The Black Flamingo - L15: How does Atta Present the Theme of Identity within The Black Flamingo?

This is the fifteenth lesson in a scheme of work using Dean Atta’s modern novel ‘The Black Flamingo’, to explore AQA’s GCSE paper 2 unseen poetry component.

The lesson can be broken down as follows:
Focus Five: Recap of key information surrounding plot, key words and characterisation.
TASK: Introduction of theme and conventions of the core concept through past text studied and with a focus on identity for ‘The Black Flamingo’.
TASK: Recap key word ‘identity’ and group discussion of how the theme is presented across the novel.
TASK: Recap unseen poetry and specifically 27.1. Then key word for on ‘exploration’ and a recap of key plot points linking to Michael’s character.
TASK: Introduce poem ‘Maybe I’m A Merman’ and have group discussion about the main ideas. Then split students into group for a poetry carousel focusing on the individual stanzas and analysis of the poem.
TASK: WHAT/HOW/WHY paragraph on the theme of identity, provide students with sentence starters to support and then follow with self-assessment of paragraph response using success criteria.
TASK: Students to make notes on the conventions of a theme, filling in relevant sections on identity within ‘The Black Flamingo’. Consolidation of ideas learnt so far and answers to key questions from the start of the lesson.
PLENARY: Review of learning on roadmap.