Activity 3

El Caminante

About the Text:

 El Caminante (The Traveller) is a 5 minute animation by Debra Smith. It is one of a collection of five films on “Story Shorts” a BFI education DVD aimed at KS2. The DVD is accompanied by a teaching guide that gives detailed information about each film and how to teach literacy using them.

As with books, engaging with the text in a shared context is essential before any written activities take place. You could consider playing the DVD with only the sound, prior to watching it, and eliciting the children’s ideas as to what might be happening. You might want to introduce the class to film vocabulary and techniques used within the genre. Using this knowledge the class could look at perspectives within the film. The teacher resource book provides everything you would need to plan for such activities.

El Caminante’s Environment

This activity gives children the opportunity to develop a sense of the place in which a story is set. Following the journey of a character through their environment allows empathy with the character. Children can begin to vocalise their thoughts about the environment, the sights, smells and feelings it evokes. All of these thoughts could be recorded by the teacher or teaching assistant to use for the writing task at a later date.

The Task - 1 hour - large space

Resources - BFI DVD, stack of paper, chunky pens

Learning Objectives:

Drama:

• Use role play and improvisation to explore character in depth.
• Understand setting and its influence on narrative.
• Engage with text using different techniques to make the text come alive.
• Empathise with characters.

NC Reference:

En 1 Speaking and Listening -

2a, 2c, 3f, 4c, 9b, 11a.

First Part:

• Watch the film (not for the first time).
• Ask children to pay special attention to the setting, where the film travels.
• Divide the class into pairs.
• Explain that one of the pairs is going to lead the other through the environment El Caminante travelled through; the countryside, the village, over the tight rope etc.
• The child being led has his/her eyes closed.
• The child leading continually describes the sights, smells and feelings throughout the journey.
• Children then record responses, they will aid writing later.
• Partners swap round roles.

Second Part:

• Provide a large stack of plain white paper and a large stack of chunky felt tips.
• Explain that the class are going to make a map of El Caminante’s environment.
• Model by drawing some features from the film; church, bar and fountain and place them on the floor.
• Class build up the whole map using as much space as they need.
• Once they have created a visual floor map of drawings they then listen to the sound of the film once more.
• At this point the children wander around the floor map adding sound sentences to the drawings - chattering people, excited, playful children, clinking glasses etc.
• You could consider transferring these pieces of paper to a class wall allowing children to view El Caminante’s world and therefore inform writing activities from his perspective. The sound sentences will be useful for the children to refer to at a later point.

Learning Outcomes:

• Children will have empathy with a character from a text.
• Children will engage with text through role play and drama.
• Children will gain an understanding of a character that will inform writing from a characters perspective in the first person.
• Children will create a map of visual stimuli and sound stimuli.