Blog Archive

Wednesday 29 January 2014

WORK FOR WEEK FOUR

A child meets someone frightening


How do you indicate a child’s view of things?   Partly by the language you use, choice of vocab.   Partly by the child’s points of reference.   Partly, perhaps mainly, by the setting and circumstances 



  
The person may be






·      really threatening – a kidnapper, or escaped axe-murderer on the run,  teacher, step-father/mother, a judge in court.

How do you do this without it getting too melodramatic?   You may need to do some research about actual kidnappings or people on the run.   Focus needs to be especially on what they do and say (or don’t say).  Of course the teacher or other adult may be feared because of something the child has done and is afraid of being caught by their sudden return home.


·       imagined as threatening  – person from a different background, country, race, or by reputation,  a ghost in the attic, their real father.

They’ve never seen a short person, a posh person, a black person, a disabled person,  a Japanese person.   They may have picked up all kinds of myths at school, or from a trusted by over imaginative friend.  They may have all kinds of fearful preconceptions/prejudices, which make the person frightening before they’ve met them.   They may have had particular experiences -  war, crime, prison, mental hospital.


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