that you can complete the table to find out how narratives in stories and in plays are the same and different.
| Picture Books/Novels | Lin Yi's Lantern | Dramas/Plays |
|
Setting (time and place) |
Setting (time and place) The set with props on a stage |
|
| Characters | Characters/actors | |
| Event sequence with a problem or complication | Scenes with a problem or complication | |
| Event sequence has a resolution | A scene where there is a resolution | |
| Coda | Coda | |
| Language in sentences and paragraphs; can include speech/dialogue | Language in dialogue with stage directions (script) | |
| We read/listen to the story | Actors use facial expressions, gesture and voice to act out the story |
Add new words to our class Word Wall.
Now let's practise turning some speech from the picture book into a script.
Here is an excerpt from the picture book:
"Can I buy a red rabbit lantern for the moon festival - please?" begged Lin Yi.
"Well, that is up to you," said his mother. "I have no more money to spare but if you bargain well at the market you may have enough left for a red rabbit lantern."
This is what it would look like as a script:
Lin Yi (begging): Can I buy a red rabbit lantern for the moon festival - please?
Mother (calmly): Well, that is up to you. I have no more money to spare but if you bargain well at the market you may have enough left for a red rabbit lantern.
What did you notice? With your partner, find one more examples of speech and turn them into dialogue. Include stage directions.
Act it out.
Comment: Why are the stage directions important? How do they help the actors? Read other students' comments and comment on one that you agree with.
In this update, students compare and contrast narratives in books/novels with narratives in plays/dramas. In doing so they develop a metalanguage for describing terms uses in drama.
Complete the table as a class, with students using examples from Li Yin's Lantern to complete the centre column.
| Picture Books/Novels | Lin Yi's Lantern | Dramas/Plays/Performance |
| Setting (time and place) | The narrative is set in China at the time of the Moon Festival. It is in the past as the characters are wearing traditional Chinese clothing. |
Setting (time and place) The set with props on a stage |
| Characters | Lin Yi, mother, Uncle Hui, shopkeepers | Characters/actors |
| Event sequence with a problem or complication | Li Yin wants a rabbit lantern but he does not have enough money to buy it. | Scenes with a problem or complication |
| Event sequence has a resolution | Lin Yi cannot save enough money through bargaining to buy the rabbit lantern. however, his Uncle Hui surprises him by bring him one. | A scene where there is a resolution |
| Coda | You will be rewarded for being honest and doing the right thing. | Coda |
| Language in sentences and paragraphs; can include speech/dialogue |
"Can I buy a red rabbit lantern for the moon festival - please?" begged Lin Yi. "Well, that is up to you," said his mother. "I have no more money to spare but if you bargain well at the market you may have enough left for a red rabbit lantern." |
Language in dialogue with stage directions(script) |
| We read/listen to the story | (Students could draw a picture here) | Actors use facial expressions, gesture and voice to act out the story |
Teaching Tips
If necessary, you may have to revise the structure of narratives - orientation, complication, resolution, and coda. You could use a Story Frames Strategy:
Similar to story maps, story frames are visual representations that focus students' attention on the structure of a story and on how the content of the story fits its structure.Students use story frames as a way to activate their background knowledge of the elements of story structure and thus to organize and learn new information from a story. Simple story frames require students to provide basic information about the sequence of events in a story:
The problem/complication in the story is ______.
This is a problem because ______.
The problem is solved when ______.
In the end (resolution) ______.
More complex frames might involve having students supply more detailed information by summarizing sequences of actions or events, or providing factual information to explain problems or motivations.
The second part of this update focuses on transforming text into a script.
Learning Intention: To understand the effects of the gestural, spatial and audio modes.
In pairs, repeat mimes from initial update using gesture and facial expressions. Choose one from the list below. Present your mime to the class.
Present your mime to the class. We will analyse each mime after it has been presented and add information to a class chart.
| Group | Facial Expression/s | Effect/s | Gesture/s | Effect/s |
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Now work in pairs again and repeat your mime. This time you are going to add voice. Think about what you will say and how you will speak. Consider:
Also think about your staging: Consider:
| Group | Volume, Pitch, Tone, Rate | Effect/s | Staging | Effect/s |
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Comment: Describe something you learned about performing. Read other students' comments and comment on one that you agree with, explaining why.
In this update students deepen their understanding of the gestural, spatial and audio modes by analysing their effects in mimes and role plays. This will enable them to make deliberate choices in their own performances.
Students plan and present mimes and role plays. After each one is presented, the teacher analyses the effects on a whole class chart. Use Think-Pair-Shares for students to discuss ideas before adding them to the chart.
After a pair has performed, they could be asked to analyse the next pair of performers. That way everyone contributes to the analysis.
Background Notes on Voice
Pitch
To understand pitch, think of music. It has high and low notes as do people's voices. Everyone's voice has a natural pitch. Women's tend to be higher than men's, and everybody has a pitch range: the number of notes habitually used. When that range is very small, the effect is monotonous.
Tone
Tone refers to the emotional content carried by our voices. It is not the words themselves, but 'how' we say them. To speak expressively, is to fill or energize our words appropriately.
For example: a person who puts very little energy into their speech, no matter what they are saying, is often described as being 'flat'. By contrast someone who fills their speech to overflowing with energy is described as being 'exuberant' or 'enthusiastic'.
Volume
How loudly or quietly you speak is called volume. Some people are habitually loud and others quiet, regardless of their speech content.
Rate
The term 'rate' refers to speaking pace.
Learning Intention: To apply what you know about the gestural, audio and spatial modes to a performance.
As a class, we are going to perform the story of Lin Yi's Lantern.
Each pair will be allocated a page from the story. Your job is to write the script, decide on staging (where you will stand), props (keep them simple).
Rehearse your scene. Start with a freeze frame. Then think about your gestures, facial expressions, and how you will use your voice. End with a freeze frame.
Present your scene in the order of the story.
Comment: Write a self-evaluation of your performance. What elements of drama did you do well? What elements could you improve? Read other students' self-evaluations and comment on one that you liked.
Students apply what they have learned about multimodality - the gestural, audio and spatial modes - by presenting a scene from Li Yin's Lantern.
Allocate a scene to each pair of students. If necessary the same scene can be allocated to more than one pair.
Students perform their scenes, following the event sequence of the picture book.
Their comment provides an opportunity for metacognition about their performance.
Learning Intention: To understand kindness, tolerance, respect and honesty
1. View several sentences from the story, e.g. ‘He so wanted the lantern, but he also knew how much Uncle Hui loved peanuts…he turned firmly away from the lanterns and went to buy Uncle Hui’s peanuts’.
In cooperative groups, decide which ones are examples of kinds, respect and honesty demonstrated by the characters.
Be prepared to explain and justify your sort to the whole group.
To challenge yourself find examples in others stories and in the real world.
Look at the word "values". What do you think it means?
Discuss with a partner during a "Timed, Pair, Share" what values you think the characters in the story showed and why.
What do you think might happen when someone is intolerant of someone else? How do you think the other person might feel?
How do you think the characters in the story "Lin Yi's Lantern" displayed kindness, honesty, respect and tolerance.
2. Follow the instructions on YouTube to make your own chatterbox.
If you already know how to make one, you could help someone else once yours is finished.
After you have made your chatterbox, record the statements/questions below on the first inside section.
If Lin had purchased the Lantern before the items his mother required who would win/lose because of these actions?
What would the consequences have been? For Lin. For Mother. For Uncle Hui? What do you predict these characters would say to Lin Yi?
How would they feel? How would Lin Yi feel? Do you think it’s worth it for Lin Yi to purchase his red lantern? Why? Why not?
Record your own answers/thoughts to these statements underneath the flap in the next layer.
Walk around the classroom and use your chatter box to initiate discussions about the story with your peers.
Form groups of 3-4 students. Discuss some experiences you have had where you have shown honesty, kindness, tolerance and respect towards someone or someone has shown them to you. Write it or draw it. If you draw it, add some words to help the person looking at your work.
Come together as a whole group and nominate one spokesperson to share your art.
Comment: What was your favourite art? Give reasons for why you liked it.
Students respond to several what if statements and discussion questions.
First, this task requires students to make their own chatter box. Follow the link below for instructions on how to make a chatterbox.
After each student has made a chatter box, instruct them to record What if statements/discussion questions (see below) on the inside and their answers underneath.
Students may then wander around and chat with their peers, sharing their answers.
Write the word "values" on the board and ask what this means. Use SmartBoard to look up definition of word.
Have a class discussion about what values the characters showed in the story and record students ideas - Timed-Pair-Share.
Brainstorm with students why people might be intolerant of others and what this could lead to.
Learning Intention: To think about what makes you.
Think Pair Share: what factors influence and make up who people are? (e.g. where they live, their parents, cultural background, language, accent, religion, gender, clothing, education, opportunities, lifestyle etc).
Brainstorm what makes you? What things have influenced you identity - who you are?
Create a passport with a picture of yourself and draw/write about the factors that have shaped your identity.
Comment: How are we the same? How are we different?
The activity allows students to draw on their prior knowledge and experiences and share their ideas and understandings with others.
Learning Intention: To learn about celebrations of different cultures.
As a class discuss the purpose and significance of the Moon Festival in Lin Yi's Lantern.
Let's make a Chinese paper lantern like Lin Yi's.
In pairs brainstorm cultural traditions celebrated in Australia and any traditions you know that are celebrated in other countries.
Choose one celebration celebrated in Australia and compare using a Venn Diagram to the Chinese Moon festival.
Comment: Let's make a class list of all the celebrations from all over the world that you can think of. Keep adding celebrations until you run out of ideas. You can look up Wikipedia to find more. Try not to repeat what other students add.
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In this update students become active knowledge makers as they draw on their own knowledge and find new knowledge.
Learning Intention: To learn more about influences on the Australian way of life.
1. Watch the following short YouTube clips:
Multicultural Australia - Embrace (3.04)
A Quick Guide to Australia's Multiculturalism (2.17)
Australia - The Multicultural Country (2.04)
Think-Pair-Share: What did you learn about the people of Australia?
2. Look through magazines and newspapers and cut out pictures which show popular aspects of Australian life such as food, music, fashion, sports and art.
Where did they originate (you make have to look up Wikipedia)?
Label your "cut-outs" with their culture of origin.
Let's make a collage with all of our cut-outs.
Comment: How have different cultures contributed to the Australian way of life?
Watch and discuss videos or view websites on diversity in Australia.
The cut out activity comes from activities on prejudice from the Racism No Way website.
Learning Intention: To understand the experiences of migrant Australians.
Migration is when people often move from one place to another for a variety of reasons such as for work, education or for a different lifestyle.
A migrant or immigrant refers to a person who has come to live in a new place.
Think-Pair-Share: Who are some migrants that you know at this school or in our community. Are you or was your family immigrants? if so, which country did you come from?
We are going to have a guest speaker. In a group of three or four, make up a list of about five questions you would like to ask someone who has migrated to Australia or to our town. The questions should be open-ended questions that begin with: how, who, what, where, when and why.
Report back to the class the questions you have devised. let's record them on the whiteboard. Then as a class, we will choose the 10 most appropriate and interesting questions from the list.
Then, let's invite our guest speaker and interview him/her.
Comment: What did you learn in the presentation by the guest speaker. Read other students' comments and comment on any that you thought were interesting.
Introduce and define migrant/immigrant and the concept of migration to students explaining that people often move from one place to another for a variety of reasons such as for work, education or for a different lifestyle.
Divide students into groups of three or four. Ask them to devise a list of about five questions they would like to ask someone who has migrated to Australia or to their town in preparation for a guest speaker.
Invite a guest speaker - a parent or member of the community who is a migrant.
Learning Intention: To understand the values of tolerance, kindness, honest and respect.
1. Let's reflect again on Lin Yi's actions through Think-Pair-Shares.
2. Form groups and create Effect Wheels of what would happen if you show tolerance, kindness, honesty and respect to other people at home, in our class, in the playground, in the community?
Group 1: What are the effects of showing kindness?
Group 2: What are the effects of showing honesty?
Group 3: What are the effects of showing respect?
Group 4: What are the effects of showing tolerance?
Share your effect wheels with the class.
Comment: Share some ideas about what you could do to show kindness or respect or honesty or tolerance. Read other students' comments and comment on one that you think that you might try.
Students deepen their understanding of tolerance, kindness and respect, using Effects Wheels. With 4 different groups, you will have to double up on some.
This activity will scaffold the plays they create in the update that follows.
Learning Intention: To demonstrate what you have learned through a dramatic performance.
In your small group, create a short play that demonstrates an idea from Lin Yi's Lantern or what you have learned about diversity in Australia. It could be about kindness, tolerance, respect, doing the right thing, giving, receiving, or another idea that you think of.
Plan your performance by completing the storyboard. Sketch 4 scenes and add dialogue. Rehearse your play, planning gestures, facial expressions, voice and staging.
When you are ready, perform for your class
After watching each group, give them feedback on what they did well.
Comment: Write a self-evaluation of your performance. What was the coda of your performance. What elements of drama did you do well? What elements could you improve? Read other students' self-evaluations and comment on one that you liked.
Students apply what they have learned in the learning module through a short drama of 4 scenes. They can work in groups of 3-4 where they plan the 4 scenes and write the script below the scenes. They should rehearse their scripts before performance and complete personal evaluations of their own and others performances, identifying the coda/messe of their performance. These could be written or verbal.
Teaching Tip
You may like to create a T chart of what a good dramatic performance is in order to revise what students learned in the first part of this learning module.
The orignal version of this learning module was written by Marissa Owens, Lauren Hasler, and David Livingstone.
Title: (Source); Fig. 1: (Source); Fig. 2: (Source); Figs 3 and 4: (Source); Fig. 5: Stage (Source); Fig. 6: Red fist (Source); Fig. 7: Eggs (Source); Fig. 8: Chatterbox (Source); Fig. 9: Diversity (Source); Fig. 10: By Unknown - National Australia Day Council, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Source); Fig. 11: Rice (Source); Fig. 12: (Source); Fig. 13: (Source).