The Desperate Journey
Overview
Alison Cassidy currently teaches the Primary 6 class at St Margaret’s Primary School in Cowie, which lies within Stirling Local Authority. She was looking for an innovative way to work with her class to cover some of the Social Studies and Literacy Curriculum for Excellence outcomes and decided to use Glow to support the work that the class was doing on “The Desperate Journey”.
Context
Alison was new to Glow and was initially unsure whether it could add to the ideas she already had when planning how to work with the children on their term’s history topic of The Highland Clearances. However, after some discussion with her Local Authority Glow Key Contact, she decided to create a Glow Group to enable the children to discuss their learning. Soon though, the Group became an integral part of the work that the class was doing and grew beyond Alison’s initial expectations!
As the history topic was on the Highland Clearances, Alison had decided to integrate this with some work on literacy, by reading “The Desperate Journey” by Kathleen Fidler. The book describes how the Murray Family is affected when they are driven out of their Highland home and have to make their way to Glasgow before eventually being given the chance of starting a new life in Canada.
By doing this work, Alison was looking, in varying degrees, to address the following Curriculum for Excellence Social Studies outcomes for ‘People, Past Events and Societies’:
SOC 2-03a I can investigate a Scottish historical theme to discover how past events or the actions of individuals or groups have shaped Scottish society.
SOC 2-04a I can compare and contrast a society in the past with my own and contribute to a discussion of the similarities and differences.
SOC 2-06a I can discuss why people and events from a particular time in the past were important, placing them within a historical sequence.
SOC 2-14a To extend my mental map and sense of place, I can interpret information from different types of maps and am beginning to locate key features within Scotland, UK, Europe or the wider world.
As well as contributing to the Social Studies outcomes, Alison was also able to embed the following literacy outcomes into the learning:
Listening and Talking
Lit 2-02a When I engage with others, I can respond in ways appropriate to my role, show that I value others’ contributions and use these to build on thinking.
Lit 2-04a As I listen or watch, I can identify and discuss the purpose, main ideas and supporting detail contained within the text, and use this information for different purposes.
Reading
Lit 2-16a To show my understanding across different areas of learning, I can identify and consider the purpose and main ideas of a text and use supporting detail.
Writing
Lit 2-20a I enjoy creating texts of my choice and I regularly select subject, purpose, format and resources to suit the needs of my audience.
Lit 2-23a Throughout the writing process, I can check that my writing makes sense and meets its purpose.
Lit 2-28a I can convey information, describe events, explain processes or combine ideas in different ways.
Lit 2-29a I can persuade, argue, explore issues or express an opinion using relevant supporting detail and/or evidence.
How did the Desperate Journey come to life for P6?
In order to bring the book to life for the children, Alison split up the class into ‘families’, living in the fictitious ‘Invercoe’. They were then, over the days and weeks, made to ‘live’ the experiences of the Murray Family in the book. Amongst other activities, the class experienced the following:
The Burning Party and Eviction
Alison arranged for a visitor come in and hold a ‘burning party’ (without real fire of course!) to clear the families from their homes. The pupils had to literally remove themselves from the classroom with all their possessions, to experience the reality of the evictions. This was very traumatic for some pupils who felt personally aggrieved at being evicted! Photos of this were posted in a Picture Library in the Glow Group, as well as on the classroom wall.
Emigrating
To simulate the process of applying for emigration, Alison arranged a Glow Meet session with the ‘Shipping Agent’ (Alison’s father dressed up!). Each ‘family’ of pupils had to sit in front of the web cam and be interviewed by the Agent to justify why they should be considered for emigration, arguing their case by citing their personal qualities and work skills. The pupils said that they found this a very nerve-racking experience, indicating that it enabled them to really empathise with the characters in the book, as well as having a deeper understanding of the lives of those involved in the Highland Clearances. The Glow Meet session was recorded and the pupils were able to watch this back, enabling them to see and discuss each ‘Family’s’ interview.
Scottish Cultural Heritage – Spinning
Alison covered other cultural elements to the pupils’ experiences, by inviting a local lady in to show the pupils how to use a spinning wheel. This was a lovely way for pupils to learn more about their Scottish heritage and certainly added much enjoyment.
Throughout all of the work on the Desperate Journey, Alison was able to integrate many elements of literacy.
For example, in character as their family member (Mother, Father, Daughter, Son, Grandmother, etc) each pupil kept a daily diary, writing about the experiences their family was having throughout the clearance process. This provided a rich source for imaginative writing. They additionally wrote sense poetry about living in the Highlands and produced some amazingly evocative poems.
Pupils also had to write a piece about themselves (their character self) for their family biography, which then formed a book containing details of every character within the class.
All of the writing was uploaded into document libraries within Glow.
Pupils also held debates within their ‘families’ about whether to move to the city or the coast and whether to emigrate or not – and if so, where to. This challenged and improved their talking and listening skills – as well as their geography!
They also made excellent use of the Discussion Board within their Glow Group to talk about their family’s plight and discuss how they should react to it. All posts were recorded showing their character name, as the Local Authority had given temporary permission for the pupils’ display names to be changed for this exercise. This made the posts seem more real, as pupils really got into character when posting! Alison was able to address punctuation and grammar within the discussion posts, highlighting where capital letters had been missed, or full stops omitted. She was also able to teach pupils about audience awareness and talk about whether it would be appropriate to use ‘text speak’ in posts, which pupils naturally tended towards.
In this cookbook we will look at
• The Desperate Journey Glow Group
• How to add and edit pages in a Glow Group
• How to add pictures in a table to the Text Editor web part
• How to create multiple discussion boards
• How to add and set up a Glow Meet
• How to join a Glow Meet
Ingredients
What did Alison Cassidy need to do to add the content to her Glow Group and enable the pupils to discuss their character’s plight?
• Create a Glow Group at school level
• Add all the P6 pupils in her class as members of the Group
• Create additional pages
• Create multiple discussion boards
• Use text editor to upload images
• Add Glow Meet to the Group.
In the next section, we will have a look at the Desperate Journey Glow Group, then find out how to replicate some of the elements within it.
The Desperate Journey Glow Group (5:40)
How to add and edit pages (3:08)
How to create new discussion boards (7:02)
How to use the Text Editor web part to upload an image (8:49)
How to set up a Glow Meet (5:36)
How to join and take part in a Glow Meet session (3:38)
Impact
The entire Desperate Journey project had a tremendous impact on pupils’ learning. This was much enhanced by the use of Glow. Pupils were able to access the Glow Group from home, which enabled their parents to see the activities their child had been engaging with and assist them when they were continuing their learning in the evenings by posting to the Discussion Boards. Hear Alison and some of her pupils talk about their Desperate Journey in the following video clips.
Teacher Interview Part 1 (0:58)
Teacher Interview Part 2 (1:34)
Teacher Interview Part 3 (1:33)
Pupils Part 1 – What is the Desperate Journey about? (1:11)
Pupils Part 2 – Activities we took part in (0:39)
Pupils Part 3 – Getting into character (0:47)
Pupils Part 4 – Using the Discussion Boards (1:03)
Pupils Part 5 – Glow Meet with the shipping agent (0:35)
Pupils Part 6 – Home use (0:30)
January 9, 2011 - 1:53 pm
I am about to start “The Desperate Journey” with my class. I have used the book before with good results, but was looking for some fresh ideas. This has certainly given me plenty of those, and has made me look at how I might use Glow to bring this topic to life.