|
Resources:
Video: Dead
Ducks Sky Trackers ACTF
See Education
Catalogue for video purchasing details and order form.
|
Lesson plan:
View Dead Ducks
then analyse the narrative devices used
This episode features what is known as a back story - narrative which
precedes the time frame of the episode and is reconstructed by the audience
from clues in the text. In this episode the back story is of a bushranger
called "The Sundowner". Ask
students to make a complete a table listing everything they learn about
The Sundowner and the source of the information.
For example,
|
What I learned about The Sundowner |
The source of my information |
| the life of the bushranger |
Nikki |
| the location of the bushranger's cave |
the antique dealer |
| the fact the cave is now underwater |
remote sensing information and Mike's deductions |
| the exact location of the cave |
the computer image of the pattern of algae growth/Nikki. |
| |
|
| |
|
The information about The Sundowner
could have been given in different ways. Ask students to suggest other
narrative devices which could have been used for the same effect eg:
- a story in a social
studies book,
- a discovered treasure
map,
- an old timer who
told the children the legend,
- a flashback in which the audience saw The
Sundowner.
The most visual device
would have been a flashback although flashbacks usually seem a little
contrived. Discuss the places in the narrative where a flashback could
have been inserted and the ways that it might be approached.
This episode uses
a search as its central motif. This is a common plot device because it
creates a forward movement in the plot development. In this episode the
motif is highly structured and moves in a linear fashion. Students could
map the search motif/process for themselves or using the outline below
as a guide they could fill in the appropriate events in the right hand
column.
| evidence of a mystery |
gold in the duck's intestines |
| gathering the clues |
historical sources - antique dealer
scientific sources - remote sensing devices |
| reasoning |
Mike reasons the cave is underwater
Nikki reasons the location from the computer data |
| the search |
diving to find the cave |
| the blockage |
Bruce and his gang attack |
| the reward |
children sell the antique bottles for cash |
Discuss the cause
and effect links between each event that moves the plot forward and towards
its resolution.
Explore reasoning techniques
Explain the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning.
Inductive reasoning is based on experience. For example: I know the dog
will bite me if I hit him because every time in the past when I have hit
him he has bitten me.
Deductive reasoning
is based on a logical outcome from the premise. For example:
If all Rottweilers bite then this dog will bite me because it is a Rottweiler.
Discuss these and other examples of deductive and inductive reasoning
and then apply the categories to the reasoning used in Dead
Ducks.
|
