As part of a collaboration between the primary and secondary Language and Literature department, Matthew and I got the wonderful opportunity to partner up with fifth graders and during 20-40 minute sessions read and talk with them. Across this quarter, given that it was rather action packed, we were able to slot in three different reading sessions where we read chapter excerpts of “Refugee”, written by Alan Gratz. The novel follows the lives of three different refugee children in three different era’s: from fleeing Nazi Germany, to the 1990s Cuban rafter crisis and exploring the exodus after Syria’s civil war. This book was chosen by Ms. Danielle Van Zijl, their class teacher, as it matched the theme of their current Unit of Inquiry – Human Migration.

Session one:

• Our first session was an interesting experience because as the guest readers we were going in completely blind; we had neither read this book before, nor had we interacted with primary students for the longest time and therefore had no way to gauge their intellectual level. But our expectations were completely blown out of the water as they displayed genuine curiosity and attentiveness throughout the session. Malith and I took turns reading a chapter each (approxish 5ish pages) and at the end of each chapter we stopped to discuss the main ideas about refugees and to listen to their predictions of what might happen next (as we came across such thrilling cliffhangers). They were still a little shy by the end of the first chapter, especially about asking what a complex word meant so we made a little routine to follow. At the end of each chapter, I’ll say a complex word and they would have to guess what it means. If they can’t guess it then I’ll read it in the context of the sentence and ask them to try again and only if they still do not know, tell them the meaning of it. As more sessions passed, they became much more comfortable asking to take the initiative to speak up when they didn’t understand something. 

Session two: 

•  Our second session, contrary to our first, was much more discussion based. We were only able to read through one chapter even though the session was around 25 mins but the discussion that followed I think was much more fruitful. In the previous session, we came across a traditional Israeli dance while reading the book, and to start us off we showed them the dance on our laptops. This prompted an interesting discussion about funeral rites, where they were able to make connections and distinctions across different religions and cultures. To end the session, we challenged them to try and link concepts like migration and colonisation to modern day demographics. We also asked them to explore why people migrate, outside of the extreme situation of being a refugee. All this was done to reinforce the central themes of the book and help them gain a broader perspective of their unit on “Human Migration”. We also dwelled briefly in a pros and cons analysis on colonisation, with an emphasis on Sri Lanka, before realising that we were past our deadline to send them back to their homerooms.  We spent the last few minutes having this discussion as we felt it was important for them to make connections to other subjects that they are studying, for example colonisation in their Host Nation lessons. They initially were wary as to why the discussion was just flowing and veering away from strictly speaking about the chapter we read but we explained how it’s important to make connections across different structures because inadvertently it helps you solidify your understanding of the original material and view it in a different light.

Session three: