Lesson video

Hello, It's Mrs. Smart, welcome back to our English unit.

Today's learning objective is to develop an understanding of the main characters of a film.

We're going to start watching some clips from the film "Whale Rider." And we're going to focusing on two of the main characters to try and understand them a little bit better.

Right, if you're ready, let's get started.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some lined paper, a pen or pencil to write with, and some coloured pencils or felt tips or coloured pens if you've got them.

If you haven't got any of those things right now, just pause the recording and go and get them.

In today's lesson we're going to start with a recap.

We're going to go over everything we've learned about "Whale Rider" and Maori culture so far in this unit.

We're then going to talk a little bit about the story of the "Whale Rider" film and what that story is based on.

We're then going to zoom in and focus on two of the main characters, and then you will have your independent task at the end of the lesson.

So our unit is based on this fantastic film called "Whale Rider," Which is also based on the book called "The Whale Rider." We're going to learn a little bit more about the story of "Whale Rider" today.

But can you remember where is our story set? Have a little look at the two photographs in front of you to give you some clues.

Remember is a long long way away from where I live in London, England.

Where might it be? Can you remember? Of course, it was in New Zealand, in the continent Oceania, which we say could also be called Australasia or Australia.

And remember New Zealand is made up of two main islands, the North Island and South Island, but also lots of other islands as well.

And you can see, find your country on the map and you can see how far away New Zealand is from you.

For me, it is a very very long way.

We also learned about Maori people.

Can you say that for me? Maori.

Maori.

Maori people were the indigenous people who were the first settlers who lived in New Zealand.

And we also learned about this building called the Marae.

Can you say that for me? Marae.

Marae.

And that was a really special building to Maori communities or Maori tribes, as it was a place where they had ceremonies and celebrations and a meeting place for lots of people to come together.

And then that's going to be featuring in the film today, so it's really important that you remember that it's called a? Good, it's called a Marae.

Before we focus on "Whale Rider," we're going to learn about a Maori legend.

Now a legend is a little bit like a fairy story or traditional tale.

It's a story that's been around for a long long time.

And in the Maori culture, stories were often passed on from generation to generation through oral retelling.

So rather than being written down, people would say the stories and tell people the stories.

This is really important because it means the stories are often slightly different and they might vary.

So this is one version of this Maori legend, but you might heard or read other versions as well.

There once lived a chief with 71 sons.

Remembering one of our previous lessons, we learned that chief was the leader of a tribe in Maori culture.

All of the sons were chiefs, apart from Ruatapu whose mother was a slave.

So when all of his sons became adults, they all became chiefs apart from this one son.

And that was because he was considered less important because his mother was a slave.

Ruatapu was extremely jealous of his brothers, he thought it was really unfair that all of his brothers were chiefs apart from him.

Ruatapu planned to kill his brothers while fishing.

When they were out at sea, Ruatapu sank the boat.

So they were all in the middle of the ocean, fishing in their boat, and Ruatapu sank the boat so that he could try and kill his brothers.

Everyone drowned including Ruatapu apart from one brother called Kahutia.

Kahutia recited an incantation calling to the whales, and incantations is a little bit like a prayer, or almost like a spell, something that he wanted to happen.

He wanted to call to the whales so that a whale would come and save him.

And sure enough, a whale appeared and lifted Kahutia onto its back.

Kahutia was taken to New Zealand where he began a new and prosperous life.

That means he alive, where he did really really well.

And he was very successful and very happy.

Kahutia was renamed Paikea after the whale which had saved him.

Now, I want you to remember that name Paikea, because it's going to be quite important when we look at the story "Whale Rider." We're now going to look at the four different sections of "Whale Rider" in a story staircase.

The opening, the buildup, climax and resolution.

And I've just written a very short summary of each section, but obviously the film is much much longer and has much more detail.

The opening: A girl was born and named Paikea.

Remember I said that name was important, but this time is the name of a girl.

Her brother and her mother sadly died.

So while her mother was giving birth, her twin brother and her mother actually died.

And the baby's father, Paikea's father was so upset about the fact that his partner and his son had died, that he decided to move away from New Zealand.

And the girl Paikea ended up growing up with her grandparents.

Koro, now Koro is Paikea's grandfather.

Koro decided to find the next chief.

So he was the chief of his tribe or his community, and he decided he need to find, he now needed to find a new one.

His eldest son which is Paikea's dad, had moved away so he couldn't be chief.

And he didn't have a grandson, he only had a granddaughter Paikea.

So he needed to find a chief from the tribe or from the community, instead of from his own family.

He started a club to teach the first-born boys to be leaders.

So he collected together all of the boys that lived in their community that were part of their tribe, who were the first born in their families, so the oldest boys in every family.

And he started to teach them how to be leaders, so he could try and work out who would be the best person to become the chief when he grew too old.

Paikea was desperate for her grandfather to see that she could be chief.

Koro would not let her join in because she was a girl.

And if you remember from one of our previous lessons where we learned about Maori cultures and Maori tribes, women and females could not be chief, they always had to be a male.

One night, some whales beached themselves on a local beach.

So "beached" the verb means they got stuck on the beach.

So as the tide came in, they got onto the beach.

And then as the tide pulled away, they stayed on the beach and they couldn't move off the beach.

And as you know, whales are animals that live in the sea, so if they're left out on the land, they very quickly die.

All the villagers tried to save the whales, but sadly the whales started to die, and the villages were really upset and devastated.

Paikea climbed on to the largest whale's back.

She encouraged it back into the water, so she made it go back into the water by climbing on its back and encouraging it.

All the other whales followed and swam away to safety.

So that is the story of "Whale Rider." We're not going to be watching the whole film within this unit.

We're just going to focus on some short clips.

Brilliant, it's time to watch our first clip of "Whale Rider." I'm so excited to share this film with you, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Make sure you're really focused on this clip, because afterwards you're going to need to put these stills or photographs in order to retell the events.

Going to give you a little bit of context before you watch this clip, because remember this isn't the very beginning of the film, we're jumping in to the buildup.

Now remember Koro is on the search for new chief.

He's the chief at the moment, but he's getting quite old, so he needs to find someone new.

And remember, he's only got Paikea as a granddaughter, and she's a girl, so she cannot be chief.

Instead he started a club to train up all of the first-born boys in his community, and to find out who would be the best leader.

In this clip, is the very first day of the club.

And there's a welcoming ceremony outside the Marae before the club starts.

The very beginning of the, the very beginning of the clip is Paikea leading the boys into the welcoming ceremony.

Hopefully now you'll understand this clip a little bit better.

Right, let's watch.

Pai, you're a girl go to the back.

What did I say? What did I say? Then leave.

Go on.

I hope you enjoyed your first taster of "Whale Rider." I now want you to put the stills in order and retell the events.

Try to say one sentence per picture to retell the story, pause the recording and have a go.

Let's see if you've got those stills in the correct order.

Picture number one, Paikea leading the boys into the welcoming ceremony.

Picture number two, Paikea decides that she wants to sit on the front row.

Picture number three, Koro spots Paikea and says "Pai, you're a girl go to the back." Picture number four, Paikea decides to ignore her grandfather's instructions and sit down on the front row with all of the boys.

Picture number five, Koro gets really angry and tells her, tells Paikea to leave the ceremony because she is not following his instructions.

Picture number six, Paikea walks off into the distance feeling very disappointed and annoyed that she cannot be treated in the same way as all of the boys.

How did you get on? Did you get them in the right order? Well done if you did.

This is the second clip we're going to watch today.

And this is the part where Koro starts to teach the boys about being a chief.

Again, I want you to make sure that you've got no distractions around you and you can really focus on watching this clip because afterwards you're going to need to try and retell the events using the stills.

Right, let's watch.

If you want to master it, you've got to show it, respect.

Hemi, here.

Peh! Pick it up.

Good.

Be angry.

Anger is part of your battle.

You got to learn to control it.

Now take a break, get a drink of water.

The rest of you in pairs.

Koro know you're doing that? I'm not doing anything.

How come you're hiding around here then? Koro's cool, eh? He's teaching us to be warriors, man.

Going to be chiefs.

Going to smack all those other ones.

You shouldn't have hit Koro like that.

He was all right.

He was real patient thing.

How come he won't let you do it? Girls aren't allowed.

You could sit at the back, long as you're quiet, why would he mind? You're not even holding it right.

Your hands should be like this.

And you're feet.

like this.

Go back to the school, Hemi.

I said "go." Okay, time to retell the events.

Can you put the stills in order and say one sentence per picture to retell the clip that you've just watched, pause the recording and have a go now.

I'm sure you got those in the right order, let's just go through and check.

Picture number one, Koro teaching all of the boys how to fight as a chief.

Picture number two, Paikea sneakily watching from behind or by down the side of the Marae because she wants to join in, but she knows she can't be part of the class.

Picture three, Koro chooses Hemi, that's one of Paikea's friends to demonstrate some of his moves.

Picture number four, Hemi ends up hitting Koro on the back.

Picture number five, Hemi finds Paikea down the side of the Marae and shows her how to fight like a chief.

Picture number six, Koro catches Hemi and Paikea, and he is not very happy with them.

Did you get those in the right order? Well done if you did.

We've watched two film clips now, they've told us and shown us a lot about these two main characters, Paikea and Koro.

Paikea is the young girl, the granddaughter of Koro, who is desperate to be chief, but can't be because she is a girl.

Then we've got Koro who is Paikea's grandfather, who is chief of his community.

He doesn't believe Paikea can become chief because she's a girl and he's on the search, he's looking for a new chief and he's trying to train some children in the community up to hopefully take on that role one day.

We're now going to do an activity to analyse a little bit more about these characters and try to understand them.

We're going to focus on Paikea to start with.

What I want you to do on your piece of paper is draw yourself a large outline of a person.

You can see my one looks a little bit like a Gingerbread man.

Make sure it's nice and big, because you're going to need to write inside and on the outside.

On the outside of your figure, in one colour, I want you to write down all of Paikea's actions.

Think about things like her speech, her movements, the things that she does, or her body language and her facial expressions.

All of these things tell us a lot about her character.

So you're going to write all of those down in one colour on the outside of your figure.

On the inside of your finger, I want you to write down all of the words you can think of to describe her feelings and emotions.

In the film it doesn't tell you how she's feeling.

She doesn't say how she's feeling, but we can infer how she's feeling.

We can work out how she's feeling based on her actions.

Pause the recording and have a go at doing that now.

You might want to rewind and watch the film clips again.

I'm sure you've got lots of ideas on your piece of paper.

I'm going to go through a few of my ideas now, and if you want to, pause the recording at any point and write any of them down, then you can do.

Going to focus on the actions to start with, she led the group.

So when the boys were coming into the welcoming ceremony, she was at the front singing her song very confidently.

She sang confidently, she lowered herself hesitantly, so when she was sitting down, she was quite hesitant.

She paused, she wasn't quite sure if she was doing the right thing.

And then she sat down defiantly.

So she made her mind up, but that's what she was going to do, even though her grandfather had told her not to.

She sat down on that front row.

Her steely eyes stared at Koro.

That's a really good way to describe the eye contact she had with her grandfather after he told her not to sit on the front row.

And then she reluctantly walked away.

She didn't want to walk away, but she was made to by her grandfather.

Then later on when her grandfather was training the boys, she was copying Koro's actions, hidden behind the Marae.

The feelings and emotions I've got are eager, she's really eager to try and learn how to be a chief and a leader, she's determined, she's defiant, we looked at that word already, which means she goes against the rules, and she's courageous, so she's quite brave.

She also feels quite defeated.

She's desperate to try and be chief and to prove that her grandfather that she can be chief, but he is not accepting that at the moment.

And he sends her away, so she feels quite down and defeated at one point in the clips.

Now let's focus on Koro.

We're going to do the same activities, you're going to need another piece of paper, again, draw yourself this figure of a person, this outline, make sure it's nice and big, so you've got space on the outside and inside to write.

And you're going to write down all of Koro's actions.

So anything that he says or how he says it, any movements he makes or things that he does, and his facial expressions.

And then on the inner side in a different colour, you're going to write down all of the feelings and emotions that you can infer from his actions.

You might want to go back and watch the film clips again to remind yourself.

Pause the recording and have a go at that activity now.

I've done some example ideas of actions and feelings and emotions.

I'm going to go through them now, and if you want to pause the recording and write any of them down, then you can do, He barked his order, that's a really good verb or a synonym for said to describe how he spoke to Paikea when he said "go to the back." He's stood proudly, might be a way to describe when he stands up to tell Paikea to leave.

He breathed deeply, and that really shows he's chief and he's in power, that he paused and he breathed before he spoke.

He had a very cold glare, the way he looked at Paikea was very cold, when she didn't follow his instructions.

He demonstrated confidently.

So this was when he was teaching the boys how to fight with those sticks.

He showed everyone what to do very confidently, he obviously knows exactly what he's doing.

But then he kicked violently, you remember he kicked Hemi when they were, he was demonstrating the fighting, which shows he can be quite aggressive when he wants to be.

In terms of his emotions, I've got angry, and then he was definitely angry with Paikea for not following his instructions.

And he's very proud.

He again, is very determined, he's determined that Paikea is not going to be chief and he's going to find a male to be chief.

And he's strict.

He's got very strict rules that he makes Paikea follow.

If you want to pause the recording and write down any of those ideas, please do.

Now it's time for your independent task.

So what I want you to do is firstly finish your character analysis.

So that is your outline of your figure with your ideas for actions on the outside and your ideas of the characters' feelings and emotions on the inside.

You need to have two of those, one for Paikea and one for Koro.

Then also what I want you to do is write a sentence to describe each character.

So try and use some of the ideas from your character analysis in your sentences.

Well done, you've finished your lesson's day.

If you would like to, please share your work with your parents or carer.

I really hope you enjoyed seeing your first clips of "Whale Rider." There'll be more to come in the following lessons.

I'll see you in your next lesson, goodbye.