Context
Areas of Integration - Outcomes Being Addressed
Learning Sequences: - audio files: |
References

Learning Sequence

1. What tools and weapons did the First Fleet bring?
2. Aboriginal technology
3. How Aboriginal society deals with conflict
4. How the penal settlement was established
5. How did the British and the Eora communicate with each other?
6. Resistance

1. What tools and weapons did the First Fleet bring?

Outcomes: CUS2.4, RS2.6

Resources: #36 Tools flow chart, #37 Tools worksheet, #38 Tools and equipment, #39 Tools and equipment answer sheet

• Teacher poses the following question to the students: Imagine going to the bush for a week. You have food and water; what tools/equipment could you take?

• Students list their answers and classify them. Teacher asks the class: ‘If you were Captain Phillip, what tools/equipment would you take?’ Teacher records students’ responses.

• Show students flow chart #36 of ‘Tools’. Teacher demonstrates how to read flow chart and labels the tools on #37.

• Show OHT of #38 and tell students that one loom for weaving canvas was brought. Students predict how many of each type of tool was brought to Australia.

• Using OHT #39 teacher and students review how many of each tool was brought to Australia and what items were left behind.

2. Aboriginal technology

Outcomes: TS2.1, RS2.6

Resources: Additional reading 3: Message sticks, #40 Message sticks cloze, #41 Weapons flow chart, #42 Tools matrix

• Teacher may wish to organise an excursion to a local museum or the Australian Museum to observe examples of Aboriginal technology. At some museums students may be able to experience hands-on activities with tools and weapons.

• Teacher gives groups of students the following scenario to dramatise how they would communicate in each situation:

• What do you do when you want to go to a friend’s place to play? How to retrieve a ball in a neighbour’s yard? How to borrow equipment from another class? How to join in a game in the playground? Teacher and students identify the importance of asking permission and discuss the consequences of not asking permission.

• Teacher uses information in Additional reading 3 to tell students about the role of message sticks in Aboriginal society.

• Students work in pairs to complete cloze passage #40. The cloze focuses on language that is important for understanding the consequences of trespassing in Aboriginal society.

• Optional activity #41 ‘Weapons’ flow chart.

• Teacher finds information for each of the following tools: lil lil, spear, stone axe, boomerang, bundi, musket and sword. See references for suggested texts, including Aboriginal Encyclopedia.

• Teacher shows students OHT #42 of tools. Teacher chooses a weapon or tool and models how to complete the matrix. In groups students investigate a type of tool and record on matrix. Students share information to complete matrix.

• On OHT teacher and students review information. (assessment)

3. How Aboriginal society deals with conflict

Outcomes: CUS2.4, RS2.5

Resources: #43 Visuals of Aboriginal fights, #44 Aboriginal culture, #45 Aboriginal culture reading, #46 Fighting reading

• Discuss with the students: ‘what causes fights?’, ‘why do people fight?’, ‘do fights have rules?’.

• Show students #43 a visual of Aboriginal people fighting each other and Aboriginal people fighting the British. Discuss the following questions:

• What might have been the reason for the fight? Do the fights look fair? What might be the consequences of each fight?

• Prediction sheet see #44 Aboriginal culture – 1788: fighting.

• Teacher and students read #45 about fighting in Aboriginal society and locate the following information:

• Why did Aboriginal people fight? How did they organise a fight? What rules had to be followed? What were the consequences of breaking the rules?

• Students read #46 and, from the description, draw two persons fighting. Illustrations include distances between combatants, types and number of weapons that were used in fights.

4. How the penal settlement was established

Outcomes: RS2.5, RS2.7

Resources: #47 First few weeks worksheet, #48 Consequences sheet, #49 Consequences answer sheet

• Brainstorm: ‘If you were Captain Phillip what orders would you issue first when landing?’

• Teacher and students read pages 18 and 19 in the The First Fleet by J Nicholson. Using #47 students imagine the landing of the First Fleet and sketch details of activities within the first week.

• Show OHT of #48 without the consequences. Teacher and students read about the problems that the First Fleet and the Eora people faced in the early days of establishing the convict colony. Students predict the consequences for each action and teacher records students’ responses on OHT. Make copies of #49 and students compare predictions against recorded events.

5. How did the British and the Eora communicate with each other?

Outcomes: CUS2.4

Resources: #50 Glossary of Aboriginal Sydney Language

• Explain to students that when Australia’s Aboriginal peoples and the European colonisers met each other for the first time, they spoke languages which the other could not understand. Naturally, though, their first meetings were an attempt to communicate with each other. They were able to do this by miming and demonstrating the languages they were using. These early efforts to communicate had some success but also resulted in many misunderstandings.

• Teacher asks students: ‘What ideas and words are easiest to communicate through mime or demonstration?’ Give students a variety of words to mime, such as emotions, objects, time, places, names and events.

• What are the most difficult words to demonstrate? Using the Glossary of Aboriginal Sydney Language #50, ask students to construct 2 or 3 phrases using words from the list and find partners to translate them into English. Reference: Whose place is it anyway?: a teacher’s resource kit, Museum of Sydney, Historic Houses Trust of NSW.

• Teacher reads the stories of Arabanoo and Bennelong. Discuss how communication was established between Arthur Phillip and Arabanoo/Bennelong. Teacher poses question: ‘What would have been a better way to establish communication between Arabanoo/Bennelong and Phillip?’ Discuss the possible consequences.

6. Resistance

Outcomes: TS2.1, CUS2.4

Resources: #51 Resistance: reactions, #52 Pemulwuy’s consequence chart

• Show the first few minutes of the video Independence Day, depicting the arrival of a spaceship. Ask the students: How might they feel? What might they do? Teacher lists the ‘affect’ vocabulary eg fear, panic, confusion, excitement, anticipation, hope. Teacher models the writing of a consequence chart using one of the reactions they have thought of as a starting point for an alien invasion, eg try to talk to an alien – they didn’t understand anything – offer the alien a present of a kangaroo skin – the alien threw it back at them – get angry and yell at the alien.

• Discuss: ‘How might the Eora people have felt when the First Fleet arrived?’ Using #51 teacher and students read the scenario and students write consequences. Students share all possible consequences.

• Teacher reads the following information to students:
  The tribes around the Sydney area developed a way of resisting the British – often called ‘guerrilla war’. They used a kind of warfare that used their knowledge and bush craft skills, as well as their capacity to easily traverse their country. They operated by surprise and secrecy and their movements were unpredictable. Because the white settlers didn’t know when or where conflict would break out, they often could not feel safe. Groups of Aborigines would attack a farm, killing animals and people and then disappear back into the bush.

• Explain that there were many such conflicts between the white settlers and the Aborigines. We do not have the names and details of many of the leaders of these attacks on white farms and towns. We do have some accounts of the leader Pemulwuy.

• Read together Pemulwuy’s reactions to white invasion. Discuss the consequences for all concerned.

• Using #52 students pictorially plot the consequences of Pemulwuy’s actions.

• Teacher reads The Rabbits by John Marsden. How does this story represent the British colonisation of Australia? Discuss how the author represents a particular point of view? Teacher asks the students what their particular point of view is on British colonisation. Why is it important for us to learn about the past?

• Revisit the first retrieval chart and discuss with students if they would still define ‘colonisation’ and ‘invasion’ in the same way. If not, what has changed and why? (assessment task)