Start at the very beginning
If I was to choose a teaching and curriculum area, I would choose English – English as an Additional Language. Before I would begin resourcing the topic, I would meet with the Head of English and the classroom teacher to discuss the unit of work, the scope of learning, the intending learning experiences and the outcomes of the unit.
The curriculum topic ties into Unit 1: Language, text and culture and students will be studying the film Mabo by Australian director Rachel Perkins and also looking at a non-literary text, Eddie Mabo Changes History, which appeared in Time magazine. Students will be studying the representation of Australia prior to Native Title, and the concepts of disempowerment, persistence and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey.
I think I would need to provide a range of teaching resources, including resources to help contextualise the film and background into Eddie Mabo’s life. Students are from Hong Kong and would have no previous knowledge or understanding of who Eddie Mabo was and the significant contribution he made when the High Court announced its historic decision, overturning legal doctrine of terra nullius and implementing Native Title.
The resources I would provide would include:
- The documentary ‘First Australians’ and its companion, a beautiful hard back book
- Clickview (documentary) and library for physical resource
- The film ‘Mabo’ (made available on Clickview – link can be made available on LMS Moodle)
- A list of different articles for students to locate and access on online database, such as EBSCO host Australia and New Zealand Reference Centre.
- A collection of books from the physical collection on Native Title, Early settlement in Australia and Local Indigenous figures.