Voices of Chasing Asylum - Social Action - Year 11

Activity Introduction

Quick summary: Students reflect on what they have learnt from the Voices of Chasing Asylum lessons. Students understand the ways they can use language and communication for change and use these skills to develop projects that work towards changing attitudes and perceptions, or influence people to take action with respect to migration, refugee and asylum-seeking experiences and contributions. Students identify the actions they can take to promote greater understanding and compassion in the classroom, around the school and with the community.

CA-Title-Treatment-Reversal Chasing Asylum exposes the real impact of Australia’s offshore detention policies through the personal accounts of people seeking asylum and whistleblowers who tried to work within the system. To watch the documentary, stream it on Kanopy and Clickview or purchase the DVD at the ATOM Education Shop.

Learning intentions:

Students will recognise the range of issues relevant to those seeking asylum, particularly in Australia.
Students will recognise that human rights and social justice are core in issues relating to seeking asylum.
Students will understand that there are many different ways to take action around this issue.
Students will identify ways to take action around this issue at their school or in their community.
Students will understand the processes and steps required for planning and executing a social action project.

21st Century Skills:

Australian Curriculum Mapping

This lesson concludes the Voices of Chasing Asylum – Year 11 English unit. It provides students with the opportunity to apply their knowledge to create a social action project or awareness raising campaign around an issue they connected with through the unit. As a result, this lesson can be integrated into a number of subject areas, as the focus is on developing the General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum and 21st century skills.

General capabilities: Literacy, Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability, Ethical Understanding, ICT Capability.

Cross-curriculum priority:

Topic: Social Issues.

Unit of work: Voices of Chasing Asylum – access the unit overview here.

Time needed: This lesson could take between three and six sessions. Time should be determined prior to commencing the lesson so that students have a clear expectation of the deadline in which to complete their project.

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – oversee project planning and project execution.

Resources required: Student Worksheet – one copy per student OR computers/tablets to access the online worksheet. Project Planning Tool, Project Checklist. Butcher’s paper and textas, Online Stopwatch. List of Challenges, List of Suggestions. Roles in groups.

Digital technology opportunities: Digital sharing capabilities.

Keywords: Asylum seeker, refugee, social action, school, community, Chasing Asylum.

Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum.

Worksheets

Teacher Worksheet

Teacher preparation

Overarching learning goal: Students reflect on their learning throughout the Voices of Chasing Asylum unit. Students understand the ways they can share what they have learnt about migration, refugee and asylum-seeking experiences and contributions with the school and wider community. Students identify and carry out actions to promote greater empathy and compassion in the classroom, around the school and with the community.

Teacher content information: All over the world, the issue of people seeking asylum and border protection is heavily politicised one. Across a range of contemporary and historical media texts, a wide spectrum of perspectives and voices exist. Australia has a long history of migration resulting in a nation of diverse ethnicities and cultural and religious backgrounds. The reasons for movement of people are equally varied, including work and employment opportunities, family connections and the effects of war or conflict and persecution.

As confli

...

- or - to view worksheets

Student Worksheet

Project Planning Tool

Project team:

Proposed date:

Project title:

Location of project:

Type of project:

types of projects

	People responsible	Date to be completed	Completed? (Write 'YES' when completed)
Project description: (What are you going to do?)
Why is this project important to you?
Aims of the project: (What do you hope to achieve? What might you change?)
Who might benefit from the project? How? (Your school? Your local community? Will the beneficiaries be local or global?)
What response might you receive from your target audience?
Background research: (What examples of a similar project can you find?)
What resources might you need? (What are the costs? How much time will you need? What other things might you need to run this project?)
What approval or

...

- or - to view worksheets

Activity: Voices of Chasing Asylum – Social Action – Year 11