First Impression Comparison by Bella H

Our reading investigation is exploring the characterisation of fictional figures and looking at how author's can portray characters in such a way that influences the thoughts of the audience. For the purpose of this task, we looked at two different texts that paint wolves in bad light and good light as well as observed how they are depicted to be the protagonist and the antagonist. The two texts I did were a traditional fairy tale classic; 'The Three Little Pigs' and 'Three Little Pigs Advert' by The Guardian. I talked about what traits, features and aspects of the story the author used to paint the wolf as a good or bad character. I compared the two texts and reflected on how the characterisation of wolves as well as other characters can show the audience an entirely different perspective. I concluded that stereotypes impact the opinion of the reader to the point where their perspective on a character may be difficult to change when that figure is different to what they are used to. Do you agree?

Unfamiliar Text - by Josh

LI: to make sense of an unfamiliar text   This week we have been looking at making sense of an unfamiliar text. We looked at the title of the poem and made predictions of what the poem was about. We then read the poem and compared our initial predictions to what the text was about. After this, we unpacked the story using our prior knowledge, knowledge of old and new words and mood and atmosphere to make meaning of what the text was about while justifying our thinking with evidence. I found this activity fun & interesting because the fun part about it is that we were unfamiliar about the text then when we learnt about it that's the fun part. The interesting part was our predictions our initial thought or prediction was that Waltzing Matilda was about a girl learning how to dance we thought about that because waltzing is a dance & matilda is a girl name but when we took a read of the poem we new our prediction were wrong and so we changed our groups prediction and then went deeper into the poem.

First Impression Character Comparison by Farzana

  

This activity was about gathering our first impressions and comparing them to create an informed opinion. First impressions on texts are important as they are what you think or understand of the story. 

We chose two texts from different perspectives. I chose The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing by Aesop and Little Red Riding Hood Not Quite by Yvonne Morrison. The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing is portraying the wolf in a bad light, whereas Little Red Riding Hood Not Quite gives multiple opinions about why the wolf wouldn't be at fault all while reading the original story. We wrote a short summary about each text along with what we noticed about the texts and the use of vocabulary or language features. 

After writing each summary, we compared the two texts and stated our opinion about what we currently think. Each text has made me come to realise that the 'norm' often paints the wolf in a bad light and authors emphasise physical features of wolves in order to accomplish this. I understand that although people could look at both perspectives, they would still naturally think that the wolf is the antagonist. These books that make the wolves as a villain create a mindset that all wolves are bad. This makes it that people would be unable to differentiate the realistic characteristics of a wolf and the made up attributes of a wolf. 

I enjoyed this activity because I got to look at two perspectives and share my opinion about this. I also think that this task has made it easier for me to compare two texts or two characters in depth and form an educated opinion using learning conversations.