The Rabbits: Part 2

Image from The Rabbits, with Assessment caption

Assessment objective

As a class, or in groups, develop a mind map about the story The Rabbits, by John Marsden and Shaun Tan.

Video of the story is available below.

Introduction

The Rabbits is a partly allegorical fable about colonisation, told from the viewpoint of the colonised.

A mind map is a diagram used to visually organise information. A mind map is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the centre of a blank landscape page, to which associated representations of ideas such as images, words and parts of words are added.

Your students may suggest any or all of the following, depending on their ages:

family
loss
dispossession
The Stolen Generations
displacement
wisdom
women
health
[sense of] place
kinship
languages
knowledge
Aboriginal English
connection [to land]
environment
oral history
The Dreaming
petroglyphs (and other visual forms of communication)
song, dance, storytelling, ceremony (and other ways of performing communication)
bush foods and medicine
interdependence
technology (designing, making and appraising: weapons, tools, baskets, etc)
science (seasons, astronomy)
land management (firestick farming, propagation)
introduction of hard-hoofed (strange and new) animals’ destruction of food sources
remains (middens, carbon-dating)

Write these on the back of “post-it” notes (so that they can be placed word/s side down).

Assessment

Select one of these as the topic for writing a unit of work that could be used on your next professional experience placement.
Identify the key concepts of the story.
Explain briefly why you chose a particular concept.
Explain why you placed the concept where you did, on the concept map, in relation to the main concept (describe its distance from the main concept).

The Rabbits: An allegory of colonisation

Activity: Read the story about the way rabbits have invaded and taken over a country.

References

Marsden, J & Tan, S 1998, The Rabbits, Thomas C Lothian, Port Melbourne, Vic.