Unit of work on Raimond Gaita’s memoir of his father, Romulus, My Father. This unit includes: Activities for Chapters 1-6 Activities for Chapters 7-13 Discussion assessment task Analysis of book review Analysis of visual images Setting Newspaper article - Profile: Raimond Gaita Sequence the events Metalanguage activity Close study of a passage: Frogmore Australia in the 1950s Character profile: Romulus Gaita Character profile: Raimond Gaita Character profile: Christine Gaita Character profile: Vacek Vilkovikas Character profile: Hora Character profile: Mitru Who Said? Quotes activity Word Search Information report assessment on selected themes Raimond Gaita’s memoir Romulus My Father a portrait of love - book review Understanding the “-isms” in Romulus, My Father From Frogmore, Victoria ezine article Theme: The relationship between animals and people Theme: Childhood trauma Theme: Discrimination against New Australians Which chapter is that? 3 Cloze activities Who am I? True or false? Crack the Code revision activity Intertextuality and Romulus, My Father

Assessment task on Raimond Gaita’s biography, Romulus My Father. The topic is: ‘Romulus’s life is marked by tragedy and chaos. Nevertheless, he never loses his passion for living.’ Discuss. The resource includes guidance for students including structure and language features of a discussion and a marking guide (rubric) to the question. The resource is designed for Australian Stage 6 students studying the VCE/HSC

An ordinary citizen who claims she has no story to tell the interviewer, Julia is a victim of Stasi oppression. The nature of the surveillance, control of her life and interrogations have a deep impact on Julia. The activities in this resource include analysing a variety of passages relating to Julia and completing a timeline of her life from Chapters 9-11.

Torture and its impact on people is a recurrent theme in Stasiland. This resource provides background information on what constitutes torture, reasons for torture, the legal status of torture, its impact on individuals and on whole societies. The resource provides photographs from the Hohenschönhausen Prison Museum and extracts from the text as a means to examine the impact of physical and psychological torture on characters in the text.

Assessment task for the text Stasiland: It is not only the subject matter but also the use of different perspectives that makes Stasiland confronting. Discuss this statement making detailed reference to your prescribed text. (2017 Higher School Certificate). Included is an overview of the Discussion Text Type, how to answer a discussion question using correct language features and structure and a marking guide (rubric) to the task. The task is designed for Australian Stage 6 students of the VCE/HSC.

This set of activities examine closely the passage in Chapter 13 where Anna Funder interviews Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler. Student activities relate to the subtle use of words and phrases to mean very different things by the interviewee and the interviewer, the way in which Funder interprets body language and tone of voice, the language used to indicate the interviewee genuinely believed in the values of the East German state and Funder’s views as explicitly expressed and suggested in the language used.

Herr Winz is a former-Stasi counter-espionage operative who is living in the past when his power and authority was significantly greater than that of his life in the re-united Germany of the 1990s. This activity includes background information and extracts from the text relating to his physical attributes and personality. Students are asked to use this information to write their own description of him.

Word Search on the text, Stasiland.

3 Cloze activities on Stasiland: Biography Anna Funder Investigative Journalism Theme: Resilience

Ezine article from Spiegel Online, East German Snitching Went Far Beyond the Stasi. the Article supports the teaching of the text, Stasiland, by providing examples of West Germans who reported to the East German Stasi and how information in Stasi files on children and young people could impact on their post-school options.

Charlie Weber appears as a character in Stasiland through the memory of his wife, Miriam and through physical remains of his existence: photographs and a poem. He is a victim of Stasi discrimination, surveillance, harassment, imprisonment and (we believe) brutality that led to his death. If Miriam is the principal interviewee, Charlie is her evidence. The ghost of Charlie haunts Miriam, although there is evidence is the last chapter that Miriam is at last coming to terms with his death. This set of activities includes extracts from the text and a profile proforma. The activity is designed for Year 12 students of the VCE and HSC.

This activity analyses the passage from Stasiland when Miriam Weber attempts to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin over the Berlin Wall. It focuses on language, building suspense, humour, effects of light and dark, style, juxtaposing the younger and older Miriams as storytellers, and the impact of the narrrator asking questions in her narrative.

Wired ezine article, Piecing together the dark legacy of East Germany’s secret police. Excellent resource for understanding the computerisation of destroyed Stasi records and the uses of these records. Supports the teaching of Anna Funder’s text, Stasiland. The last activity involves students evaluating whether the enormous cost involved in this reconstruction process is worth the result.

Miriam Weber is the author’s inspiration for the investigative journalism behind Stasiland. This resource provides the character’s history, character, living with trauma and significance of her character to the text. The first activity requires students to look through Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 28 to discover Miriam’s personality and relationships. The second activity asks students to write an extended response to the question: To what extent has Miriam’s life been affected by the Stasi? In your response refer to: • Surveillance • Restricting personal freedoms • Denial of human rights • Torture • Concealing the truth. Students must use quotes from the text to support their response.

Hohenschonhausen Prison in East Berlin was a secret prison where dissidents were held, interrogated and tortured by the Stasi. This ezine article contains external photographs of the prison, photographs of the surveillance, interrogation and holding facilities. I have included extracts from Anna Funder’s Stasiland in which the author is taken on a tour of these rooms. The activities focus on the role of the facility in enforcing Stasi control over the German Democratic Republic. The resource can be used as part of a unit of work on the non-fiction text, Stasiland, as part of a unit on the Cold War, or as part of a unit on human rights.

Stasiland - Activities for Chapters 25-28

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

Stasiland - Activities for Chapters 13-18

This worksheet introduces students to the concept of 'Doublespeak" and explains the concept of "Doublethink' as it originated in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (a parallel text). Activities focus around explaining how examples from the text are 'doublespeak' and an assessment of how important 'doublespeak' was to the Stasi in maintaining control of the East German people.