Secondary Curriculum Unit

English Stage 6 Assessment One Western Sydney University Nida Anwer |17732736

(The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury: Prose Fiction Analysis) Lesson 1/2

Topic: Standard Module C: The Craft of Writing

Class: Stage 6 Time: 60 Minutes

Year 12

Teacher: Objectives for self

 To teach students how to allow themselves to project their own
emotional thoughts when analyzing and interpreting a text.
 Analyzing the important English textual concept ‘point of view’.
 Encouraging students to look into their own wide reading and personal
influences when constructing understanding of the main text being
studied.
 Teach students to create their own opinions on the texts portrayal and
project this creative thinking back to the class.
 Build on prior knowledge about important imagery and analyzing
techniques.

Syllabus Outcomes for students

 EN12-1 - independently responds to and composes complex texts for understanding,

interpretation, critical analysis, imaginative expression and pleasure.
 EN12-6 - investigates and explains the relationships between texts.

Materials
 Smart Board (ICT Tool)
 Website: https://study.com/academy/lesson/ray-bradburys-the-pedestrian-
summary-analysis-theme.html
 Website: http://www.lonestar.edu/mankind-progress.htm
 Scaffold Worksheets
 Informal Group Task Sheet
 Google Documents
Procedures

Time Organization Teaching/ Learning Activities

10  Students will recap from their previous lesson on the text “The
Whole class/
Minutes Groups Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury”. Students have already, in their
previous class, read the text and analyzed specific techniques.
 Teacher has already explained what ‘Prose Fiction’ is. Teacher
indiv / briefly states why ‘The Pedestrian’ depicts important NESA
(indiv/whole outcomes and how this will help them in their future creative
class/groups writing tasks.
 Teacher will like students to volunteer about what their prior
understanding of the short text and what imagery they had
imagined when reading this text e.g. Gloomy? Sinister?
Dystopia? What themes they think were present? This will be
a quick recap session where students can remember important
points from the previous lesson.
Secondary Curriculum Unit
English Stage 6 Assessment One Western Sydney University Nida Anwer |17732736

20 Group Task/  Teach briefly discusses short activity that students will complete in
Minutes Whole class. their table groups. Teacher will also hand out worksheets that have
important sentences/statements from the short text.
 Students will begin in their table groups to analyze a few sentences
taken from ‘The Pedestrian’. This will take 10 minutes.
 Teacher will then ask students to volunteer to express their answers.
When analyzing these sentences, what did students think this
short story was trying to convey to its audience? This is to take 5
minutes.
 How can we see just by analyzing these sentences the concept of
‘point of view’? How can we interpret this?
 Teacher will then put up a video on the smartboard via link
https://study.com/academy/lesson/ray-bradburys-the-pedestrian-
summary-analysis-theme.html - this video discusses interesting
concepts and themes. Video is 5 minutes long.

15 Whole  After watching the video, teacher will take 2 minutes to discuss
Minutes Class/Table how students interpreted the video and what it was trying to tell us
Groups and were there any differences of the videos perspective of the text
compared to student’s theories about the text? Discuss the
differences.
 Teacher continues to study the concept of ‘point of view’ by
having a 5-minute brainstorm activity on the board.
 Teacher hands out another worksheet. Teacher will explain that
students wide reading will have to be present in the next activity.
 Teacher wants students to look beyond one text and compare
different texts. Students are asked to compare ‘The Pedestrian’
with other texts they have read e.g. Divergent (dystopian
society/society controls the masses).
 In groups, students will take 10 minutes to compare texts. Students
will then present their comparisons to the class in their groups.

10 Group  Students will part take in a classroom short character analysis of

minutes Work/Individual the main character in the short text, Leonard Mead. Students will
Understanding. discuss/explore who he is? What do they think he is symbolic
of? How do we relate to Mead’s situation?
 Teacher will ask students to open their books and write this down
while they teacher puts the heading up on the board “Who is
Leonard Mead?”
 Students will project their answers and teacher will write this up as
a Google Docs Lesson. Students will use their own deceives and
have the chance to learn off of one another’s answers.
 This will take ten minutes as teacher will want students to answer
why they think Mead is represented this way in the text.
 Secondary Curriculum Unit
English Stage 6 Assessment One Western Sydney University Nida Anwer |17732736

5  Teacher will explain the short informal task that students will
MMinutes Minutes complete as a group. This will be assessed in the next class.
 Students will carry out an act from a passage in ‘The Pedestrian’.
 Each table group will receive a passage that they will have to act
out in front of the class. Each student will have to play a key
role in the act. (Cross-curricular activity).
 Teacher hands out sheet explaining what students must prepare
before the next class.
 Teacher advises students to keep the concept of ‘point of view’ in
mind as they are investigating why the text why designed in the
way it was. They are analyzing the way it was originally perceived
by its audience and how it will now be perceived the way they are
to present it.

Homework  Students will need to be prepared with an act to play out in the next class. Students
will need to have a strong interpretation of the text being studied, its themes and
context. What attitudes has the text brought up and why?

Evaluation/Extension

The teacher structures the lesson to evaluate student’s ability to work cohesively within a group

whilst also allowing students to express their own interpretations and opinions from a text that

can be acknowledge with a variety of theories. Students are able to bring in their knowledge of

their own wide reading to compare texts and understand both their negatives and positives.

Students are required to extend their work outside of the classroom and work on a group

project, taking the learning from one place to another. Students will learn the importance of

working in a group and adding imagination and interpretation into their performance. Teacher

will evaluate student’s capabilities when it comes to high order thinking and interpretations of

imaginative texts. Teacher can then see which students are able to create creative thought and

those who can further their potential in analysing the text. Teacher can then build on this in the

next classes via their observations.

Secondary Curriculum Unit
English Stage 6 Assessment One Western Sydney University Nida Anwer |17732736

RESOURCES – LESSON 1/2

‘The Pedestrian’ by Ray Bradbury

Short Story Analysis
Let us analyse the short prose fiction story, ‘The Pedestrian’.
What are some interesting concepts you can gather from this text. What has the speaker of
the text controlled what we are perceiving from this text through creative expression?
Think deeply about the highlighted words.
What is the text trying to tell us?

1) He would stand upon the corner of an intersection and peer down long moonlit avenues of
sidewalk in four directions, deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference; he was
alone in this world of A.D. 2053, or as good as alone.

2) “Hello, in there,” he whispered to every house on every side as he moved. “What’s up tonight on
Channel 4, Channel 7, Channel 9? Where are the cowboys rushing, and do I see the United
States Cavalry over the next hill to the rescue?”

“Your name?” said the police car in a metallic whisper.

He couldn’t see the men in it for the bright light in his eyes.
“Leonard Mead,” he said.
“Speak up!”
“Leonard Mead!”
“Business or profession?”
“I guess you’d call me a writer.”
“No profession,” said the police car, as if talking to itself.
The light held him fixed, like a museum specimen, needle thrust through chest.
“You might say that, “said Mr. Mead.
He hadn’t written in years. Magazines and books didn’t sell any more.

______________________________________________
Secondary Curriculum Unit
English Stage 6 Assessment One Western Sydney University Nida Anwer |17732736

Wide Reading Exercise

The Pedestrian compared to….

Let’s compare texts!

What is something YOU have read that may compare to Ray Bradbury’s
‘The Pedestrian’ e.g. The Hunger Games…Divergent etc.

Answer the following questions and compare. Discuss this with your table
groups and present your findings to the classroom.

Features The Text 1 Text 2

Pedestrian
Describe the
main
character.
What sort of
persona does
he/she
portray?
What sort of
problems does
he/she face?
How is he/she
seen amongst
society?
What is the
implication of
the character
being who they
are?
Secondary Curriculum Unit
English Stage 6 Assessment One Western Sydney University Nida Anwer |17732736

Informal Group Task

In groups of 5, students are to act out a scene/paragraph from ‘The Pedestrian’ in front of the
class.
Each group will be given the following mood to set the tone of the paragraph they are to act out.
Fearful Cheerful Melancholy Grumpy Determined

Each group must consist of:

1. x2 Actors (Mead and the Police) who are to act out the scene (will not
speak).
2. The Narrator (student who will speak in the tone of the assigned mood
whilst students are acting).
3. x2 Speakers (Students who will convey to class the reasons behind their
scene and why it was acted this way).
Explain to the class how experimenting with the ‘point of view’ concept allows
you to explore other ways of looking at the text!

This will be performed in the classroom. You may use materials to support your
scene e.g. background music, images, instruments or drawings.

Questions of the Day: What is Pathetic Fallacy? How does this relate to ‘The
Pedestrian’?

Prize to given to the best performance! Good luck, students!

Secondary Curriculum Unit
English Stage 6 Assessment One Western Sydney University Nida Anwer |17732736

The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury: Prose Fiction Analysis) Lesson 2/2

Topic: Standard Module C: The Craft of Writing

Class: Stage 6 Time: 60 Minutes

Year 12

Teacher: Objectives for self

 Teach students how to visualize the bigger picture in texts and understand different
audience reactions and interpretations.
 Assess student’s strengths and weaknesses when interpreting a text. Using this,
further develop different tasks to accommodate students when stu dying a text.
 Build on their creative writing techniques by building on major techniques
in short text analyzed.
 Helping students understand why this text will help them continue their
craft of writing and help them in their preliminary exams and assessments.

Syllabus Outcomes for students

 EN12-5 – thinks imaginatively, creatively, interpretively, analytically and discerningly

to respond to and compose texts that include considered and detailed information, ideas
and arguments.
 EN12-7 – explains and evaluates the diverse ways texts can represent personal and
public worlds.

Materials:
 Smart Board
 Power Point Slide Presentation
 YouTube Link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiF3rOVUx3o
 Website Link – https://331654471601588311.weebly.com/humanites/the-pedestrian
 Prize for students (small stationary items e.g. erasers/pens/pencils/small notepads)
 Students: Workbooks.

Procedures
Time Organization Teaching/ learning activities
10 minutes Teacher/Whole Class  Teacher waits at the door and before students enter
class, teacher stops each student’s and asks to state one
line about what they remember from the previous lesson
about ‘The Pedestrian’.
indiv / (indiv/whole  Teacher has already prepared Smart Board for YouTube
class/groups video via link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiF3rOVUx3o
before class commences. Students are advised to take
out books to note the important features of the video.
 Students will be instructed to give their reactions to the
video and what impressions it portrayed to its audience.
What are some of the themes we discussed in previous
classes that are present in the video shown.
 Teacher reminds students of the informal assessment
task will be performed in the last 20 minutes of class.
Students should be prepared with all materials.
 10 Minutes Whole Class  Teacher opens Power Point. Students will be taught what a
protagonist and antagonist is and how it is important to
understand who they are in ‘The Pedestrian’.
 Students will discuss the typical protagonist and antagonist
they see in different texts and film. Students will be asked;
How do these characters differ from the protagonist and
antagonist in ‘The Pedestrian?’
 Teacher will continue to ask student who they believe the
protagonist is in the short story and who may be the
antagonist? It does not have to be a single person, it can be
a…. society?
 Teacher will discuss the concept of Leonard Mead vs
Society.

10 Minutes Whole Class  Using the same power point presentation, teacher will open
link
https://331654471601588311.weebly.com/humanites/the-
pedestrian.
 Teacher will go through this website and explain key
features in Leonard Meads character and his ‘rebelliousness’
towards ‘traditional’ societal motives.
 Students will read question from the website: Make a chart
there describes the Points of Plot: 1. Protagonist and
setting 2. Challenge or problem for protagonist
 Students will: Write a short paragraph about Ray
Bradbury and his work.

8 Minutes Student Centred  Teacher instructs students to partake in an Open Mind

Portrait activity. Students here will able to explore and
discuss the authors reasoning for his characters perspective.
 Teacher uses whiteboard and has a picture of Ray Bradbury.
Students will come up each and write a short sentence
describing what Bradbury was projecting to his generation
about what the future was looking like.
 What is this about the ‘untold future?’.
 Short debate style – arguments and opinions are
encouraged to seek different perspectives.
22 Minutes Student Centred  Students will have 2 minutes to prepare for their
performance of paragraphs from short text. Whilst they are
preparing, teacher states that there are no wrong answers,
this is all down to interpretation and imagination.
 Whilst students are performing, teacher has prepared a
feedback form for each student. Students will receive
feedback forms about their overall group performance and
also their individual performance.
 Lesson will end with teacher advising the importance of
deeper understanding and high order thinking and how
this will benefit them in future assessment tasks.
 Teacher will outline the importance learning ‘The
Pedestrian’ for Preliminary HSC work and explains what
the future will hold for understanding prose fiction texts and
other texts and how this can be implemented in their exams.

Homework Students are instructed to now, at home and using their interpretation from the text
studied, to create a story board for a creative writing piece. Teacher has stated she
will take the story board pieces and assess this. Each students work will be marked so
students must write these pieces and return to class. Teacher wants to observe
student’s ability to refine their own independent work and craft interesting and
imaginative pieces.
Evaluation/Extension

The lesson will be evaluated for its work on collaborative learning and high order thinking.

Informal groups tasks have been planned accordingly in order to allow students to think about

the understanding of short story analysis through different forms of presentation and

interpretations. Students are encouraged to get into debate style presenting as it allows them to

create arguments about their interpretation to a text. This will encourage personal thinking. This

will also build on their presentation and communication skills. Teacher will be evaluating

student’s ability to work in groups but also maintaining individual interpretations of the text.
RESOURCES - LESSON 2/2
Slideshow Presentation
 Rationale
The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) has constructed Standard Module C: The

Craft of Writing in order to recognize the skills students can learn from examining and analysing

challenging texts that will also allow students to learn how to become analytical writers who use

complex written expression and project emotion both creatively and imaginatively (NESA,

2017). The following lesson plans have been created to challenge student’s imagination and

interpretation of the text ‘The Pedestrian’ written in 1951 by Ray Bradbury. Students will be

able to work collaboratively amongst their fellow classmates, therefore, allowing creative

thinking to express and expand from one mind to another. The lesson plans also surround

themselves with the important textual concept, ‘point of view’. This concept demands

interpretation from a range of perspectives and students will analyse various ways a text can be

explored. The lessons have been designed specifically using the text ‘The Pedestrian’ to intrigue

students into exploring texts with their own personal attitudes through imaginative yet

speculative prose fiction. Pedagogical approaches are also present as the teacher prompts

students to work in an environment that is not teacher centred, rather, run by students performing

and presenting to the class. NESA English Stage 6 syllabus outcomes are present in both lesson

plans and have been followed through in the plans as they contribute to student’s task focused

activities and learning needs.

‘The Pedestrian’ by Ray Bradbury shows enormous amounts of figurative language techniques

and symbolic futuristic messages, but more importantly, Bradbury has built a text that conveys

ideas and creates meaning of serious worldly vision. Bradbury’s text, although written in 1951,

can relate to much of what society faces today. This allows students who study the text intently

to connect with the work, therefore, bringing their own personal interpretation and creative

imagination into their studies. Incorporating this text into these classroom lesson plans will allow

teachers to teach the module ‘The Craft of Writing’ with creative expression that will have
students generating ideas, appropriately using various forms of language and most of all working

independently and collaboratively in the classroom.

Lesson one of this paper is the following lesson from the initial introduction lesson to ‘The

Pedestrian’. Students have already read the short story, interpreted key figurative languages,

techniques and symbols. This lesson has been planned to further analyse key concepts such as

‘point of view’. The main focus of the lesson is to dive into the creative understanding of the text

and its perspectives. Students will interpret genre through comparison activities. Wide –reading

activities are especially practical as students can use their own personal textual understanding

from other texts to understanding form and content (Boas & Gazis, 2016). This allows the

teacher to build on what students already know about dystopian texts and how any teacher can

teach with methods that student’s find engaging. This lesson is also where the teacher presents

the informal tasks to students to encourage cohesive group work and collaborative learning.

Outcome EN12-1 in lesson plan one has been presented as students are asked to interpret

important parts of the text in a worksheet activity. Through this, students can critically analyse

the text using imaginative expression as the text allows students to analyse it this way. Outcome

EN12-6 is seen in the wide reading task. Students can investigate and explain relationships

between texts and explain their comparisons.

Lesson two analyses cross-curricular styled learning and incorporates different subjects such as

Drama into the English classroom. An informal task is used as a bridging task that will

eventually show students the direction they must take to focus on their preliminary HSC exams

from a different perspective that is not as demanding but still allows the student to connect with

the material present. The implication of this classroom lesson plan/activity is to allow students to

identify the text from a range of different perspectives. The informal task creates a fun

environment that students can enjoy whilst also learning important skills like presentation,

listening, group work, communication and imagination skills. The teacher’s role during this task
is very minimal, therefore, allowing it to be a student-centred lesson. The teacher will provide

constructive feedback that will have students understand their strengths in their presentation

skills and their creative thinking skills. Lesson plan two goes further in depth towards explaining

the opinions of students in regard to Bradbury’s anticipation as to why he would create this sort

of motive in his story. Is he trying to say something to his audience? How do we as a society see

this publication? EN12-7 outcome is studied using these criteria’s. EN12-5 is presented as

students are instructed to look beyond the text, seek imagination through the text and create

educational arguments and opinions. The teacher wants this to be an activity that is like an

informal debate amongst students. A debate shows students that opinions are encouraged and

acknowledged.

Focusing purely on the importance of imagination and expression, these lessons have been

designed to focus on understanding of Bradbury’s capturing of a dystopian society. The main

focus is to have students think, perceive and understanding how creativity derives from various

forms of expression. The concept ‘point of view’ best invites students to create educated

opinions. Connecting this with the Craft of Writing modules implications, the lessons plans and

text, ‘The Pedestrian’ in a stepping stone for students to begin developing their own ideas and

writing skills to create emotion, understand complex texts and learn important language forms

and techniques (NESA, 2017).

Furthermore, the flow of the two lesson plans are back to back classroom activities that ask

students to think creatively and imaginatively whilst also maintaining learning styles like high

order thinking and creative writing. Students will excel from these lessons plan in order to build

their own mind-sets into writing creatively whist undertaking the module The Craft of Writing.

Building on their imagination is crucial for students to understand the importance of the power of

language and imaginative engagement (NESA,2017). The purpose of these lesson plans is to

build on student focused classroom sessions and to allow expression to release itself from
students. It allows students to speculate and make their own judgement that will allow for in

depth compositions when using these methods in their own creative writing tasks. Without

building on students creative thinking, creative writing is void. The lesson plans are constructed

to be the stepping stones for future creative writing tasks that will motivate students to

understand the importance of creative writing and craft.

 REFERENCE LIST
Boas, E & Gazis S. (2016). The Artful English Teacher. Kensington Gardens, South Australia: The
Australian Association for the Teaching of English.

Bradbury, R. (1951) The Pedestrian.

The Reporter

Has Mankind Really Made Progress? A Critical Analysis of the Characterization, Theme, and
Imagery of "The Pedestrian". Lonestar.edu. Retrieved 21 March 2018, from
http://www.lonestar.edu/mankind-progress.htm

Hunger Games vs Divergent [Image] (n.d). Retrieved March, 19 2018 from

https://www.thinglink.com/scene/627950151637401600

NSW, B (2017). English Standard Stage 6: Outcomes [online]. Syllabus.nesa.edu.au Retrieved

from https://syllabus.nesa.nsw.edu.au/english-standard-stage6/outcomes-continuum-of-
learning/

Ray Bradbury's The Pedestrian: Summary, Analysis & Theme - Video & Lesson Transcript |
Study.com. (2018). Study.com. Retrieved 20 March 2018, from
https://study.com/academy/lesson/ray-bradburys-the-pedestrian-summary-analysis-
theme.html

The Joker [Image] (n.d). Retrieved March 19, 2018 from https://www.gq.com/story/joker-origin-
movie

The Pedestrian Cartoon [Image] (n.d) Retrieved March 19, 2018 from
https://horrornovelreviews.com/2015/10/08/listen-to-the-audiobook-of-ray-bradburys-the-
pedestrian-as-read-by-daniel-shortland-inside/

Time, F. (2015, Jun 11) “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury from Ian MacKenzie” [Video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiF3rOVUx3o.

Walking to See [Image] (n.d) Retrieved March 19, 2018 from

http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2012/08/walking-to-see-ray-bradburys-
pedestrian.html