SUBJECTS: English
YEARS: 7–8, 9–10
How often are you ever truly alone?
Today's technology can mean that we're in constant contact with friends and family. In this Heywire audio story, Dayna Duncan shares a time when she both needed to be connected and to balance her use of social media with other priorities in her life.
Could you write or record a similar story about yourself and/or your community?
The ABC's Heywire competition calls for stories from 16-22 year olds in regional Australia. Enter to get your story featured on the ABC and score an all-expenses-paid trip to the Heywire Regional Youth Summit in Canberra. More: https://www.abc.net.au/heywire/
Things to think about
- 1.How important to you is staying connected to your family and friends via technology? What would it be like if you suddenly lost access to your social networks? Are there times when you choose not to be connected?
- 2.What does Dayna spend the first 30 seconds describing? Why doesn't she mention the sheep straight away? When she finally reveals that she's found a sheep, it's at the end of a long sentence. What effect does this have? What does Dayna do while waiting for her dad? Why does she put her phone away and stroke the sheep instead?
- 3.How does Dayna create a sense of isolation in her story? What does Dayna mean when she says that she was the sheep's 'only hope'? What if Dayna pulled out her phone to call her dad and discovered she had no reception? Write an alternative ending that highlights the theme of disconnection experienced by some who live in rural areas.
- 4.Find a story set in earlier times that features a woman living on a farm, such as 'The Drover's Wife' by Henry Lawson. How do you think Dayna's experiences of farm life compare to those of women in earlier times?
Date of broadcast: 31 May 2013
Copyright
Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).