English · Year 9

Active learning ideas

Identity and Belonging

Exploring identity and belonging benefits from active learning because it allows students to connect abstract concepts to their own lived experiences. Methodologies like World Café and Chalk Talk encourage personal reflection and collaborative knowledge building, which are essential for understanding complex themes like dual identity and cultural heritage.

• National Curriculum Attainment Targets
• KS3: English - Reading: Literature
• KS3: English - Reading: Context and Genre

• 45–60 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 3 activities

Activity 01

• World Café
• 45 min · Individual

Identity Mapping: Code-Switching Exploration

Students create a visual map of their own experiences with code-switching in different social contexts. They then analyze a short text excerpt, identifying instances of code-switching and discussing its effect on characterization and theme.

Analyze how authors use code-switching to represent the experience of living between two cultures.

Facilitation Tip

During the World Café, ensure each table group builds upon the ideas from the previous rotation, prompting students to explicitly reference or respond to previous contributions.

• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Activity 02

• World Café
• 60 min · Small Groups

Memory Collage: Constructing Identity

In small groups, students create a collaborative collage using images, words, and objects that represent different aspects of memory and identity. Each group then presents their collage, explaining the connections between the elements and how they relate to the unit's key questions.

Explain the role memory plays in the construction of personal and national identity.

Facilitation Tip

During Chalk Talk, provide focused prompts related to the texts and the concept of memory's role in identity, and observe how students' written responses evolve and connect over time without verbal influence.

• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Activity 03

• World Café
• 50 min · Whole Class

Journey Metaphor Debate

Students are assigned different literary characters who undertake a 'journey' related to identity. They prepare arguments for a class debate on whether the journey metaphor effectively represents their search for belonging, citing specific textual evidence.

Evaluate how the metaphor of a journey can represent the search for a sense of home.

Facilitation Tip

During the Journey Metaphor Debate, guide students to use evidence from the literary characters' journeys to support their arguments about belonging and the search for home, ensuring they engage with the specific mechanics of debate.

• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills

A few notes on teaching this unit

This topic is best approached by framing identity not as a fixed state, but as a dynamic process shaped by external and internal forces. Teachers can foster deeper understanding by encouraging students to analyze how authors use literary devices to portray the emotional and psychological complexities of belonging, rather than simply summarizing plot points.

Students will demonstrate a nuanced understanding of identity as a fluid construct, recognizing the impact of factors like culture, memory, and environment. Success looks like students articulating how writers use specific literary techniques to represent the experience of navigating multiple cultural contexts and expressing their own evolving sense of self.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• During Identity Mapping: Code-Switching Exploration, students might believe code-switching is solely about changing languages, overlooking shifts in behavior or dialect.

  Redirect students by asking them to consider how they adjust their tone, body language, or even word choice when speaking to different groups of friends or family, prompting them to add these non-linguistic elements to their maps.

• During Memory Collage: Constructing Identity, students might present identity as static, showcasing memories without considering how they influence present feelings or future aspirations.

  Prompt students to add a 'Then and Now' section to their collages, asking them to visually represent how a particular memory shaped their current understanding of themselves or how they hope to be in the future.

• During Journey Metaphor Debate, students might focus only on the physical journey of characters, neglecting the internal, emotional quest for belonging.

  Challenge students to identify specific moments in the text where a character's internal state changes or where they reflect on their sense of home, and to incorporate these emotional shifts into their debate arguments.

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Methods used in this brief

• World Café