Secondary Workshop — Report Writing

This work­shop is based on a scene from the bio­graph­i­cal fic­tion Black Jack Ander­son by Elaine For­re­stal, pub­lished by Pen­guin Books Aus­tralia, Mel­bourne, 2008.

Dura­tion:

• 1 hour – intro­duc­tion, dis­cus­sion and 1st draft writing
• 2 hours – redraft­ing, edit­ing and dramatisation

1st hour

A scene from the bio­graph­i­cal fic­tion Black Jack Ander­son will be read to the whole group.

Ques­tions will be invited about the time, place, action and peo­ple involved in the scene.

In pairs or small groups the stu­dents will dis­cuss the fic­tional events.

Each stu­dent will then write a report of the inci­dent imag­in­ing they were present. They may choose to be:

a) a mem­ber of the pub­lic called as a wit­ness dur­ing the trial of Black Jack Anderson.

b) One of the sol­diers sta­tioned at King George Sound report­ing to his supe­rior offi­cer, Major Lockyer.

2nd hour

Once the ini­tial report has been writ­ten stu­dents can swap their drafts for the pur­pose of check­ing the basic facts.

Nat­u­rally, as in life, there will be many dif­fer­ent ver­sions of the events described.

Stu­dents may wish to read the scene for them­selves. (Black Jack Ander­son pp26 – 30)

Edit­ing and redraft­ing can be car­ried out in pairs or individually.

Then deci­sions will need to be made about the best way to present the fin­ished reports – ver­bally, hand-written, typed?

Exten­sion

Set up a court­room scene in which stu­dents take on the roles of mag­is­trate, pros­e­cu­tor, defendant,witness at the trial of Black Jack Anderson.