Sandra K. Friday
Objective: Using what might be called a concentric, landscape-format graphic organizer, students will make observations as to the layers of anxiety that Ali is experiencing at the same time. In Lesson plan # 1, students documented how anxiety levels change; in this exercise, they will be asked to determine how a character may experience multiple anxieties simultaneously. The graphic organizer for this exercise might be a circle in the center with the words
Ali's Anxieties
; then emanating from this circle are bigger circles, so that the layers of anxiety can be recorded. Ultimately this exercise can lead the students back to the
essential questions
: "In what ways do you connect with the character, and/or how does the character of Ali help make
Children of Heaven
an effective story?"
In the case of this lesson, students will be asked, as they view the film, to watch for incidents that result in anxiety for Ali, such as, the very first scenes in which he misplaces Zahra's pink shoes at the produce shop, upsetting several baskets of fruit and vegetables searching for them, and being driven away, without the shoes, by the owner. These anxieties will also show up in the students' storyboards.
But, the layers that seem most obvious are the anxieties that Ali experiences in relation to the loss of the shoes and his worry over the reaction from his parents; his mother is ill and bed-ridden, and tries to work what little she can to earn a few extra coins; his father is very strict, and from the conversation between the children about what might happen to them as the result of his learning about the loss of the shoes, we learn that their father spanks or beats them as punishment for wrong-doing; the parents are very poor and Ali knows that they cannot simply replace the shoes he has lost by buying another pair. He carries all of this guilt and worry around with him.
Another layer of anxiety that Zahra does not let Ali forget, throughout the movie is, that
he
is responsible for losing her shoes and that somehow
he
has to provide shoes, or at the very least, something for her to wear on her feet so she can go to school. It is clear that going to school is highly valued, and simply staying home is not an option in their culture.
Ali experiences major anxiety at school because the arrangements he works out with Zahra to share his shoes is making him late to school every day. He is threatened with being expelled by the principal if he is late one more day, and the viewer and Ali both know that this is inevitable. This threat also, no doubt, plays into the anxiety he is having about being found out by his parents
Ali's solution to win a pair of sneakers in a race heightens and adds another layer to Ali's anxiety because first, having missed the tryouts, he has to insist that he be allowed to be in the race. This scene with the coach produces major anxiety for Ali who is not an aggressive person but he has to insist and persist in his determination to be in the race. Once he is in the race, he must come in third, not win, because the third-place reward is a pair of sneakers. Coming in first or second will be a disaster for him. There are dozens and dozens of boys running the long, winding race, and another boy trips Ali en route. He is all but done for, and he
is
done for, when, in the chaos of the finish, he wins the race and a huge trophy, instead of the sneakers. Students might debate what anxiety this failure will produce when he has to face Zahra.
Once students have interacted with this graphic organizer and completed it, they will be asked, either on their own, in pairs, or as a group, to make observations as to how they think Ali has grown up as the result of all of this anxiety he has experienced.
This could easily lead to a writing activity, bringing them back to the
essential questions
. Students might write about how they connect with Ali and his layers of anxieties, when in their own lives, they have experienced multiple anxieties simultaneously. They might consider whether the character of Ali qualifies
Children of
Heaven
as an effective story; one of the qualities of an effective story is that it has a believable, convincing character that experiences growth and change in the course of the story.