Vacek is a highly traumatised migrant and friend of Romulus and Raimond. He falls into homelessness, mental illness and the inability to care for himself. Whilst his story is tragic he is described as a person with a solid character and he possesses an empathy for animals. His influence on Raimond’s childhood ultimately leads to Raimond’s interest in moral philosophy. This resource includes background information on Vacek, select passages from the text and short answer questions.

This set of activities on the metalanguage of Stasiland includes a mix and match exercise, finding words or phrases that mean the same as given terms and concepts and writing specific metalanguage in a sentence.

Both narrator and child/teen character, Raimond Gaita’s relationships with family and friends form the basis of this tragic memoir, along with the almost unreal objectivity in which the text is narrated. This set of activities includes background notes on Raimond, passages from the text and student activities

Information Report on the text, Romulus, My Father. Students select one of the following themes: mental illness, moral philosophy, relationships between humans and animals, inter-personal relationships, experiences of migrants and write an information report. The task includes elements, language and structure of an information report and a marking guide (rubric).

Quotes activity for the memoir, Romulus, My Father.

Word search on the text, Romulus, My Father.

Crossword based on key words, characters and concepts in Susan Cooper’s King of Shadows.

Crossword using key terms and concepts from the non-fiction text, Stasiland.

Book review and student activities based upon the review. Students analyse teh features of an effective review.

As a journalist, Anna Funder is very capable of creating a highly evocative visual description of people and places using as few words as possible. This activity provides examples of Funder’s use of descriptive language by analysing passages from the text. Students are then asked to look for the common features of her descriptive writing and to analyse a passage from the text for themselves.

Worksheet for the Deutsche Welle video clip, Talking Germany. Talk with Roland Jahn, Head of Stasi Archives. The interview looks at Roland Jahn’s role as a journalist and dissident in East Germany, his expulsion from the country, work to expose former-Stasi officers since the reunification of Germany and his work managing the Stasi archives. Excellent resource for teh teaching of Stasiland.

Metalanguage activity involving matching the key words and concepts from John Marsden’s text, Tomorrow, When the War Began.

Analysis of the 2010 film review by Lyden Barber, ‘Unsettling echoes of yesterday, when the yellow peril hysteria began’.

Analysis of book covers of Lloyd Jones’ novel, Mister Pip using the principles of visual literacy.

Stasiland - Activities for Chapters 13-18

This ezine article on the building of a secret tunnel beneath the Berlin Wall links to Chapter 22 of Anna Funder’s nonfiction text, Stasiland where there is a failed attempt to rescue people from East Berlin via a tunnel beneath the wall. Students use both sources to examine the difficulties in building tunnels beneath the most militarised border in the world, why there needed to be the utmost secrecy in doing this and the motives of the people who built the tunnels.

Stasiland - Activities for chapters 19-24

Mister Pip - Activities for Sections 11-14

Timeline documentary, Uncle Hitler examines the family of Adolf Hitler, their relationship to him, what happened to them after the war and the controversy of who should benefit from royalties earned from sales of Mein Kampf. I have used the video and worksheet in teaching Jacqui French’s fictional text, Hitler’s Daughter.

At the end of his life Dorrigo Evans compares himself to Charon the Ferryman. It is a recognition that as a doctor in a prisoner of war camp with no medicine he was not actually healing people, merely preparing them for death. This activity provides background on the legend of Charon, the significance of the obol symbol that appears in the novel and links to examples from the text. This resource is part of a unit of work on Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North.