social studies

Journal 1.

What are your frustrations?

How will you deal with these?

What do you need to achieve this lesson?

Journal 2.

What significant moment in Indigenous History occurs this week?

How may you use this as supplementary material?

What is your aim for this lesson?

Journal 3.

Are you staisfied with the groups progress so far?Who is not pulling their weight?

Journal 4.What is an exposition?What is a thesis point?

How is an exposition text type structured?

Journal 5.which part of the exposition are you responsible for?What supplementary material are you using to back up your thesis points (your argument)?

Journal 6. Evaluate your contribution to the group and your own work ethic?What did you find your strengths and weaknesses were?

We Are Going    

            They came in to the little town

A semi-naked band subdued and silent

All that remained of their tribe.

They came here to the place of their old bora ground

Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.

Notice of the estate agent reads: ‘Rubbish May Be Tipped Here’.

Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.

‘We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers.

We belong here, we are of the old ways.

We are the corroboree and the bora ground,

We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders.

We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told.

We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires.

We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill

Quick and terrible,

And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow.

We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.

We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low.

We are nature and the past, all the old ways

Gone now and scattered.

The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.

The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place.

The bora ring is gone.

The corroboree is gone.

And we are going.’

 

Oodgeroo Noonuccal

 

Appreciating “We are Going” by Oodgerooo Noonuccal

Read Oodgeroo’s “We are going” (p. 32) and answer these questions on it:

POEM – we are going

1. Explain why they are “silent and subdued”

The aboriginals went into the town silent and subdued because they are feeling intruded and intimidated by the white men.

2. How are white men represented? Why?

 The white men are represented as ants. It is because there are way more white man then the aboriginal people and keep white people keep  moving into Australia faster and faster

3. What is a bora ring and explain why it is so central to this poem.

The Bora Ring is an Aboriginal sacred ground where they dance and celebrate ceremonies. It is important in this poem because it is talking about how the white men/ants have taken over their sacred land and said or claimed it as their own.
4. Explain their reaction in line 8.

1. The Aboriginal people feel powerless because now they are the strangers and cannot talk with the white men because  they cannot speak English. So the white men cannot understand them and they can’t speak their own language because speak their own because the white men still cannot understand them

5. Lines 9-17 begin a ‘litany’. What is the effect produced?

This effect makes us concentrate on what she is saying and make us as readers to believe it is one of the important parts of the poem.

6. Comment on the significance of metaphors used in the poem.

They use the metaphors to say that their ancestors are the lightning bolt over Gaphembah Hill, they are the corroboree and the bora ground  and they deserve to stay there because it is their own land.

7. Comment on the structure and form of this poem.

The lines vary and  some are short and strong and the others are long and give us a first hand experience at the pain they went through. The short lines adds effect to the meaning of the poem. The last lines give a strong ending to give a great finishing.

8. Why does Thunder have a capital letter?

The word Thunder is trying to tell us that it is strong and meaningful ust like the dreamtime stories.

9. Comment on the mood and atmosphere created here.

This mood is sort of angry and when you read this poem you will feel a bit guilty and sorry for the aboriginals.

10. Combine comments on its theme, title and conclusion.

The theme is the Stolen Generation and the title is telling us that the aboriginals are getting moved out out of their own land

Black Land Whiteman’s Land

We gave you everything?

Alcohol
Disease
Racial abuse
Half casts
Homelessness
Sadness
Stolen children
Broken families
Poverty

You gave us all we could take

Land

Are you not our wealth givers?
Everywhere a black footprint
Everywhere a block in Toorak
Everywhere a white millionaire
On black land