Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes – Part A: Stand on the Line – Organ and Tissue Donation
10 minutes – Part B: The perspective in Dying to Live
60+ minutes – Part C: Changing People's Minds About Organ and Tissue Donation
10 minutes – Reflection

Part A: Stand on the Line: Organ and Tissue Donation

Preparation:

Ensure that you have delivered the previous lesson, What is Rhetoric? before beginning this one to ensure that students have an in-depth understanding of what rhetoric is.

Step 1.

Begin the lesson by helping students focus on the topic of organ and tissue donation and transplantation through participation in a Stand On The Line barometer activity.

You can use these ‘Strongly agree’ and ‘Strongly disagree’ signs

Read out each of the statements below, allowing students time to consider them and move to the position that indicates their view. Once students have chosen their position, invite them to turn to a person close to them, and share their views. Invite some volunteers to share their views with the class.

I want to be healthy and strong.
I like the idea of helping people.
I like it when people help me.
People can get sick.
Doctors should do whatever it takes to help people get better.
If I ever needed an organ transplant in order to live, I would take it!
I will need my organs after I die.
I would donate my organs if I was ever in the situation where I could.

During the activity, be aware that the statements become more ethically challenging. Encourage students to be honest with themselves, and support them in stating their own opinions, as well as understanding that it’s ok to think differently from other people. Remind the whole class that people are entitled to have an opinion. If they disagree with other people’s opinions, that’s ok.

Use phrases such as “What makes you say that?”, “Is that opinion or fact?”, “Do you have evidence to support that?” and “What have you experienced that makes you think that?” to prompt students to critically reflect on the statements they are making throughout the activity.

If the discussion is getting out of hand, change the format of the activity so that students are seated and write down their response to each of the statements.

Step 2.

Congratulate students on their participation in the activity – reassure the class that this is a challenging issue that people have a wide variety of perspectives on.

Part B: Changing People's Minds About Organ and Tissue Donation

Step 1.

Invite students to arrange themselves so that they are seated where they can see the screen, then introduce the clip by informing students that it is from the documentary film Dying to Live. The film examines organ and tissue donation and transplantation in Australia through seven different people’s stories. The clip students are about to watch features Allan, the father of Zaidee, whose organs were donated after she died, aged 7. Screen the Dying to Live clip.

Dying to Live: Allan's Story (https://youtu.be/BqA3cMc1c7g)

Step 2.

Once complete, encourage students to reflect on the clip by responding in writing to the prompts below (also available on the Student Worksheet):

Step 3.

While students are noting down their responses, write the first prompt on the top of the whiteboard. Facilitate a class discussion about students' ideas, noting down the main points on the whiteboard. Then repeat the process for the second prompt.

Ideally the class will reach a consensus on the value of organ and tissue donation and transplantation. Inform students that now that they know where they stand on the issue, their challenge is to change other people’s minds, and encourage them to take action to reduce the organ and tissue transplant waiting list.

Note: This lesson progresses with the assumption that the class agrees that organ and tissue donation is a valuable thing to do and that action needs to be taken to reduce the organ and tissue donation waiting list. If not all students agree with this, take some time to discuss why, giving individuals an opportunity to share their own views about the topic. It may be useful to invite students to refer to the Donate Life website during this discussion, especially the ‘Get the Facts’ section.

Part C: Changing People's Minds About Organ and Tissue Donation

Step 1.

Explain to students that their challenge now is to use what they have learned about rhetoric to change people’s minds about organ and tissue donation and transplantation. To do this, they will increase the number of people who register to become organ and tissue donors or communicate their desire to be a donor.

Step 2.

Invite students to work as a class to think about and discuss how they will raise awareness and encourage people to talk about organ and tissue donation in their school. Students can apply their understanding of rhetorical devices to persuade the rest of the school to participate in the event, as well as when encouraging others to have a conversation. Some suggestions for awareness raising events include:

Organising a school Jersey Day, where students wear their favourite sporting jersey to school to show their support for the Donate Life network and begin the conversation with their friends and families about organ and tissue donation.
Organising a school ‘Wear it Rainbow Day’, where students wear rainbow colours to school to show their support for the Donate Life network and begin the conversation with their friends and families about organ and tissue donation. Refer to the Zaidee’s Rainbow Foundation Website. Click here to watch a campaign video.
Organising a screening of Dying to Live in the school, with a follow-up presentation made by the class to persuade people to have a conversation about organ and tissue donation.

Remind students that the goal for the event is to raise awareness about organ and tissue donation so that more people discuss their own wishes and/or register to become donors.

Invite the class to select an idea to pursue. You could do this by voting for a favourite idea.

Step 3.

Once the class has agreed on how they will raise awareness, distribute a copy of this Project Planning Tool to each student, explaining that they will use this to guide them in identifying each of the separate tasks that will need to be completed, how they should go about completing them, and who will take responsibility for each task. Ensure that each member of the class has been assigned to at least one task.

One task that must be included is convincing the school’s leadership to allow the class to run the awareness raising event.

Step 4.

Upon completion of the Project Planning Tool, encourage those who are responsible for convincing the school leadership to begin their task. They may need to be prompted to think about the following:

What form of communication will you use to convince the school leadership to let the class run the campaign/event? For example, do you need to organise a meeting or write a letter?
What will you say to convince them to let the class run the event?
How can you use rhetorical devices to be convincing? What part does the class’ project plan play?

Take steps to ensure that the school leadership are aware that students will be in touch with them, and why!

NOTE: Some ways that students’ learning about rhetorical devices may be applied during this activity include:

ETHOS – The plan that the class makes is in itself a rhetorical device: the better and more thought-out the plan is, the more credible the plan will seem. The school’s leadership will be convinced by how well students have thought through and planned their awareness-raising event. When communicating about the event/topic students could incorporate information from a variety of sources that carry authority on the topic of organ and tissue donation. This may include the Donate Life website and the Zaidee’s Rainbow Foundation website.
LOGOS & PATHOS – These appeals can be used when communicating with the school leadership to seek permission to run an event in the school. This will involve making deliberate choices about language used and information given to those who make decisions, so that they will see the value in the event. Appeals to emotion and logic will also come in handy when communicating with students and teachers in the school about the purpose of the event – this will help to change people’s minds about organ donation and could lead to more conversations about organ and tissue donation.

Step 5.

Once students have gained permission to run the event, continue the social action process by guiding the class through the remaining tasks outlined on the Project Planning Tool.

Reflection

Invite students to work independently to consider the ethics of changing people’s minds by responding on the Student Worksheet to this question:

"Do you think it’s ok to change people’s minds using rhetoric? Why/Why not? Explain your response using examples".

If you have time, invite students to share their responses in a class discussion. Be sure to remind students that it’s ok if their classmates have a different opinion to them.

OPTION: If you continue to work through the Project Planning Tool tasks, the following task may be a useful reflection activity.

Invite students to complete the following prompts:

In what ways do you think your project was successful in using rhetoric to change people’s minds about organ and tissue donation and transplantation?
In what ways do you think your project was unsuccessful?
What was your role in contributing to the success of your project?
What was the role of the class in contributing to the success of your project?
Do you think that it’s important to encourage people to discuss their own wishes about organ and tissue donation and/or register to become a donor? Why/why not?

Differentiated Learning

Extension – The event students run could include the community that the school is part of: this could mean inviting parents to an evening screening of the documentary film Dying to Live, or asking the local football team to take part in the awareness-raising event.

Provisions for Learning Support – Scaffold this activity by choosing the type of event for students to plan. If required, make a list of the tasks students will need to complete, and make suggestions about how they might go about carrying out each task.

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Dying To Live - Using Rhetoric to Change Minds

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