Lesson plan:

This episode can be used to teach the way in which the classic narrative text operates because it depends heavily on audience involvement with the characters. This audience involvement is encouraged by particular textual features. Give students the worksheet and ask them to fill in the ways audience involvement is encouraged in Origins. Play the tape through pausing to identify and explain each of the examples in the worksheet.

Create a storyboard

Have students draw in storyboard form an example from the screen of an eye-line match, a point of view sequence and a shot-reverse shot sequence. Draw their notice to the way these techniques force the audience's attention on characters' faces and facial expressions and reactions.

A sample storyboard can be found in the Learn About section of our website. Follow these links: LearnAbout/Film_Production/LiveAction/Storyboard/Storyboard.htm

Analyse the role of music in film

In some sections the music reinforces the audience's identification with the characters. Play the scene in which Maggie asks her mother about flying to France. Listen carefully to the music. What associations and connotations does the music have?

Thematically the episode deals with adoption and children's right to know their real parents. This theme recurs in a number of the Australian Children's Television Foundation programs. Compare the treatment of the issue of adoption with its treatment in Princess Kate in our Touch the Sun series or On Loan from the Winners series.
Discussion prompts are:

• Does it matter whose one's birth parents are?
• Do children have a right to know details about their natural parents?
• What rights do natural parents have to privacy