Writing to imagine

Preparation and Planning

This topic will be familiar to the majority of students, given its topicality and also the extent of media coverage and public interest. However it may be necessary to set the scene by explaining the geography of events more fully as students might not be familiar with the regions specifically under discussion. It may also be necessary to explain the British support for Sri Lanka specifically, namely that Sri Lanka was under British rule until 1948 and that the countries still have strong links.

Students may themselves have been affected by the tsunami and could have become involved in local fund-raising efforts. Time permitting it might be beneficial to allow a brief classroom discussion of their own feelings after the tsunami, as this could facilitate later tasks requiring empathy and imagination.

The Video supporting Episode 2 is important for delivery of this lesson. If it is not possible to view this in the classroom you may wish to select alternative resources e.g. newspaper extracts detailing the work of HMS Chatham, or further imagery of the MOD's humanitarian efforts.

About the MOD Topic

On 26th December 2004 the most powerful earthquake the world has seen for 40 years occurred just off the coast of Indonesia. This earthquake triggered a vast tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean over a period of about seven hours.

Indonesia sustained the worst loss of life and physical damage. More than 130,000 people died, while at least 37,000 others remain missing. Sri Lanka was also very badly hit. Around 31,000 people died in Sri Lanka and more than half a million were made homeless (BBC 2005, At a glance: countries hit, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4126019.stm, date accessed 25/1/08). India's South East coast, Thailand, the Maldives, Malaysia, Burma, Bangladesh, the Seychelles and some areas of Africa were also affected.

The Royal Navy, the British Army and the Royal Air Force assisted in the humanitarian aid effort in consultation with the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). The operation was titled Operation Garron (the MOD creates a working title for each of its operations so it can be easily identified). In total, the UK Government allocated around 290 million pounds to disaster-relief and reconstruction in the affected countries.

Royal Navy
HMS Chatham and Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Diligence were deployed to Sri Lanka under OP. Garron. HMS Chatham came off Christmas stand-down in Dubai and sailed on 30th December, arriving off the coast near Colombo on 3rd January 2005. Batticaloa in the North East of Sri Lanka had been badly hit and it was decided that the area was in need of assistance. The ships' priority was to restore homes and help repair fishing boats so the locals could repatriate and source food once again. Teams from both vessels cleared houses, a church, schools, and orphanages. They erected tents, cleaned drinking wells, cleared and cleaned a hospital in a small village 20 miles inland that had been cut off by the tsunami. Medics from both ships also held vital clinics for the victims.

Royal Navy engineers from RFA Diligence also carried out work in the Maldives, repairing twenty-eight generators to restore electrical power. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service is a civilian manned fleet, owned by the Ministry of Defence. Its main task is to supply warships of the Royal Navy at sea with essential fuel, food, stores and ammunition. It also provides aviation support for the Royal Navy, together with amphibious support and secure sea transport for Army units and their equipment.

Following the tsunami, the survey ship HMS Scott collected unique images of the Indian Ocean seabed in the vicinity of the devastating tsunami earthquake epicentre in order to gain further global understanding of earthquakes and assist prediction of such events in the future.

Army
A pair of Army Air Corps Bell 212 helicopters, normally based in Brunei were also operational in northern Sumatra. Despite their relatively small size, they moved some 5,400kg of humanitarian aid, as well as providing vital air-mobility to aid workers.

Two military logistic planning experts were also sent from the UK to reinforce the World Food Programme coordination team working in Jakarta.

Royal Air Force (RAF)
RAF aircraft delivered humanitarian aid and support equipment to Indonesia, flying hundreds of tonnes of equipment and aid into the disaster area by RAF C-17, Tristar and Hercules aircraft.

Further Opportunities for Learning

Classroom debate on the importance of international aid and the role of the media in prompting response amongst British civilians would support areas of the PSHE and Citizenship curricula. Students may wish to consider and contrast the scale of British (and other Western) response to the disaster with recent famine or other humanitarian aid. The power of the media in helping us to understand and imagine what is happening in an area remote from Britain can be contrasted with the apathy and 'overkill' also partly contributed to by the media.

Students write a poem about the tsunami using the materials from the lesson as stimulus.

Disasters provide dramatic settings for fictional writing. Students could write a contrasting piece based on another disaster, either natural or man-made. Students can research their disaster of choice before beginning to draft their piece.

Students create a 'character collection' over the course of the term. They should collect information on real-life individuals that they can use to base fictional characters on in the future. Students can also collect information on fictional characters that they feel to have been particularly well constructed.

Give students a 'setting challenge'. Suggest four disparate settings (e.g. seaside town, mountains, house that has been empty for 25 years, a school) and ask them to write a paragraph or two on each, evoking the look and feel of that setting in as much detail as possible. You might like students to suggest the settings as a class.

Channel students' natural creativity by giving them the opening line of a story and asking them to write from that sentence for five minutes without stopping or making any corrections. Explain to students that they should not stop during the designated period and that accuracy is not important on this occasion. After the five minutes is over, students review their work. It may be that there is nothing of use in the material they have produced. However, they may find that they have generated some exciting ideas for use at a later date. This activity can work well as a 'warm-up' for a creative writing session.

Student worksheet answers

Download the teachers notes PDF to access the answers for this lesson.