- SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL
Ray Connor
Rationale
This unit was designed as a five-week study of Ray Lawler's
play, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, by a Year 10 extension
class. Selection into this class is either by application or by
invitation, following monitoring that occurs constantly throughout
Years 9 and 10. Generally students who enter this class are
already motivated and have shown a distinct ability to surpass
those requirements ordinarily expected at Year 10 level.
The greatest influence on the planning of this unit was the
Williams Model for Developing Thinking and Feeling Processes. The
demands of this model for intellectual input, such as thinking
that is fluent, flexible, original and elaborated, combined with
an affective input that sets the expectations of students (and
teachers alike) to exhibit willingness, courage, intuition and
challenge remain invaluable.
Aim
- Three levels of approach to tasks are sought (though not
always explicitly stated):
o the factual - dealing with content information
o the interpretive - addressing the implicit knowledge we have
of the text ('reading between the lines', underlying motives)
o the responsive - how such issues raised in the text can be
applied in the wider sphere as the student sees it, a reflection
on one's own outlook on life.
Activities
- o Find a small collection of short articles from newspapers,
magazines and other printed material which either depict or raise
issues that contrast city life and country life.
-
- o Roo and Barney have three major quarrels in the play.
Re-read the third quarrel carefully. Find the places where the
following concerns are dealt with:
- a) the code of not leaving your mates when they need you
- b) country work being noble, while city work is
disgraceful
- c) the need to admit one's mistakes
- d) the betrayal of the lay-off's routines.
-
- o Re-read the accounts of Roo's loss to Johnnie Dowd when
cutting cane.
- Improvise a brief scene in which Roo tells Barney he is
leaving and asks Barney to leave with him. What would each
say?
-
- o Design or describe a new front cover of a program for a
performance of the play. Try to bring out any connections between
Olive and the dolls.
-
- o Make a list of things about Australia that you think may
have changed since the play was written in the 1950s.
-
- o What do you see as the play's relevance to the 1990s? Or the
Year 2000?
-
- o Create a concept map to show the relationships among the
characters in the play and/or to link the characters with the
play's important themes.
-
- o Compare the use of dolls in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
with their use in Dorothy Hewitt's Susannah's Dreaming.
-
- o In what ways is the relationship between Spike and Susannah
similar to that between Roo and Olive?
-
- o Use storyboarding to create a scene from Summer of the
Seventeenth Doll as a camera may film it.
-
- o Organise a readers' theatre performance of a scene from the
play that you consider very important (and explain why).
-
- o Prepare a set of questions and interview an actor who has
performed in the play. Write up what was said in the form of a
newspaper report.
-
- o Write and perform a scene showing what two or more of the
leading characters were saying and doing when 'offstage'.
-
- o 'Barney litters Australia with offspring, while Roo litters
Olive's living room with dolls, suggesting that once a year each
affirms his capacity as progenitor.'
- To what extent do you find this view a compelling one?
-
- o Think of real people who are similar in some way to the
characters in this play. What are the similarities?
- o Are the relationships between the characters simply a
reflection of the changing times or are they more deep-seated,
universal traits held by all humans?
- o Choose an activity or project to investigate, either
individually or in small groups, that holds great appeal to
you. There are three rules that must be adhered to at all
times: firstly, the activity is be legal; secondly, it is a
feasible proposition and relates to the play; thirdly, it
remains a challenge to you personally.
In Retrospect
This unit was successful because of:
- o its content/choice of tasks
- o the opportunity for the students to bring knowledge and
skills acquired elsewhere into another setting
- o its focus on implicit knowledge
- o class discussion time addressing how the content affected
their life
- o the pride they felt in being given reasonable autonomy.
With respect to the relationships between the characters, they
definitely engaged in higher order thinking. For instance, they
drew on the relationship between Emma and Olive and then
(reluctantly at times) saw parallels with themselves and their own
mum. Some (I'm sure) could see the path they might be headed down,
somewhat similar to the women of Barney's past, being left with a
legacy (a child) of what once was. It forced them to question
their own values and morality. Regardless of the embarrassment it
brought these two girls, they were able to make links between the
play's characters (who next during Barney's rutting season?) and
their own personal conduct - a level of (conceptual) thinking
ordinarily missed.
[Ray Connor teaches English at a secondary school in
Victoria.]
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Links to resources: http://www.lardcave.net/tig/hsc/english.2ug.lawler.17thdoll.html
