Inspired by: Weslandia - Week 2

In the educational activity titled 'Wesley’s Idea', students are encouraged to explore reading for various purposes and to understand the use of organisational devices such as bullet points in structuring text. The task is inspired by the protagonist Wesley from 'Weslandia', who embarks on a school summer project to establish his own civilisation through agriculture. Students are tasked with emulating Wesley by researching farming techniques of ancient civilisations including Ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley, and Mesopotamia, and documenting their findings. The aim is to create a notebook section headed 'Ancient Civilisations: Food and Farming', presenting the information in a clear and accessible format. This is to be followed by a slide-show presentation, where students will later evaluate each other's work based on the clarity of their spoken delivery, including intonation, volume, and gestures.

The second activity, 'Planting an Idea', prompts students to engage their imagination and predictive skills. Here, the focus is on the atmospheric sentence 'His land is being planted' from 'Weslandia'. Students are asked to consider the atmosphere author Paul Fleischman has created, identifying it as mysterious and indicative of an unseen but benevolent force at work. They are then challenged to think creatively about how this atmosphere is achieved with such brevity and to craft alternative sentences that could evoke a similar feeling. To deepen their engagement, students are encouraged to consider what Wesley might have heard, seen, or felt during this event, and to write an account of that night, paying close attention to the tone of their writing to maintain the intended atmosphere.