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
with Indigenous Australians are an important part of life.

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. 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. In the reading corner there are also beanbags and cushions for
the students to sit on. The walls will be decorated with colourful and engaging
teaching aids and students work. The daily experiences
An overarching theme for this programme is cause and effect and an aspect of
Australian history. Here specifically the arrival of white settlers in Australia and
their effect 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 and ACELA1498. In the HASS area of the
curriculum ACHASSK086,
Cause and Effect fact wheel - after initial work with it students will produce
their own.
Class will read the narrative A First Encounter Students will analyse this text
and create texts with possible endings.
Billy Goat Gruff and Unknown Caller will be used to demonstrate text analysis.
The Opinion video will be watched in class and deconstructed. Students will
produce their own version of this.

Themes

Australian
Curriculum
English
Key texts
and/or
Text
Production

Content

Phases

Reading
and
Writing
Workshop
overview

Individual
and
independe
nt
overview

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 genres.
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.
Week 2-4 working with the narrative A first encounter. Narrative will be read
as class and students will 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.
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.
Week 7-8 Students will research facts and create a script for their own opinion
piece and film this.
Week 9 Present videos to class and recap the last 8 weeks
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.
New will be introduced 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 weekly 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.