World building for Critical Thinking and Citizenship

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1 World building for Critical Thinking and Citizenship Creative ways to include critical thinking and citizenship in lessons Reading and writing stories with a fantastical element is an ideal way to explore parts of the National Curriculum citizenship programme of study. As readers and writers of fairy tales and fantasy, your students will be imagining worlds which examine issues of fairness, choice, belonging, rules, contributing, and the individual and society. The scheme of work below offers a series of lesson ideas in which children work in their table groups to build their own imagined worlds. The issues are relevant to the citizenship programme of study for both KS2 and KS3 students, and each issue could be discussed at different levels of sophistication and appropriateness. Tips: 1. Rather than choose a world from pure imagination, it is better to choose something with a degree of limitation. You could suggest a woodland environment. 2. The world can be created simply, or it could have explicitly utopian or dystopian elements. 3. Ask the children to consider the issues below one by one and make notes as they go. (You can extend the list of societal topics as you like or to cover areas which you may have been studying with the children, such as religion, death, class, etc). 4. Ultimately, these discussions, and the activity of building alternate worlds, can be used as a springboard to creative activities such as writing stories about events in these worlds, performing plays, drawing maps and making montages.

2 Building a World Language: Think carefully about who is able to speak. Can birds speak? Can worms? Can a fox? A mouse? Do they all speak the same language? Can birds only speak to birds? What are the consequences of having, or not having, access to language in this world? Extension: Imagine you are a creature who has just arrived in this world and you do not speak the local language. How do you feel? How can you get by? Are other creatures helpful? Housing: Do all creatures have a house? Can each creature build a house wherever it wants? Does someone assign the houses? How big is each house allowed to be? Extension: Imagine half of the village is destroyed forever by a new river. Now the space is much smaller. What happens to the creatures who have lost their homes? How will the remaining space be shared? Work: What kinds of jobs are there in your world? Are there doctors? Builders? Tailors? Do all the creatures work to feed themselves, or do some work to help the community (for example, cooking for everyone)? Do they do this as volunteers or are they paid? Extension: Imagine that a creature has been injured and can t work. Will they go hungry? Will everyone help to feed him/her? Do all the creatures have to help him or her?

3 Money: Is there money in your world? How do creatures get things? Can items be swapped, (for example, an acorn for a pair of shorts, fixing a roof for translating a letter)? If it is a barter system, how can the creatures save for the future/old age? Extension: Design your money/bartering system. What is it any money made of? What is each stick/stone/coin worth? Or does your system record acts of work? Draw a chart to represent respective values of things and jobs. Education: Are there schools? What do they teach? What is considered important to learn? Do creatures have to pay to go to schools? How does this work with your money system? Are there different schools for different abilities/skills? What kind of exams or tests do they have? Extension: Write a school timetable for your school. Make sure to include every type of skill you think is important. Power: Who is in charge of the land? Is there a leader? Is there a king or queen or president? If so, will their child become leader in the future? Or is the leader chosen each time a new one is needed? How is s/he chosen? Is there a vote? Does every creature get a say? Should there be a group of leaders? How many? Extension: What qualities would be required to be a leader? What is good about being the leader? What is bad? After looking at the answers you listed above, would you like to be a leader? Why or why not? Would you like to be part of making decisions but not be the leader? Extension 2: Think about your own friendship groups is there one person who is often in charge? How do you know they are in charge? What is it about their behaviour that tells you?

4 Punishment: If a creature steals something or hurts another creature should they be punished? How? What is the aim of your punishment? Is it to dissuade other creatures from committing the same crime? Or is it to teach the wrongdoer to change their behaviour? Is there a police force? What kind of powers do they have? Extension: A squirrel has stolen seeds from a bird. How should the squirrel be punished? Does it make a difference if? the squirrel hurt the bird in the process the squirrel stole all of the bird s food the squirrel broke part of the bird s nest in the process What about if.? the squirrel was extremely hungry the squirrel was sorry and gave the seed back the next day the bird had previously taken the seed from the squirrel s friend Writer s notes As a writer, I often begin my stories by imagining a new world. This helps me to think of issues that might arise in the narrative. In my Magic Potions Shop books I look at ecology and the environment in a world of pixies, dragons, fairies and firebirds. In How to Catch a Witch I use a world in which magic is real and tangible, and have my main character learning to use it in an everyday setting. The Trapdoor Mysteries sets code-breaking and puzzles in a world of science twinned with magic. In my school visits I explore world-building further, encouraging the children to imagine fantastical worlds, thinking about the physics and makeup of the new land who has power and what form does it take? Read on for fairy tale critical thinking questions

5 Fairy Tale Critical Thinking Questions Fairy tales are a fantastic resource to build skills of critical thinking in children. The tales situations are usually familiar; this allows a young child to explore fears, concerns and questions within a safe space. Ask your children to consider the following issues: Should Goldilocks go to jail? Was Cinderella cheating by pretending to be someone she s not? Is a pot of boiling water a fair punishment, even for a pig-eating wolf? Was Jack justified in stealing from the giant on top of the beanstalk? Should the Little Mermaid change her body for love? Is the sea witch (in Little Mermaid) bad? Or is she just a shrewd business woman? Should people be allowed to choose whom they marry, or, like the girl in Rumpelstiltskin, should their parents decide? Was the Gingerbread Man wrong to trust the fox? Should he have assumed that all foxes are bad? How do we decide whom to trust? Is it ok that the prince kisses Sleeping Beauty without her permission? Does it make a difference that he is saving her life? Does it help that in the Disney version, the couple have already met and fallen in love? Imagine you are as small as Tom Thumb what problems would you have walking around a forest? What problems would you have if you were the size of a giant? If Tom met a giant, what would he ask him/her? What would a giant ask Tom? If worms were the only thing dragons could eat should they be allowed to eat them? What if they could only eat birds? What if they could only eat cats? What if they could only eat princesses? If you were starving, and a fairy was the only food around, would you eat it? The queen made a deal to give Rumpelstiltskin her first born child. Should she be forced to keep her promise? Should Hansel and Gretel kill the witch? Was there another way for them to escape? Should they be punished? You are trapped in a tower 20 metres high, with slippery sides and no stairs. How could you escape? What could you imagine might be in your room to help?

6 Was the Huntsman in Snow White right to disobey his queen and save Snow White s life? What punishment should the queen give him? What level of punishment should he endure to save her? Sing the nursery rhyme: Three little kittens they lost their mittens and they began to cry Meow, meow. Our mittens we have lost. What? Lost your mittens, you naughty kittens! Now you shall have no pie. Were the kittens naughty for losing the mittens? What if they gave the mittens away to someone who needed them? What if they threw them away because they didn t like them? Should they have no pie? Is not eating a fair punishment? What if the kittens were very hungry? What might be a fairer punishment for losing mittens? For further resources and for school visits please see my website or me on abie@abielongstaff.com