We have chosen Shrek the animated movie because of it's inter-textualisation. We discussed a lot of how the traditional fairy tales are challenged, such as:-The pretty princess and then how she becomes ugly but she is happy in the end.
-Shrek is ugly and bullied an hated at the beginning but wins the pretty princess over the handsome prince.
-The idea of the donkey falling in love with the dragon highlights a friendly dragon, size doesn't matter and opposites attract.
-The King wanting the princess to marry the appropriate handsome prince, whilst ignoring his daughters wishes.
We thought of several activities relating to the characters and the idea of inter-textualisation. We decided to focus on year 6 because of the complex issues that could be raised but we also thought it could be easily adapted and simplified for younger children. A way of doing this would be to discuss pretty princesses and the comparison of princesses in real life and the meaning of pretty.
For year 6, we thought we could cover national literacy strategy strand 'Understanding and interpreting text' point 'Understand underlying themes, causes and points of view.' We thought we could do this through hot seating. We would have to introduce Shrek and its issues and themes through some introduction activities such as:
- Discussions through teacher asking questions:
+ Why is the princess unhappy when she is not pretty?
+ What is pretty?
+ What is the symbolism of the princess being ugly at nightime:
What does nightime/daytime represent?
+ Why does the princess decide to stay ugly? What is she thinking?
- Children could re-write a common fairy tale to modernise it in the style of Shrek
- Children could discuss and write character profiles and compare the characters to
other fairy tales.
- Role play and drama activities
Throughout all of these activities the teacher should be involved in the role play to help the story come to life. The teacher should also 'scaffold discussion to take their thinking to a higher level' (Marie Rich, 2007). During the hot seating the children will have enough knowledge to be able to play the part if the character and the teacher can be involved in questioning to stimulate the children and to keep the task focused and get to the heart of the issues.
For year 6, we thought we could cover national literacy strategy strand 'Understanding and interpreting text' point 'Understand underlying themes, causes and points of view.' We thought we could do this through hot seating. We would have to introduce Shrek and its issues and themes through some introduction activities such as:
- Discussions through teacher asking questions:
+ Why is the princess unhappy when she is not pretty?
+ What is pretty?
+ What is the symbolism of the princess being ugly at nightime:
What does nightime/daytime represent?
+ Why does the princess decide to stay ugly? What is she thinking?
- Children could re-write a common fairy tale to modernise it in the style of Shrek
- Children could discuss and write character profiles and compare the characters to
other fairy tales.
- Role play and drama activities
Throughout all of these activities the teacher should be involved in the role play to help the story come to life. The teacher should also 'scaffold discussion to take their thinking to a higher level' (Marie Rich, 2007). During the hot seating the children will have enough knowledge to be able to play the part if the character and the teacher can be involved in questioning to stimulate the children and to keep the task focused and get to the heart of the issues.
Marie, Lucy and Jo xxx
