Activity 3: Question and answer

Level

Middle and Upper Primary

Lesson overview

This lesson requires close examination of the text and the development of interview skills.
Students empathise with characters in the text and identify the common importance of a belief system in different lives. It requires students to have read The Really Big Beliefs Project book.

Main learning outcomes

English
Society and Environment

Materials required

The Really Big Beliefs Project book
Whiteboard

Procedure

1. Use the following questions as the basis of a class discussion.
   
   • Which of the interviews in The Really Big Beliefs Project did you enjoy the most?
   • Why?
   • Which of the interviews or experiences helped you learn the most about a particular religion or belief system?
   • Which interviews do you think Tom and Emma enjoyed the most?
   • Why?
   • Which interviews helped Tom and Emma learn the most?
   • What makes a good interview?
   • What makes a good interview question?
2. Ask students to work in pairs or threes to choose one of the interviews from the book and write the questions that they think formed the basis of the interview.
3. Ask groups to prepare to act out their interview for the class, taking the roles of Tom and/or Emma and the interviewee. Discuss with the class how they can use acting, props, costumes and lighting to enhance their performance. Discuss in particular how they can use facial expressions and body language to try to communicate how the interviewee feels about his or her beliefs. It may be helpful for students to suggest words to describe how the interviewee feels, then consider how to communicate these to an audience, for example Mrs Kumar: proud, very religious, worried about what the neighbours might think if she celebrates a festival they don’t understand, sad that she cannot properly observe Divali because of her job.
4. After the performances, discuss the different roles religion plays in each interviewee’s life and also the similarities. Useful questions to help prompt discussion include: How do these different people’s beliefs help them in their lives? What are some of the similar ways different belief systems give meaning to people’s lives?
5. Ask students to work in pairs to develop their own set of interview questions for a person they know, to explore that person’s belief system. Pairs should swap sets of questions with another pair and evaluate how useful they will be in eliciting interesting information from the interviewees. Discuss interview strategies, such as note-taking or tape recording and transcribing.
6. Students should conduct the interviews and write them up, presenting them in the style of The Really Big Beliefs Project, complete with ‘Project Diary’ reflections.
7. To extend this activity, students could imagine how the interviews in the book might have been different if the author had created different characters as interviewers. For example, how might the interviews have been different if conducted by interviewers with very strong religious beliefs of their own? What are some of the questions Emma and Tom didn’t ask?