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Resources :
Videos: The
Nirandathal Beast, ep 6 vol 8
Round the Twist 3, ACTF
Toy Love, ep
9 vol 8 Round the Twist 3, ACTF
Photos: photographs (from magazines,
newspapers, picture sets, etc.) of people who may be different to
them in some way - for example, a young, female student from an
Anglo-Saxon background may be given a photograph of an indigenous
male adult.
The other lessons in the set are:
1. What happens? Analysing
a television program
3. Mob mentality?
Each lesson stands alone but if used as a set they should be presented
sequentially.
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Lesson plan:
1. Tuning in
View the video, The Nirandathal Beast
2. Explore
similarities and differences
In pairs
The reaction of the towns-folk to the Nirandathal Beast demonstrates their
fear of difference. Provide students with the photos you collected.
Students work in pairs to discuss the similarities they find and to suggest
ideas to each other.
Class discussion
Students share their responses to the photos with the whole class.
Ask students:
- Who were you most comfortable identifying with?
- Who were you least comfortable identifying with? Why?
- What does this tell us about the way we see ourselves and others?
- Where do you feel most like yourself?
- Where do you feel you belong?
- Where do you feel out of place?
During this episode, Bronson is made to feel like an outsider.
He is forced to hide from others and fears for his safety. While there
is humour in the episode, it deals with a very real issue - learning to
live with difference.
Ask students to consider the way Bronson is treated
by the townsfolk
Can they think of everyday situations where people are treated poorly
because they are different?
Role play
Use this role-play to make connections between the themes in the episode
and your students' lives.
A new student has just come to your school. They come from another
place and do not speak the same language as most of the students and have
a different appearance. In the playground, they are being teased about
being different, for example, their lunch is laughed at for smelling strange
and no one will invite them to join in their games.
Assign a number 1-5 to each student in the class.
The numbers correspond with these roles:
1. the new student
2. a teasing student
3. a student who wants to become friends
4. a teacher
5. a parent.
Students with like roles meet in small groups
and discuss these questions:
- What would your character be feeling?
- What would your character be thinking?
- How would your character be acting?
- What would your character be saying?
Students then meet together in groups that include one of each character.
Each group spends two minutes expressing their views from the perspective
of the character (ie planning their role play). Once each group has finished,
choose one or two groups to present their role-play.
3. Research monsters
Investigation
Ask students to investigate 'real life' situations where there have been
sightings of strange 'beasts' or animals thought to be extinct, for example,
the Loch Ness Monster; the Yeti; and the Tasmanian Tiger.
Ask them to research information about these situations and draw parallels
with The Nirandathal Beast episode.
Creative writing
Ask students to create their own story, focussing on the discovery of
an unknown creature in the local area. The story can be developed as a
script, newspaper article or straight narrative.
4. Literature exploration
Explore literature that uses an allegorical style to address issues of
prejudice and identity. Some examples include:
- Tusk Tusk by David McKee, Random
House, 1978
- The Rabbits by John Marsden, 1998
- Moose by Brian Foreman, 1973
5. Examine the rules
Class discussion
As a class, examine your school's or classroom's discipline and welfare
policy to see what procedures are in place to manage the problem of unfair
treatment. If there isn't one consider the various types of unfair treatment
that can occur and what kinds of processes might be implemented.
These suggestions could be presented to the school council/board and
added to the current policy.
6. Developing visual literacy skills
6.1 Character development
Individually or in pairs
The barber plays an important role in this story.
Ask the students to analyse the way his character is developed.
- What qualities does he have as a person?
- How is this demonstrated through dialogue, body language, clothing,
and attitude/disposition?
- What kind of instructions might have been given to the actor playing
the barber.
- What might the actor have to have needed to learn to play his part?
- As an audience how do you feel about the barber?
- Why do you feel this way?
- How does the barber, and the scenes in which he is involved, contribute
to the humour in the story?
6.2 Use of montage
Several short scenes involving different people and different places
are viewed back to back. The scenes 'cut' quickly from one to another.
A good example of this technique can be found in the scene where Bronson
discovers that his beard has grown back for the second time. This follows
the scene where the frightened woman says 'It
was an awful, hideous thing, covered with hair, but walking like a human
being. It was horrible. Horrible.'
View the video
Watch the montage of scenes following the frightened woman scene - ending
with Tony reading the paper and Bronson coming downstairs with his beard
in a bag.
Class discussion
Ask students to identify the six short scenes in this montage and consider
the effect of this technique on the viewer:
- Why is there no dialogue?
- What do we find out from the montage?
- What has been communicated in these six short scenes?
- How do the actors and directors of the episode create this montage?
- How is it put together?
- What do we assume from the montage?
- What is not shown?
Compare with written text
Now ask your students to consider how the same sequence would be communicated
in written text. How are these two text forms different?
Individual work
Ask students to come up with ideas for a simple, dialogue-free montage
to communicate a sequence of events. These can be drawn in 'storyboard'
form.
6.3 Creating a mood
As with all episodes of Round the Twist, The
Nirandathal Beast relies heavily on references to known film genre and
techniques.
View the video
View the scene where Bronson is creeping through the streets at night,
pursued by people with spotlights, hunters in 4WDs, etc.
Class discussion
Ask students to analyse the mood created in this scene and the use of
lighting, in particular, to create that mood.
What techniques do filmmakers use to create: mystery, suspense, tension,
fear? Brainstorm techniques used in this episode.
Compare the techniques with the use of camera angles and close ups in
Toy Love, ep 9, vol
8, Round the Twist 3, ACTF.
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