Introductory activities

Begin by finding out some information about Larissa Behrendt herself, such as her:

  • cultural background
  • family, family history and relationships
  • personal experiences
  • influences

Behrendt is a Eualeyai/Gamillaroi woman and a distinguished lawyer, writer and academic. She was born in Cooma in New South Wales in 1969. Ask students to use the AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia or Gambay First Languages Map to locate the contemporary parts of NSW that intersect with Eualeyai/Gamillaroi country (variant spellings include Yuwaalayaay and Gamilaraay). They can start researching the Eualeyai and Gamillaroi peoples using general sources like Wikipedia, then build more authentic knowledge from there.

Now, using a map, locate for students the World Heritage-listed K’gari. This is the largest sand island in the world and is situated just off the southern coast of Queensland, to the east of the town of Maryborough. It is part of the Great Sandy National Park and is a popular tourist destination.

Explain to students that K’gari was once known by Europeans as Fraser Island. Captain James Fraser was the commander of the Stirling Castle, a vessel that was shipwrecked on a reef just to the north of the island in 1836. The ship was sailing north inside the Great Barrier Reef, towards the Torres Strait and eventually Singapore, when it ran aground. This route had opened to British traders in the years since the First Fleet’s arrival on Gadigal land (now called Sydney) in 1788, following voyages by navigators like James Cook and Matthew Flinders.

Discuss the obvious fact that many places in Australia are named after British colonial figures. For example, the capital city of Queensland was named after Sir Thomas Brisbane, who was the governor of New South Wales at the time that Queensland became a separate colony in 1859 (today Brisbane is also called Meanjin, the traditional name used by the local Turrbal people).

As a prelude to their study of Finding Eliza, explain to students that in June 2023 Fraser Island was officially renamed K’gari. This was the original name used by the island’s Traditional Owners (the Butchulla people), which should alert students to the focus of Behrendt’s book: the move from focusing exclusively on Australia’s colonial past to an emerging acknowledgement of its pre-colonial First Nations history.

Ask students to speculate on the meaning of the book’s title.

As a class, read Judith Wright’s poem ‘At Cooloola’ (which is in the Great Sandy National Park just south of K’gari) to see how the poet expresses her lack of connection to this environment – and, by extension, that of other European people who have tried to claim it. Also refer students to James Moloney’s novel A Bridge to Wiseman’s Cove (with a Reading Australia teaching resource), which is partly set in a fictionalised town at the southern end of K’gari.

Provide students with a summary of what happened after the Stirling Castle was shipwrecked and Captain Fraser, his wife Eliza and some of his crew went ashore where the Butchulla people lived (Behrendt provides a brief overview at the start of her interview with The Garret podcast).

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Preparing to read Finding Eliza

Students may be unfamiliar with the vocabulary and/or history underpinning Behrendt’s account of how Eliza Fraser’s story has been used: firstly by Eliza herself, and later by writers, artists, filmmakers and so on (often to achieve their own purposes). The following activities should help them to understand the book better:

Students can then compare their completed overviews with this model (PDF, 102KB).

Writing graphic outlines

Show students how to construct a graphic outline for Chapter 1: Once Upon a Time. This should help them understand how Behrendt has organised the content without becoming overwhelmed by the details. Refer to this model (PDF, 109KB) as an example of how to construct the outline.

Once you have covered Chapter 1 together, students should go on to complete graphic outlines for the rest of the chapters in the book.

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Personal response on reading the text

Begin by introducing students to a piece of cultural theory that will help them form a personal response to the text, as well as reflect on themselves.

On pp. 191–192 of her book Behrendt refers to the French philosopher Michel Foucault, who says that certain social groups – through their specific use of language – have the power to promote their own worldviews while suppressing the views of others. Foucault called this specific language use, and the associated behaviour of individuals within the group, a discourse or cultural practice. Discourse theory sets out how humans derive their personal identities from their social groups: behaving in certain ways; subscribing to certain attitudes, values and beliefs; and using language in ways that are specific to these groups.

As an example, together examine the discourse of conservation (PDF, 106KB) and its associated cultural and social practices. Students can then consider an opposing discourse, such as cotton farming, and how those practices might differ.

Now explain to students that they also belong to discourses. They might be football players, classical pianists, gamers and so on. For the purpose of the next activity, however, they will need to focus on:

  • gender
  • class
  • race

Ask students to reflect briefly on their identities within these discourses. This will require them to think broadly about how the discourses operate in Australian society.

Then, using the information in their graphic outlines, students can write a personal chapter-by-chapter response to Finding Eliza in a reading journal. Some may agree wholeheartedly with Behrendt’s argument; others may agree generally, with a few points of difference; and others still may disagree entirely. They can respond to the text as well as reflect on what they have learnt about themselves in the process. This might include opinions, both positive and negative, about the information in each chapter; questions about the content; and a commitment to explore some of the details further.

Arrange students in groups of four or five to share their journal entries and discuss any points of agreement or disagreement. Each group should nominate one major idea from their discussion to share with the rest of the class.

NOTE: This may not be a culturally safe experience for First Nations students in your class. Make sure that you check in with them prior to this activity and adjust your approach accordingly.

When they have finished reading the book and writing journal entries for each chapter, ask students to write a short commentary (250 words) on Finding Eliza, incorporating their personal views on Behrendt’s purpose for writing it.

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Outline of key elements of the text

Form

Although she is passionate about the power of storytelling, and is herself a novelist, Behrendt has not written a narrative in this book. Rather, she has taken on the role of a cultural analyst and literary expert, analysing how language can be used to construct certain worldviews while marginalising others.

An individual can belong to multiple overlapping discourses with shared or similar attitudes, values, and beliefs. The discourses that shape Behrendt’s worldview will include her profession as a lawyer and academic; her identity as an Aboriginal woman; and, of course, her role as an educated person. Presumably, her main purpose in writing Finding Eliza was to challenge the ideologies promoted in the Eliza Fraser stories, and to support First Nations peoples in their quest to gain a voice in society and demand their human rights.

Behrendt says that she was fascinated by the way Eliza’s spirit (rather than the real person, who has melted into history) has been used by various storytellers to achieve different ends – particularly to silence First Nations peoples, steal their land, and destroy their culture as part of colonisation by English settlers/invaders in the nineteenth century. In Finding Eliza she explores the devices that storytellers have employed for this purpose, including:

  • the description of First Nations peoples as cannibals
  • the concept of ‘noble savages’ developed by several European philosophers
  • the negative descriptions of First Nations women
  • the use of stereotypes to deny First Nations people status as humans

Character

From a humanist point of view, writers construct characters that fit into a creative piece of writing, such as a short story or novel. From a post-structuralist perspective, however, the writer’s subjectivity has also been constructed within the particular discourses to which they belong. In other words, not only are the people mentioned in texts based on the Eliza Fraser story considered characters, but so are the writers whose identities have been shaped by discourses such as British imperialism, ‘whiteness’, Christianity and so on.

Themes

Behrendt explores some important themes in Finding Eliza. We can draw connections between these themes and her knowledge of Australia’s colonial history, including the dispossession of First Nations peoples; her political purpose in fighting for their rights; and her role as a lawyer.

Here are some themes that will help get students started:

  • the power of storytelling to promote certain values and ideologies
  • the way in which discourses (language, behaviour, beliefs and so on) serve the interests of some social groups at the expense of others
  • the power of language to construct dominant worldviews, but also to challenge them

The title

Finding Eliza is not a call to locate the burial site of the historical person, Eliza Fraser. Rather, Behrendt is referring to the cultural and political roles that Eliza (the idea, not the person) plays in various texts, and declaring her intent to explore them.

Discuss this with students as they move further into the book.

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Synthesising activities

Not only do discourses shape personal identities and individual responses to texts, but they also influence the way storytellers construct their own stories to gain readers’ support.

Ask students to choose ONE of the following scenarios that involves a conflict of attitudes, values and beliefs:

Scenario For Against
1 Trees in public parks are routinely trimmed or cut down by council workers to keep the park neat (discourse of public administration). This activity can upset people who oppose the cutting down of trees (environmentalist discourse).
2 A local First Nations group is making a native title claim for an area with a popular surfing beach (discourse of Aboriginal rights). A young man who loves surfing opposes the claim because it threatens his access to the beach (discourse of beachgoers).
3 Female students at a local high school want the right to play contact football (feminist discourse). A male student at the school opposes their right to do so (discourse of masculinity).

Students will first take on the role of the protagonist in their chosen scenario. They should think about their character’s attitudes, values and beliefs, as well as those of the antagonist (the other character involved in the conflict of ideas). They will then prepare the protagonist’s argument and deliver it as a spoken monologue to the rest of the class. The goal is to convince the audience that their perspective is correct. Students must use language that persuades but also creates empathy with listeners by:

  • presenting their character’s perspective clearly
  • using emotional language to gain listeners’ sympathy

Once they have argued as the protagonist, students will then take on the role of the antagonist and prepare another short monologue. This time they will promote the opposing beliefs that led to the initial conflict.

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