Survivors

Survival is the theme of this unit and being a survivor is the focus.

You will complete two individual assessment activities for this unit, based on information collected, selected, recorded, considered and presented by you through group discussion individual research individual reading of a survival novel Have a look at this [|webpage]. These are general character traits - some of them would be very useful if you wanted to survive a desperate situation. Add them to the list you have already prepared and put them on your page below. Then look at the other three lists and critique them. That means that you read them and ask critical questions so that the writer has to justify their decision to put that trait in the list.
 * Firstly**, you will explore what it means to be a survivor through brainstorming and group discussion. You will individually research a different true-life survival story; this research will be used in group discussion and in your second individual assessment activity. You will help to construct a group profile of an Archetypal Survivor, as a result of your research and group discussions. This profile will identify the traits of, and strategies commonly used by, survivors.

Evie

Waimarie

Shardae

Vicki


 * Secondly**, you will read a fictional novel of survival, Hatchet, and log the experiences of its main character, Brian Robeson, as a survivor. You will share your log with the members of your group, and collectively, you will construct a profile of Brian as a survivor.

I have found another novel about survival which I am sure you will enjoy as well. It is called The Cay by Theodore Taylor. When you have finished reading the story, here is a [|webquest] with followup activities for you to do.

Read this website about [|Gary Paulsen,] the author of Hatchet. He sounds a **very** interesting person.I just read that he has written about 200 books! We will get some more for the library. On one of the pages of this website, there is a list of what he thinks you need to be a survivor. He has good ideas about lighting fires and other useful skills for survival. Perhaps your group could make a powerpoint to show the other classes - you could act out some of the ideas in his list. I have ordered a whole lot of books written by Gary Paulsen and we will put them in the library when they come.

=More survival stories:= The next novel you can read is a diary written by a Jewish girl who lived during the Second World War. It is called The Diary of Anne Frank.