Here Out West (ATOM Study Guide)

Nancy visits her daughter in hospital who has just given birth. Tagging along is her 8- year-old Lebanese neighbour, Amirah, who she is babysitting. It is a bittersweet meeting for Nancy, as her new grandchild is about to be taken away, her mother being deemed unfit by the authorities to keep her. In an act of desperation, Nancy makes the decision to steal the baby, fleeing from the hospital with Amirah by her side. Not long after their audacious escape, a pedestrian is involved in a hit and run.

Three young men from the neighbourhood step in to help, unsure if he'll survive the night. Across eight distinct yet interconnected stories, Nancy’s spontaneous flight sets off a chain of events that brings together complete strangers over the course of one dramatic day.

Curriculum Links:

This study guide to accompany Here Out West has been written for secondary students in Years 10 – 12 in the Australian Curriculum Learning Areas of Civics and Citizenship, English, History and Media and the Australian Curriculum General Capability: Intercultural Understanding. For LOTE teachers, there is the opportunity to view and discuss particular stories and to explore how the languages and cultures portrayed in these stories are important to the linguistic and cultural diversity of Australia.

Civics and Citizenship

• The challenges to and ways of sustaining a resilient democracy and cohesive society

English

• Understand how language use can have inclusive and exclusive social effects, and can empower or disempower people

• Analyse and evaluate how people, cultures, places, events, objects and concepts are represented in texts, including media texts, through language, structural and/or visual choices

• Analyse and explain how text structures, language features and visual features of texts and the context in which texts are experienced may influence audience response

• Evaluate the social, moral and ethical positions represented in texts

• Identify, explain and discuss how narrative viewpoint, structure, characterisation and devices shape different interpretations and responses to a text

• Create imaginative texts that make relevant thematic and intertextual connections with other texts

• Create sustained texts, including texts that combine specific digital or media content, for imaginative, informative, or persuasive purposes that reflect upon challenging and complex issues

History

• The contribution of migration to Australia’s changing identity as a nation and to its international relationships

Media

• Experiment with ideas and stories that manipulate media conventions and genres to construct new and alternative points of view through images, sounds and text

• Evaluate how technical and symbolic elements are manipulated in media artworks to create and challenge representations framed by media conventions, social beliefs and values for a range of audiences

• Analyse a range of media artworks from contemporary and past times to explore differing viewpoints and enrich their media arts making, starting with Australian media artworks, including media artworks of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and international media artworks