The New South Wales Department of Education has featured episodes of the comedy-horror series Crazy Fun Park in resources designed for the Year 9, Term 4 program 'Exploring the Speculative'.  

Crazy Fun Park follows teen friends Chester and Mapplethorpe, who are inseparable until Mapplethorpe dies in a tragic accident at Crazy Fun Park — an abandoned theme park on the edge of their small town, Asphodel Heights. Chester is grief-stricken until he discovers Mapplethorpe continues to ‘live’ at the park alongside a bunch of other undead kids who’ve perished there over the years. Soon, Chester finds solace in nightly escapades to visit his friend and the other Fun Kids — leading to horrific, unexpected, and often hilarious consequences.

Episodes, clips and stills from Crazy Fun Park have been included alongside written texts, lesson plans and assessment tasks in the NSW Department of Education’s ‘Exploring the Speculative’ unit. These resources were developed for use by Year 9 teachers in Term 4.

As the Department explains:

The materials provide one way to approach conceptual programming to develop students' understanding of how the style of a text can represent larger ideas through genre. In this program, students will explore how the composers of speculative fiction use their texts to comment on real-world concerns.

Students will investigate speculative fiction, its evolution and how this can reflect changing values. They analyse and discuss the ways that composers of speculative fiction texts use and manipulate language to convey thematic messages in their texts. Students deepen their understanding of authorial intent and reflect on how reading enables them to understand wider universal issues.

NSW government teachers, sign in with your Department account to access selected episodes and extracts from Crazy Fun Park for this teaching and learning program. We would love to hear your feedback on this contemporary learning resource!

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