Carrier Pigeon by Henrietta Bollinger is a thoughtful and deeply personal narrative that explores identity, disability, friendship, and the unique bond between identical twins. Told from the perspective of a wheelchair user, the text reflects on growing up, navigating school life, and negotiating how others perceive difference — while highlighting agency, humour, and belonging.

Through reflections on twinhood, disability, and communication, the author challenges assumptions and centres lived experience. The text encourages students to think critically about inclusion, relationships, and what it means to be seen and understood on one’s own terms. It offers rich opportunities for empathy-building, personal connection, and discussion about diversity and identity.

This pack contains a wide range of response activities including:

• A skimming and scanning task to build confidence in locating key information, and making early predictions about the text.
• Comprehension and critical thinking activities exploring key social and emotional understandings.
• A structured discussion guide with rich, open-ended questions designed to promote inference, reasoning, collaboration, and evidence-based thinking.
• Thinking tools and exploration frameworks to support metacognition and balanced perspective-taking and to deepen understanding of key themes and messages
• Practical, real-world extension tasks and activities to reinforce key literacy skills. 

This comprehensive pack supports comprehension, social and emotional inquiry, critical thinking, creativity, and connection-making — all grounded in the exploration of Carrier Pigeon. 

 

Curriculum Phase: Phase 3

Year Level: Year 7

Curriculum Coverage includes:

English – Reading: personal narrative, author’s voice, inference, themes, identity, making connections

Health and Physical Education: relationships, inclusion, diversity, wellbeing, respect

Text Type: Non-fiction / personal narrative

Key words include: acceptance, accessibility, adolescence, agency, belonging, communication, disabilities, disability, diversity, diversity, empathy, family, friends, friendship, identical twins, identity, inclusion, independence, lived experience, memoir,  non-fiction text, personal narrative, Phase 3, physical disability, representation, relationships, school experiences, siblings, twin identity, twins, voice, wellbeing, wheelchair user, wheelchairs, whānau.