Pair work. Share your ideas on the following questions:

Transcription

1 A Passage to Africa Assessment Objective 2 (i) Read with insight and engagement, making appropriate reference to texts and developing and sustaining interpretations of them.

2 Background George Alagiah was born in Sri Lanka, but when he was five years old his family moved to live in West Africa. He now lives in the United kingdom and works as a newscaster for the BBC. This passage comes from his book A Passage to Africa. In this autobiography he writes about his life and experiences as a TV reporter working mainly in Africa. In this extract, he writes about a report he made when he was covering the civil war in Somalia for the BBC

3 Homework Find some information about George Alagiah. You can look for a profile on him at Try to find out something about the civil war in Somalia in the 1990s, which continues to this day WRITE words on each of these bullet points.

4 Pair work Share your ideas on the following questions: 1. Why do you think people watch news on television? Do you watch it? Why or why not? 2. Have you ever watched a news programme reporting a war on the humanitarian crisis, for instance a famine or an earthquake? What do you remember about it and the effect it had on you? 3. Does the TV reporting of terrible events (e.g. floods, famine) help the people who are suffering?

5 Group Task: Read through the text wearing your allocated COLOUR De Bono hat and be prepared to feed back your ideas in 15 minutes time.

6 Group work: De Bono s SIX Thinking Hats Group 1: White Hat (information and facts) Ask questions about the text that require factual answers. Find out dates, names, places or explore the social and historical context. Group 2: Red Hat (Feelings, emotions and intuition) Ask questions about the emotions of different character(s), or/and about how the text makes the reader feel. Group 3: Black Hat (Judgment or why something might not work) Think about any issues, or difficult situations that the characters face. Consider anything about the text that doesn t work for you. Group 4: Yellow Hat (Brightness and optimism) Ask about the good things in your text. Was it positive? Useful? Did you learn something from it? Group 5: Green Hat (Creativity, possibility and new ideas) What would happen if you retold the text? Turn it into something different a painting, a film, a dance... Group 6: Blue Hat (Managing the thinking process) Think about how the writer creates effects. What is it about the language being used that makes us think a certain way? Is the experience the same for everyone?

7 Understanding the text Purpose? To explain his role as a reporter, giving his thoughts and feelings about a particularly challenging incident. He is also trying to challenge us as readers, to make us think about our role.

8 Understanding the text...continued Read the text again and try to find answers to the following questions. Remember more than one point can be made to answer each question. Question What kinds of pictures and stories do the television news companies want? What do the television news companies not want to show or report? What do we learn about TV audiences from this passage? Answer and Evidence 1. Powerful images - the most striking pictures Yesterday s news old pictures are written off as the same old stuff

9 Understanding the text...continued The man s smile is the key to understanding the passage? What do YOU think it means?

10 Understanding the text...continued Look at the list of statements about the smile and then find a quotation to illustrate each one. Then put into YOUR OWN WORDS what you think the importance of the smile is. It reverses roles It affects the writer very powerfully It stimulates actions It asks questions

11 Understanding the text...continued CONTRADICTIONS What happens in the passage is often puzzling because of the contradictions. For instance, a smile is usually a sign of happiness, but not here. Can you find any other examples of things which seem to be the opposite of what they should be?

12 What can you say about LANGUAGE? In this passage George Alagiah is writing both as a journalist and about being a journalist. He describes what he saw in a vivid way but at the same time he gives the reader an insight into the world of reporting where journalists compete with each other to get the highest ratings.

13 What can you say about language...continued Complete the following table to think about the differing uses and kinds of language in the passage. Language Style Emotive words are used to convey the world of the victims. Words give you a vivid image of the world of the television journalist. Sentence structure is varied to engage the reader. Example 1. Adjectives emphasise their poverty e.g. hungry, lean, scared They are like predators e.g. on the hunt Incomplete sentences are used for effect, for instance: And then there was the face i will never forget