English Career Resources

Key Stage 3: Who do you think you are? A personal journey...

Teacher's notes

The focus of this unit is the development of learners' confidence as they learn strategies and techniques for self-presentation, preparing for future occasions when CV building and interviews will be an important part of their engagement with the world of work.

The unit draws on their existing knowledge and understanding of popular media forms, making explicit the work that has to be done to persuade others to respond positively to individual strengths. Learners familiar with social networking sites like MySpace, Bebo and Facebook will recognise the idea of creating a profile which represents them to an unfamiliar audience, and the desire to impress or attract potential 'friends' through the use of language and pictures. Analysis of this appeal is an important part of developing awareness of persuasive language in new media contexts.

Part 1

1. Questionnaire (PDF): The students should complete the questionnaire. How well do you know yourself? Encourage students to be honest in their self-assessment. Explain that they will be keeping a response log to record their feelings as they undertake these tasks.
   
   Key words: strengths, weaknesses, goals change
   
   Take a quick head and shoulders 'mug shot' of each student: explain it's a snapshot of where they are now (like the questionnaire) and they will have time later to develop a more prepared look (you could compare holiday snaps and modelling portfolios). They should begin their response log writing.
   
   
2. Writing about yourself (PDF)
   Relating back to the log and questionnaire, discuss different kinds of writing about yourself. Gather ideas then ask the class to comment on generic features of different kinds of personal writing. This could be developed to have a fuller focus on reading and language objectives by collecting examples of each, putting students into groups and giving each group a different kind of text to analyse, feeding back to the class to complete the grid.
   
   Key words: honesty, exaggeration, hyperbole
   
   
3. Students should, by now, be aware of the element of self-promotion in communicating with an audience. To underline this, in pairs they can plan and arrange a photo-shoot. Explain the role of the art director in bringing an idea to production. They will take it in turns to take on this role in the photo-shoot. They will need to discuss and prepare action plans itemising location, clothing, expression, body language: book cameras, studio/location and technical support as appropriate. Choices should be explained in the log.
   
   Key words: preparation, planning, organisation
   
   
4. Profile: students are now ready to combine words and pictures to create a webpage profile. This could be produced in Photoshop as a simulation, unless you want to take it further to create a live class site within your school VLE. ICT departments may like to work with you in planning and effecting this part of the unit to meet to meet ICT objectives. Alternatively, it could remain paper-based.
   
   Peer review and self-evaluation are essential elements and the log should reflect increased confidence in self-projection.
   
   Key words: audience, projection, evaluation, development
   
   

Part 2

5. Audition: picking up on the idea of a 'turning point', discuss how far confidence has improved (assuming it has!) and relate this to the need to present in auditions and interviews in the future. The brief role-play activity is to help students understand the essential difference between the two: an interview is a dialogue whereas an audition is a monologue. However, if you are being interviewed you have to be just as prepared as for an audition and both are performances.
   
   In pairs students prepare questions and answers, then perform interviews. Take two sets of volunteers to present to the class.
   
   Key words: monologue, dialogue, performance
   
   Students should continue to log responses to the task.
   
   
6. Screening Big Brother audition advice. Select one or two past Big Brother auditions for screening and ask how effective they are. Screen Davina McCall's advice and ask students to order the importance of her recommendations. If you have difficulty accessing YouTube (it is often blocked in schools) you should be able to access the Big Brother site through Channel 4.
   
   Key words: effective, impact, engaging, authentic
   
   
7. Audition production. Students should work in small groups of 3 with carefully defined roles, which they can exchange if they want to (there may well be one or two students who are still resistant to being on camera and it is probably better for them to see how much fun everyone else is having than to make them do it).
   
   They should use the planning sheet (PDF) provided. These should be approved before groups go to going to production.
   
   They should be given specific appointments for 'studio time' with technician and blue screen. Ideally they should book their own times, within given parameters, and be encouraged to show as much initiative as possible.
   
   In order to contain production work (which can expand to fill all available time) it would be useful to establish Auditions Day or Week (depending how flexible your timetable arrangements are). All performance to camera will have to be completed in this time.
   
   Students should be invited to a screening of their auditions and the class encouraged to respond positively to each other's productions: a useful formulation is to 'say one good thing and something which could be improved'. Students need to understand the importance of being able to take criticism, but also how to offer it constructively.
   
   Key words: constructive criticism