The class is taking turns hosting ‘Aaron’ the class mascot, taking him on adventures. It is Little J’s turn, so Little J, Nanna, Big Cuz, and Old Dog take Aaron on Country to look for mica rock, and along the way they photograph the expedition. Distracted by the events of the day, Little J loses Aaron and the family enrols the help of Uncle Mick, a Search and Rescue officer, to return him.

Engage - Explore ideas, characters and settings in the community through stories in images, sounds and text

Theme - SETTING

After viewing the Little J & Big Cuz, Episode 8 ‘Where’s Aaron?’, engage students with the following activities to support their understanding of setting. Also, where possible access the Little J & Big Cuz picture book and/or eBook for “Where’s Aaron?”.

Ask students to re-watch the episode and to identify the different settings used: the backyard, the classroom, different areas on Country, inside Nanna’s house, etc. Have students pose and respond to questions about the significance of setting or place in order to tell the story, as well as questions about how the audience views the scene because of the setting.

View examples of short stories where the setting and sound are important to convey meaning to the story.

Suggested resources

• Story Monster

Story Monster is a fun online literacy game that uses the moving image to promote student learning. In the game, you'll design a hungry monster who loves to gobble up words. But your monster will need help with what to eat - he can only be fed well-structured sentences.

Telling a story

1. Decide the setting.
   Have students collect different photographs of scenery and settings from magazines, newspapers or from the web. Categorise the images as indoors and outdoors. Mix and match a pair of scenes, and using a four-frame storyboard template, glue one scene onto the first frame and another onto the third frame. This will leave frames 2 and 4 empty. Propose to students that their task is to complete the other scenes for a story of their choice so that the story sequences from the first scene to the last scene, e.g. a character starts to move from a bedroom and where does a character walk to get to the garden?

Suggested resources:

• Little J & Big Cuz, Scene Builder
• Scripting and storyboarding a video interview
• ACMI, School program and resources: Storyboards
• The Flying Storyboard
• How to Storyboard - basics for a short film

Choose the character.
Invite students to choose one of the characters from Episode 8. Then make or draw copies of the character so that every student receives four copies of the same character.
Have each student position two of their character cut-outs, one each within two of the pasted scenes.

Decide the new episode.
Invite each student to imagine a story that involves their character interacting within the new scenery. They will need to fill the two blank scenes, either by drawing the scenes or by finding more photographs of relevant scenery to paste in the frames.
Remind students that the story they tell has to have a beginning, middle and end:

• The beginning: introduces the main character and where the story takes place, or starts
• The middle: builds tension (the dilemma) and action (the climax)
• The end: problem resolved and the hero of the story is established.

Build the story.                                                                                                                                                                    If possible, have students write four sentences, one for each scene, to help build the story.
Invite students to add speech bubble dialogue to heighten the character’s relationship to the narrative.
Ask students to pose and respond to questions about how they can change the time of day in the images by using different colours and shading the scenes darker.

Sound and music.
Depending on the medium of the story, have students upload sounds, music, or recorded narrative to enhance the meaning of the story.

Display the presentations to the class.
Invite students to evaluate the types of symbolic elements (the scenery, sound and tempo of the music) selected for the story, and explain how each element contributes to the meaning of the story.

Optional storyline

• Remind students that Nanna took photos of the children on Country. Ask students to recall the importance of those photos to finding Aaron in the episode story.
• Have students bring into class (copies of) photos of themselves on holiday, and instruct them to load the photos into a PowerPoint presentation or slide show.
• Invite students to tell a story of what is happening in the photos, remembering that a story needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end. If possible, add some speech bubble dialogue to each photo and possibly sound or music.
• Select a suitable timing sequence for the photo story.