Menonton Wayang Kulit - Watching Shadow Puppets
I combined the topics;
- personality descriptions
- body descriptions
- everything they learned from Term 1 - 3!
- storytelling conventions, e.g. "pada suatu hari" (once upon a time..)
- traditional culture!
Then the final task would be to create a wayang kulit show re-telling a Dreaming story. I thought it was awesome; intercultural learning, Aboriginal Torres Islander cultures explored, and also talking about values such as care for environment, etc. Cross curricular priorities nailed!
I was so excited to try it out with the Year 7s.
But sometimes what seems great it our teacher minds, can be an utter fail in real life.
The Year 7s loved the first half where we described monsters and characters, explored folk stories in English, but my final assessment was a bit of a disaster as the students have just been struggling through it.
Despite the enormous scaffolding provided to the students, it was hard for them to simplify the storylines to something achievable. Partly because this is a particular weak cohort, and also the higher order thinking was beyond the scope of most of these students.
On the other hand, my high ability students really enjoyed and actually developed solid skills in translation. They were getting the hang of it by the end, and felt challenged enough.