Voices of Conflict - developing cross-curricular links through creative thinking
'Voices of Conflict' is a Pilot Enquiry School project delivered at Halton High School by Creative Partnerships Merseyside.
Enquiry Question
The Enquiry Question for this project was: How can creative thinking about war, conflict and Vietnam develop learners understanding of cross-curricular links, skill transference and their learning processes?
The Project
Through cross-curricular projects students were encouraged to make links and draw comparisons between subjects e.g., how the content of Vietnamese and American music reflected the war context and the poetry and literature of the era. By developing thinking competencies and analysing the content of the stimuli provided, students were encouraged to express opinions and feelings about the Vietnam war and discover historical, geographical and cultural trends that otherwise would remain quite separate entities. Students were required to make two responses, one creative and one evaluating how they have learnt and journeyed to this response and understanding.
The pupils were split into teams and each produced a film. Some performed in character, others’ via interview or news broadcast and one group focused on a wider theme and produced a movie on war in the 20th century. All students had the confidence to participate in the film recordings either by being on screen as a character or via a voice over. The teams worked to delegate roles to different members to ensure the film was completed within the set time scale.
Student’s chose to compose their own expressive music to accompany their movie, some used music from the sound bank the class created in preparation for the project and others decided to enhance their movie by producing a specific soundtrack once the film sequence was arranged and completed. There was also an opportunity for some to submit their movies into the Halton Youth Film Festival.
The project is now being used to influence department schemes of work with the outcomes being used as a school inset opportunity – how students can actively learn and how learning can be brought to life.
New schemes are being looked at in detail and cross-curricular links made explicit, where possible departments are trying to overlap units of work for greater continuity.
Students being encouraged to vocalise their learning process as well as producing an outcome.