English Matters

Refugee Stories

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Teacher's Notes: In this task students explore stories of migration, alienation and belonging. The task can be used in a range of units in our programme and extends students knowledge of narratives and recounts, as well as building the field at the beginning of a unit, such as My Place in year 7. Students will need a hard copy of the task (because they won't read these instructions carefully). Encourage them to use technology to prepare their presentation. To speed the process up ask students to share their story with their team and then discuss the similarities and differences which can be collated in class notes (you could use Numbered Heads Together for this).

 

Expectations:
  • Read a refugee story.
  • Summarise the main events of the story.
  • Retell the story.
  • explain your response to the story.

 

The links below have stories about people's journeys to new countries.

  1. Locate and read stories by children and young people that describe leaving their countries as refugees using the links at the bottom of this page.
  2. Choose a story that you would like to share with the class and read it carefully. 
  3. Save a copy of the story in your personal file.
  4. You are going to tell this story to the class. You will not read the story aloud but must summarise the story. Look for the main events and supporting details. Use the questions below to jot down notes to help you summarise the story.
  5. Begin your presentation by giving at least two reasons for choosing this story. (and not because it was short!) 

Questions to guide your presentation to the class.

  1. Where was this person from?
  2. Why did this person leave their country?
  3. Is their family with them?
  4. How did they leave their country?
  5. How did they feel about leaving?
  6. Where did they go?
  7. Did anything important happen?
  8. Why was this important?
  9. Where are they now?
  10. How do they feel now?

The Links:

 

 

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Last Modified: 28/04/2009

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