EDUC 5162

English M
Task 3 2016

Names: John Perkins, Hannah Knight, Sudip Gyawali, Joshua Champion

Program Year Levels: Year 3, 4, 5.

Name of Topic

Literary journey of the impact of white settlement in Australia.

Rationale

The rationale for this programme lies in the achievement standards for year 4 English of the
Australian Curriculum, v8.1. It is aimed at teaching students to understand, explain and describe
different text genres and how these are interconnected and/or differ. They will learn to
understand expressing an opinion and explaining ideas for different audiences. This will be done
through the cross curricular Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture focus of the
Australian curriculum. The choice for this focus was made with consideration to our classroom
being in a country school, where interactions between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians
are an important part of life. The programme is aimed at raising awareness among students of
issues surrounding life for Indigenous Australians pre- and post-contact, which is part of the
learning for year 4 HASS.

Class Context

The class is a year 3-5 class with 25 children from Red Creek school. Red Creek school is a rural
school located 300 kilometres north of Adelaide. The school has a very close community with a
population of 350 residents and many students live on farms and have to travel up to 40 minutes
to get to school. The class is made out of 8 year 3, 7 year 4 and 10 year 5 students. The students
have a range of different reading levels, with 2 year 3 and a year 1 student being at level 10. One
child in year 5 is at level 14, while the remainder of the class are over level 20. The class has full
access to iPads or a computer to do any multimodal work required and has a whiteboard.
The classroom is organised with table groups of 4 and one group of 5. The classroom is set up with
a reading corner, set up with bookshelves and toys that relate to the readings they are currently
interested in. The reading corner also has beanbags and cushions for the students to sit on. The
walls are decorated with colourful and engaging teaching aids and students work.
Overarching themes for this programme are cause and effect and an aspect of Australian history here specifically the arrival of white settlers in Australia and their impact on Aboriginal Australians.
It is therefore closely connected to year 4 HASS, as well more loosely with other subjects.
The key links in the English area of the Australian curriculum are ACELA1490, ACELY1687,
ACELT1604, ACELY1690, ACELY1689, ACELY1694 and ACELA1498. In the HASS area of the
curriculum ACHASSK086 is one area that will be addressed.

Themes

Australian
Curriculum
English
Key texts
and/or Text
Production

Cause and Effect fact wheel - after initial work with the wheel students will produce their own
wheel.
Class will read the narrative A First Encounter. Students will create texts with possible endings
for the narrative considering their schema regarding the text and previous research.
Billy Goats Gruff and Unknown Caller will be used to demonstrate text analysis. Subsequently
they will write an analysis of the narrative A First Encounter.
The Opinion video will be watched in class and deconstructed. Students will produce their own
version of this.

Content

The effect of white settlement on Indigenous Australians is the ongoing topic throughout this
programme. This is done by linking factual and non-factual texts, while building students
confidence in various text genres. Students will learn to identify components of different text
genres and how to analyse these. To develop true understanding they will also be producing texts
in different genres.

Phases

Reading and
Writing
Workshop
overview

Individual and
independent
overview

Week 1 working with the Cause and effect fact wheel to familiarise students with the history
associated with the programme. Students will research facts and create their own wheel. (Goal
Week 1: Identify characteristic features used in the informative text to meet the purpose of the
text.)
Week 2-4 working with the narrative A first encounter. Narrative will be read as class on the
whiteboard. Students will then be asked to write their realistic endings for the story. Text analysis
will be modelled with the Billy Goats Gruff and Unknown Caller texts and then carried out on
the narrative once the principles have been understood. Genre of historical realism will be
explored. ( Goals week 2-4: become familiar with the typical stages and language features of such
text types as narrative. Use Metalanguage to describe the effects of ideas, text structures and
language features of literary texts.
Week 5-6 watch The Opinion video in class. Carry out text analysis on this multimodal text and
discuss the genre of the personal response. Compare structure and content of the non-fictional
and fictional texts that have been covered. Students will be asked to fact check the historical
information and reliability of personal responses. ( Goal Week 5-6: Interpret ideas and information
in spoken texts and listen for key points in order to carry out tasks and use information to share
and extend ideas and information.)
Week 7-8 Students will research facts and create a script for their own opinion piece and film
this. (Goal Week 7-8: Plan, draft and publish a persuasive text containing key information and
supporting details for a widening range of audience, demonstrating increasing control over text
structure and language features and incorporate new vocabulary from a range of sources into
students own text including vocabulary encountered in the research.)
Week 9 Present videos to class and recap from the last 8 weeks. (Goal Week 9: Plan, Rehearse
and deliver a presentation incorporating learned content and taking into account the purpose and
audience.)
Silent reading every day after lunch at the students independent instructional level. This will be
supported by the presence of a class library with books of different genres.
Reading will be modelled through the class novel, which will be read flexibly throughout the week.
The texts will be introduced and worked on with the four resources model in mind to further
develop the students ability in all four areas.
Guided reading session with students who need additional support.
The use of literacy circle to support the students learning and development of key concepts.
Using basal reading series informed by 2-4 weekly running records depending on students reading
level. Reading and writing conferences every week to determine their understanding of the topics
presented in class. Discussions with student about their interests to determine what type of
literature might engage them.