TEACHER’S
NOTES FOR THE BIG GAME
Prepared by Anne-Maree Liddelow
The Big Game, the second in the football trilogy by Wendy
Jenkins, is a fast moving and action packed novel suitable for the middle
schooling years. It will have special appeal for children interested in
sport stories, boys and reluctant readers. Within the classroom it
is useful vehicle for exploring the action-adventure narrative and sport
commentary language conventions. It may also be used to explore issues such
as:
The
Big Game is set in Western Australia where the two main characters are
dedicated Australian Rules football players. To assist students’ entry
into the novel’s setting teachers may wish to complete some initial
activities on this football code:
1.
Some suggested topics
for research for individuals or groups might be:
·
Great players, past and
present (provide them with names that appear in the book such as Bill Dempsey,
Craig Turley, Tony Lockett)
·
Australian Rules –
positions and rules for play
·
The history of the
Australian Football League.
·
Great goal kickers
– vital statistics and biographies
·
The Fremantle Dockers
·
The West Coast Eagles
2.
More challenging research
projects might ask students to consider finding the answer to the following:
·
How has Australian Rules
football changed since when your parents were children?
·
Should Australian Rules
football be considered a National sport?
·
Why is Australian Rules football
unpopular in other countries?
·
What are the differences
between the Fremantle Dockers and The West Coast Eagles?
·
Do football stars
deserve our admiration?
3.
Read/view/listen to a
range of commentaries and reports and develop a football glossary of terms and
phrases.
In the novel the moods of the two main characters are often conveyed through their physical/body feelings. The following activities are designed to develop student vocabulary of anatomical terms that appear in the novel and develop body awareness that will help them relate to the characters:
4.
Divide the class into
groups of 4 or 5 and give each group a list of words, written on separate
cards, associated with body parts used in athletic activity (biceps,
quadriceps, hamstring muscles, cruciate ligament etc.). Ask students to make
sure that everyone in their group learns the spelling and meaning of each.
Students in the group should help each other to find good ways to understand
and remember each word.
After 15-20 minutes of learning time, give each
student in the group a number from 1-5 and collect the cards. Test students on
the meaning or spelling of the words by using a dice and nominating the person
with the corresponding number in each group to write down their answer on a
piece of paper and bring it to the front. Keep a tally of correct answers for
each group on the board.
After the activity is complete ask students to reflect
upon strategies that they used to help them remember the meanings and spelling
of the words.
5.
As a follow up activity
you may wish to play ‘Simon Says’ using these terms instead of the
traditional names for different body parts i.e. ‘Simon says flex your
biceps’
6.
Using the vocabulary of
terms students can make up a meditation or dance and teach it to others.
A prediction exercise may direct students to activate their knowledge of different genres to read the novel as an example of either a sport story or an action adventure story.
7.
Provide students with a
chart like the one below and ask them to draw on their viewing and reading
experiences to fill in the spaces. Then examine the front cover and the blurb
inside the book to consider some of the following questions:
·
What genre/s are
suggested by the pictures?
·
Which
pictures/words/phrases suggest this might be a sport story?
·
Which
pictures/words/phrases suggest that it will be an action adventure story?
·
What
stories/settings/characters are you already forming in your mind?
·
What do you imagine the
characters are doing?
·
What do you think will
happen in this story?
·
What do you think the
characters will be like?
|
Genre |
Typical
events |
Typical
characters |
Typical
settings |
Props |
Language |
|
Sport |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Action/adventure |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Science
fiction |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Romance |
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|
|
|
|
8.
Extend the above
activity to encourage a discussion of reading purposes and how we use texts.
For example, you might ask the students to consider how they would read the
text differently if they were:
·
Asked by the teacher to
find and read an Australian story?
·
In a science class?
·
A football coach?
·
About to teach it to
someone?
·
Given it by a friend?
1.
Prior to reading give
students the list of events below. Discuss: In what order do they expect the
events to occur? Where in the novel they will take place? Who will be involved in each event?
·
A dog is given a poison
bait
·
A person is kidnapped
·
A dog is killed
·
Someone is arrested by
police
·
A car tries to run down
someone
·
Someone attempts to
‘fix’ a football match
·
Two people are
threatened on the phone
·
Someone makes another
pass a ‘test’ before they will give them information.
·
Someone assists in the
rescue of another
Review and revise their predictions during reading.
Upon completion of the book examine the sequence and time order of the events. Extend this discussion with an examination of action/adventure elements in the story such as ‘hero’ ‘helper’ ‘villains’ etc. You may wish the class to debate, at the end of the novel, who the real hero of the story is.
2.
Suspense is a prominent
feature of action/adventure stories and thrillers. Examine the way the author
has developed suspense in the references to the brown car on pages 30, 38 and
54.
3.
Ask students to draw a
film sequence of the attempted poisoning incident on p52 and describe the kinds
of music they would use.
Before drawing, view short film extracts of
suspenseful scenes and demonstrate the filmic conventions used to create
suspense:
·
framing of the different
shots esp. use of close-ups and extreme close-ups.
·
editing and sequencing
of shots i.e. cut-aways to create simultaneous actions, juxtapositioning
·
camera angles to create
impression of ‘victim’ and ‘aggressor’
·
music or sound effects.
After drawing, discuss:
·
how the descriptions in
the novel encouraged them to sequence the action the way they did
·
why they chose to frame
particular shots they way they did.
·
why they chose the
angles they did
·
the person attempting to
poison the dog is not named or described. When drawing this, did you show the
person or not? Why/why not? If you did, where were you getting your information
from to draw them?
After reading the novel discuss the identity of the
person attempting to poison the dog. Was it directly stated in the text? What clues did they use to decide who
did it?
4.
To develop the
relationship between Matt and Greg the author often uses parallel scenes
involving these characters to encourage readers to compare and contrast them. A
useful section of the text to demonstrate this is early in the book where both
Matt and Greg take their dogs out for a walk p21-32.
5.
To encourage students to
compare and contrast the two main characters and prompt discussion of them,
construct a Venn diagram and discuss how these characters are similar or
different in terms of:
·
The way they act
·
The way they think
·
The way we see them
6. Discuss conventions used in cartoons to demonstrate different points of view such as speech bubbles and thought clouds and some of the conventions that they have noticed that prose writers use to achieve similar effects in stories. Read a scene such as that on ps 27-30 and get students to draw the scenario as a comic sequence showing the dialogue and the thoughts of all the characters that appear in the scene.
7. Choose a scene such as the capture of Pulman on p146-147 to consider how the third person narration is limited to the perspectives of some characters and excludes others. Direct students to consider whose thoughts, feelings and motives we are provided with and whose we are not. Then get students to write the incident from Pulman’s point of view. You may direct students to complete this as a first person narrative or as a third person narrative
8.
Encourage students to
discuss the attitudes or beliefs expressed by the characters at different
points in the novel. For example, read aloud Toggo’s thoughts about Shane
McGurkin on p128 where he says “Doing your knee was cruel….having
some maniac on your wheel was no big deal’.
Have students discuss whether they agree with Toggo in
this instance.
·
Is Shane’s sport
injury worse than his own dilemma?
·
Why would Toggo think
this way?
·
Do you agree with his
attitude?
1.
The novel has been
structured into four major sections titled ‘first quarter, second
quarter, third quarter, final quarter’ and then follows with a short
‘time-on’ chapter. Construct a timeline of the novel, dividing it
into the five sections and ask students to place major events that occurred in
the novel into the relevant sections. Use this as a stimulus to discuss
·
the structural elements
in the novel such as the distinctions between the main plot and sub-plots
·
the purpose of the time-on chapter.
·
progression of conflict in the
narrative.
2.
Have students complete a
post-match summary for the novel similar to that found on pages 177-178.
3.
Use the post match
summary on 177-178 to stimulate discussion on bias in sport reports and
summaries.
4.
Present students with a
series of statements like the ones below and have them tick those that they
think the writer is most likely to agree with. Ask them to share their
responses with a partner using the examples from the text to provide reasons
for their opinions.
·
Australians are too
obsessed with sport
·
Boys are as ‘body
conscious’ as girls
·
People take sport too
seriously
·
Girls should not play
Australian Rules Football
·
Modern sport heroes have
to pay a high price for their fame.
5.
Construct a
questionnaire like the one below to encourage the students to reflect upon the
text and evaluate it. Students discuss their opinions in groups to compare with
others and justify their responses.
Tick the following statements you agree with:
This text:
q
Is true
q
Has nothing to do with
‘real life’
q
Can only be read for
entertainment
q
Assumes boys are more
into sport than academic success
q
Teaches us that
‘crime doesn’t pay’
q
Would only interest
Australian readers
q
Assumes that physical
strength always wins
q
Would only appeal to
boys
OVERVIEW
The following provides an overview of how the activities suggested may
be matched to the Student Outcome Statements in the Curriculum Framework for
Western Australia.
It is important to note that these are the Target Outcomes. The extent to which students demonstrate
the different levels within the Outcomes will vary according to
·
The individual abilities
of the students
·
The way that the
activities are implemented within the classroom.
Many
of these activities can be extended to encompass other Outcomes.
|
OUTCOMES |
Pre-reading
activities |
During
Reading Activities |
After
Reading |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
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R. Use of Text |
ü
x |
X |
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X |
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X |
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X |
X |
X |
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X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
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R. Context Under. |
|
X |
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|
X |
X |
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|
X |
X |
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X |
X |
X |
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R. Conventions |
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|
X |
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|
X |
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