English Content Descriptions

 
Language

Language variation and change

• Understand the way language evolves to reflect a changing world, particularly in response to the use of new technology for presenting texts and communicating (ACELA1528)

Interactive Websites

1. Chillax! Australian Language and Identity.  Examines the development of Australian slang in the context of being a colony of Britain.  Also examines how national identity is shaped by language and vice versa.  Incorporates videos into the content. Explores Australian English’s relationship with British English, American English and borrowed words from different languages (e.g. Aboriginal)

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Language for interaction

• Understand how accents, styles of speech and idioms express and create personal and social identities (ACELA1529)
• Understand how language is used to evaluate texts and how evaluations about a text can be substantiated by reference to the text and other sources (ACELA1782)

Text structure and organisation

• Understand and explain how the text structures and language features of texts become more complex in informative and persuasive texts and identify underlying structures such as taxonomies, cause and effect, and extended metaphors (ACELA1531)

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1. Develop vocabulary for persuasion.  Takes students through particular persuasive devices and techniques that create a persuasive response.

•  Understand that the coherence of more complex texts relies on devices that signal text structure and guide readers, for example overviews, initial and concluding paragraphs and topic sentences, indexes or site maps or breadcrumb trails for online texts (ACELA1763)
•  Understand the use of punctuation to support meaning in complex sentences with prepositional phrases and embedded clauses (ACELA1532)

Expressing and developing ideas

• Recognise and understand that subordinate clauses embedded within noun groups/phrases are a common feature of written sentence structures and increase the density of information (ACELA1534)

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• Understand how modality is achieved through discriminating choices in modal verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns (ACELA1536)

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• Analyse how point of view is generated in visual texts by means of choices, for example gaze, angle and social distance (ACELA1764)
• Investigate vocabulary typical of extended and more academic texts and the role of abstract nouns, classification, description and generalisation in building specialised knowledge through language (ACELA1537)

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Lesson Plans

1. Spooky stories! A descriptive writing unit for years 5/6/7.

• Understand how to use spelling rules and word origins, for example Greek and Latin roots, base words, suffixes, prefixes, spelling patterns and generalisations to learn new words and how to spell them (ACELA1539)

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1. Teaching Latin roots with words. The link incorporates a video on ‘word trees’ as well as a downloadable PDF for a blank ‘word tree’. The webpage itself explains the relevance of understanding Latin and Greek roots, which could be a great resource for giving students context as to why they’re learning this.

Lesson Plans

Literature

Literature and context

• Identify and explore ideas and viewpoints about events, issues and characters represented in texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts (ACELT1619)

Responding to literature

• Reflect on ideas and opinions about characters, settings and events in literary texts, identifying areas of agreement and difference with others and justifying a point of view (ACELT1620)
• Compare the ways that language and images are used to create character, and to influence emotions and opinions in different types of texts (ACELT1621)

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Lesson Plans

1. Spooky stories! A descriptive writing unit for years 5/6/7.

• Discuss aspects of texts, for example their aesthetic and social value, using relevant and appropriate metalanguage (ACELT1803)

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Lesson Plans

1. Classic Australian Literature Unit: Indigenous poems for year 7-10.  Includes poems, worksheets, assessment ideas.

Examining literature

• Recognise and analyse the ways that characterisation, events and settings are combined in narratives, and discuss the purposes and appeal of different approaches (ACELT1622)

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Lesson Plans

1. Classic Australian Literature Unit: Indigenous poems for year 7-10.  Includes poems, worksheets, assessment ideas.

• Understand, interpret and discuss how language is compressed to produce a dramatic effect in film or drama, and to create layers of meaning in poetry, for example haiku, tankas, couplets, free verse and verse novels (ACELT1623)

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Lesson Plans

1. Classic Australian Literature Unit: Indigenous poems for year 7-10.  Includes poems, worksheets, assessment ideas.

Creating literature

• Create literary texts that adapt stylistic features encountered in other texts, for example, narrative viewpoint, structure of stanzas, contrast and juxtaposition (ACELT1625)

Templates

Worksheets

Lesson Plans

1. Classic Australian Literature Unit: Indigenous poems for year 7-10.  Includes poems, worksheets, assessment ideas.
2. Spooky stories! A descriptive writing unit for years 5/6/7.

• Experiment with text structures and language features and their effects in creating literary texts, for example, using rhythm, sound effects, monologue, layout, navigation and colour (ACELT1805)

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Worksheets

Lesson Plans

1. Classic Australian Literature Unit: Indigenous poems for year 7-10.  Includes poems, worksheets, assessment ideas.

Literacy

Texts in context

• Analyse and explain the effect of technological innovations on texts, particularly media texts (ACELY1765)

Interacting with others

• Identify and discuss main ideas, concepts and points of view in spoken texts to evaluate qualities, for example the strength of an argument or the lyrical power of a poetic rendition (ACELY1719)
• Use interaction skills when discussing and presenting ideas and information, selecting body language, voice qualities and other elements, (for example music and sound) to add interest and meaning (ACELY1804)
• Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements to promote a point of view or enable a new way of seeing (ACELY1720)

Templates

1. Persuasive text sample assessment (practising composing a persuasive text). The template helps a student brainstorm, plan, draft, edit and present a persuasive speech. It also helps the student reflect on their work, effectively teaching them how to analyse a persuasive text.

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Lesson Plans

• Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
• Analyse and explain the ways text structures and language features shape meaning and vary according to audience and purpose (ACELY1721)

Templates

1. Persuasive text sample assessment (practising composing a persuasive text). The template helps a student brainstorm, plan, draft, edit and present a persuasive speech. It also helps the student reflect on their work, effectively teaching them how to analyse a persuasive text.

Worksheets

Lesson Plans

• Use prior knowledge and text processing strategies to interpret a range of types of texts (ACELY1722)
• Use comprehension strategies to interpret, analyse and synthesise ideas and information, critiquing ideas and issues from a variety of textual sources (ACELY1723)
• Compare the text structures and language features of multimodal texts, explaining how they combine to influence audiences (ACELY1724)

Creating texts

• Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, selecting aspects of subject matter and particular language, visual, and audio features to convey information and ideas (ACELY1725)

Templates

1. Persuasive text sample assessment (practising composing a persuasive text). The template helps a student brainstorm, plan, draft, edit and present a persuasive speech. It also helps the student reflect on their work, effectively teaching them how to analyse a persuasive text.

Worksheets

Lesson Plans

1. Spooky stories! A descriptive writing unit for years 5/6/7.
2. Develop vocabulary for persuasion.  Takes students through particular persuasive devices and techniques that create a persuasive response.
3. Writing from cultural experience with Wai Chim.  There are multiple small lesson plans within this document. Each small lesson plan relates to multiple curriculum codes.  This resource comes from a previous Word Play event from Brisbane Writer’s Festival that has been adapted for the year 7 classroom.

• Edit for meaning by removing repetition, refining ideas, reordering sentences and adding or substituting words for impact (ACELY1726)
• Consolidate a personal handwriting style that is legible, fluent and automatic and supports writing for extended periods (ACELY1727)

Templates

Worksheets

Lesson Plans

1. Writing from cultural experience with Wai Chim.  There are multiple small lesson plans within this document. Each small lesson plan relates to multiple curriculum codes.  This resource comes from a previous Word Play event from Brisbane Writer’s Festival that has been adapted for the year 7 classroom.

• Use a range of software, including word processing programs, to confidently create, edit and publish written and multimodal texts (ACELY1728).