In Week 9 and 10 of this term, we have been exploring ‘The Promise’ by Nicola Davies in the neighbourhood as a shared text. The story connects to our inquiry focus of making a positive change in our world, offering an important message through evocative images and descriptive language. In small groups we first enjoyed the text together, and then discussed how the story related to sustainability and what messages we could draw from it. Students were prompted with the questions ‘What does the story make you think of?’, ‘How does the story make you feel?’, and ‘What questions or wonderings do you have?’ and worked in pairs to brainstorm their ideas before sharing with the group.
We concluded that the main issues in the book relate to poverty, the environment (trees and pollution), and making a positive change, and that the setting at the start of the story showed us an example of a city that is not sustainable and throughout the book we learned how people made it more liveable. Here some ideas that students came up with:
One person can make a big change in the world. (Havi)
There is always a chance for things to change, if your life is bad it could always get better. (Saphira)
Plants and trees make the world a brighter place. (Rueben and Gabriel)
The story’s message was even if you grow up in a town that is broken and polluted, that doesn’t mean there’s never going to be life. (Allegra)
If you make a promise, you have to keep it. Even if you don’t understand to start with, you’ll find out why it’s important. (Marly)
We also had the chance to explore the descriptive language that the author had used throughout the story, and how it helped us to picture in our heads what was happening in the text. Together we unpacked the different ways that the author used language at the start of the story to describe the city where the main character lives, and then in small groups students came up with their own interpretation and modification of the descriptive language throughout the story.
Here are some of students suggestions for other ways the author could re-write the sentence ‘Green spread through the city like a song’, while maintaining the same meaning:
Happiness went through the city like a breeze. (Nyla)
Nature and joy swept around the city like a living broom. (Marni)
Joy sprouted through the small town like a flower. (Clemy)
Nature raced through the city like a fast bike. (Oscar)
Love washed through the city like a wave. (Lee)
Happiness slipped through the city like a snake. (Olivia)
Life flew through the city like a big gust of wind. (Allegra)