SECONDARY CURRICULUM 1B ENGLISH

STAGE 4 YEAR 8 ENGLISH

CONTENTS:

PAGE 2, LESSON PLAN 1

PAGE 7, LESSON PLAN 2
PAGE 11, LESSON PLAN 3
PAGE 16, RATIONALE.

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ENGLISH LESSON 1

Class: Year 8 Time: 60 minutes

Pre-service teacher’s Objectives

As a Pre-service teacher I would try to create a lesson that flows seamlessly from one
task to the next. Keeping on track of activities and timing in the classroom is
something that I would like to improve in. Providing engaging activities for the
students will hopefully keep them interested and on task.

Outcomes

 EN4-1A responds to and composes texts for understanding, interpretation,

critical analysis, imaginative expression and pleasure

Content points:

 explore and appreciate the aesthetic qualities in their own and other texts and
the
power of language to communicate information, ideas, feelings and
viewpoints

Procedures
Time Organisation Teaching/ learning activities
0-10 Seating  Introduce the topic for the week which will be
arrangements Narrative.
that allow for  Have students pair up and tell each other a
students to favourite story or memory of their own.
be paired up.  Teacher can select a few pair of students to
provide their story or memory to the class if they
wish.

2
10-25 Tables
organised to  Brainstorm activity: students are divided into 4
arrange groups and are to come up with as many
groups of 4. responses to the following two questions; What
makes a good/meaningful narrative.
Worksheets
handed out
to students  Students are also asked what are some aspects of
a narrative? Students will then engage in a class
discussion whereby all the responses from each
group will be drawn up on the board in the form
of a mind map.

 Students are then to fill out their KWL sheets,

what do they KNOW, what do they WANT to know
and at the end of the lesson the will fill out what
they have LEARNT in regard to narrative.

25-35 Worksheets  Students are given a diagram of a what the

handed out structure of a narrative looks like. The students
to students must use the words from the word bank to label
and the diagram, Identifying the different possible
instructions sections of a narrative.
given to
students
30-55  Students listen to ‘The skylight room’ and, as a
class, discuss and synthesise the responses to the
story using the following headings: purpose, plot,
structure (such as engaging openings), language
features (including descriptive language/imagery),
characterisation, and asking what the author’s
motive was for writing this text.

55-60 K.W.L.  Students are to fill out the LEARN section of their
worksheet K.W.L sheets and will then pack up.

Homework  Select 2-3 examples from ‘The skylight room’ in

which the author provokes a certain emotion from
the reader.

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Evaluation/ Extension
By having students volunteer to read out their initial stories at the start of the lesson
they will be able to accept how powerful story telling is in everyday life.
A possible extension task could be to use the diagram worksheet and have the
students apply the relevant features of ‘The skylight room’ to the diagram.

Materials:

https://americanliterature.com/author/o-henry/short-
story/the-skylight-room

Text of ‘The skylight room’.

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NARRATIVE STRUCTURE WORD BANK
Exposition/introduction
Resolution
Conflict
Rising action
Falling action
Climax

5
 The skylight room analysis activity

Purpose Plot Structure/engaging Language Characterisation What do you

openings features/descriptive think the
language Authors motives
were for this
text?

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ENGLISH LESSON 2

Class: Year 8 Time: 60 minutes

Pre-service teacher’s Objectives

Provide scaffolded examples for students and differentiate tasks so that all
students are given the opportunity to complete the tasks at the best of their
ability. Walk around the classroom and observe the answers and discussions
that the students are coming up with.

Outcomes

 EN4-1A responds to and composes texts for understanding, interpretation,

critical analysis, imaginative expression and pleasure

Content points:
 consider and analyse the ways their own experience affects their responses to
texts

Materials

Procedures
Time Organisation Teaching/ learning activities
0-5 Roll call  Teacher marks the roll and introduces the poem for
the lesson, ‘The ballad of the harp weaver’
5-25 Worksheets  Students read the following poem, ‘The ballad of
distributed the harp weaver’ to themselves.
to students  Students are to come up with at least 3 questions
and tables they want to ask about the poem.
set up for  Students are then to share these questions with the
group work person next to them and see if they have any
different or similar questions.
 Students will then join groups of 4 and try to
answer each other’s questions so that they discover
the meaning and the purpose of the poem.
25-40 Scaffolded  Blackout poetry: Using ‘The ballad of the harp
examples weaver’, students are to use the scaffolded
displayed example provided to create a blackout poem.
for the  Students’ blackout poem will seek to capture the
students to meaning of ‘The ballad of the harp weaver’
see

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 40-60 Guided  Students are given a brief description of a small
writing room and must choose one of the characters to
sheets write in their perspective about being inside the
handed out. small room. (guided writing).
 Students are to pack up and complete the LEARNT
section of their K.W.L. sheet.

Homework Students are to complete their guided writing activity for

homework if they were unable to finish it in class.

Evaluation/ Extension
Having students read out their blackout poems to the class and then justify their
choices for why they chose to black out certain lines would be a good way to identify
how students’ own experiences can affect their responses to texts.

Materials

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53241/the-ballad-of-the-harp-
weaver

Link to ‘The ballad of the harp weaver’.

Guided writing activity

All three of them were huddled inside, a young boy and girl and an elderly man. Both of the young
children were perched close to the fireplace whilst the elderly man sat slumped in his chair. The
room was very small and only featured one window, this is where the elderly man directed his
hollow gaze. The fire was not sufficient enough to warm the young children but they both tried to
disguise their shivers.

 Create a poem that relates to the experiences of either three characters in the above
passage.
 You should write in the perspective of one of the characters and focus on centralising
your poem around the small room.

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SCAFFOLDED EXAMPLE OF BLACKOUT POETRY.

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ENGLISH PLAN LESSON 3:

Class: Time:

Pre-service teacher’s Objectives

[On Professional Experience etc, what aspects of your teaching you set yourself to
improve in] Being able to competently answer any questions that the students have
in relation to the lesson. I would also like to be able to assist students in being able
to critically think about the similarities and differences between both texts and how
their own experience influences their reading of both texts.

Outcomes
 EN4-1A responds to and composes texts for understanding, interpretation,
critical analysis, imaginative expression and pleasure

Content points:
 recognise, reflect on, interpret and explain the connections between their own
experiences and the world in texts
 experiment with language forms and features to compose texts for pleasure
and enjoyment.

Procedures
Time Organisation Teaching/ learning activities
0-5 Roll call and  Teacher settles class and writes up the learning
student intention for the lesson:
seating
allocation
5-20 Worksheets  Character analysis Venn diagram:
handed out  Students list the similarities and differences
to students between the two main protagonists in ‘The skylight
and the room’ and ‘The ballad of the harp weaver’.
purpose of a  Students will then complete a table which asks
Venn them to identify the similarities and differences

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 diagram is between themselves and the two main
discussed protagonists. These similarities and differences
should try to be orientated around the main
themes of each text.

20-45 Teacher will

come  Random sentence activity:
around to  Students pick out a random sentence from a hat
students that is taken from ‘The skylight room’.
and they will  Students will then do the same by picking out a
pick out a random line from ‘The ballad of the harp weaver’.
random line  After each student receives their random sentence
or sentence and line, they are to create a short story and a
from either poem that incorporates their respective
of the text sentence/line.
out of a hat.  Students will use the random sentence they are
given from ‘The skylight room’ to create their own
short story.
 Students will use the random line they are given
from ‘The ballad of the harp weaver’ to create their
own poem.

45-60 Blank pieces  Book cover activity:

of paper  Students are to create a book cover for both ‘The
available for skylight room’ and ‘The ballad of the harp weaver’.
students  If either of these texts were made into a book what
would the front cover look like?
 Students pack up before the bell.

Homework  Writing a preface in the perspective of the author

for each respective text on the other side of their
book cover.

Evaluation/ Extension

Walk around the classroom and ask to read student’s work to see what they are
coming up with and if it is relevant to the main themes and meaning of each text.
As an extension task students can use their laptops and access the following site
https://www.teachstarter.com/au/widget/random-sentence-starters/ They can then
create another short story or poem based on the random sentence they are given
from the website.

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Materials:

The skylight room Similarities The ballad of the harp weaver

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 Character Similarities Character Differences
Myself and ‘The harp
room weaver

Myself and ‘The skylight

room’

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 BOOK COVER ACTIVITY;

THE SKYLIGHT ROOM THE BALLAD OF THE HARP WEAVER

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 RATIONALE

The textual concept that is being explored in the above three lessons is narrative.

The two texts that are being used in the above lessons focus on the experiences of

particular characters in regard to storytelling. This allows for the students to

understand possible motives that the author has used in creating their texts and

then has the students questioning their motives after they have created their own

text. The majority of these lesson plans are based around outcome one in the K-10

NSW English Syllabus. In particular I have centred my lessons around students

engaging personally with texts. By doing so I have attempted to link students’ own

experiences to the texts that they are studying throughout the three lessons.

These three sequenced lessons were made in accordance with outcomes regarding

the NSW K-10 English syllabus and the English textual concepts for Narrative for

stage 4. The overall aim for the students studying narrative is to ensure that they are

able to grasp the contextual meaning and purpose of each text. By reflecting on this,

students should then be able to draw on their own experiences in being able to

relate to the texts that are used in the three lessons.

what you are teaching?

In these three lesson plans provided I will be teaching students the concept of

narrative and how important narrative is in relation to communicating ideas and

communicating students’ own experiences. My first lesson looked at assessing the

students’ prior knowledge of narrative so that I would be able to gauge how much

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students do and do not know. By asking students to tell their peers a favourite story

of their own I would be able to show the students that stories and narratives are

innate for us as humans. As well as this idea, I am trying to allow students to

understand that narrative is fundamental to thinking. The English contextual

concepts website (n.d.). notes, “When we think, we think in narrative

form. Narrative can refer to a story itself or to the conventions by which we

communicate and understand it. These conventions are the way we construct a

world that sets up and depends on expectations of human behaviour to amplify it”.

Why you are teaching it?

It is innately human to tell stories as this is the way we organise and shape our own

life experiences. We use narrative to connect people to information, values and

ideas. Through narrative we explore human actions, interactions, motivations and

reactions. Throughout these three lessons I will attempt to engage students in

learning about narrative to help how they interpret texts by drawing upon their own

experiences. By engaging personally with the texts this will hopefully allow for

students to have a greater understanding of the power and depth of narratives.

Another main reason why I have chosen to teach narrative in my three lessons is

because narrative is also an enticing pathway for representing, understanding and

engaging with human experience and with ideas. This can be explored through the

activities that I have set out which allows for students to create their own short

stories and poems. Another reason why I have chosen the concept of Narrative in

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these three lessons is because narratives are universal. As Lannan (2011) states

“Humans are storytelling organisms who, individually and collectively, lead storied

lives. Thus, the study of the narrative is the study of the ways humans experience the

world”

How you are teaching it?

As previously mentioned, for us as humans, storytelling is innate. In my three lessons

I wanted the students to be made aware of this so that they can understand that

stories are everywhere and are significantly important for how we experience life

and the world around us. These three lessons also cater for student collaboration in

the form of think pair share and group discussion activities. This allows for students

to be made aware of both their own interpretation and how they experience the

texts, and their peer’s interpretation and experience of the texts. This is especially

important because Australian schools are made up of diverse cultures and

backgrounds, and we must be exposed to a plethora of experiences (Boas and Gazis,

n.d.). Throughout all three lessons I have attempted to provide the students with

self-direction and grant them autonomy when it comes to completing writing tasks. I

felt as though this was an important approach because it allows for students to bring

in their own experiences and interpretations when it comes to creating their own

short story or poem. If students are bound by strict instructions, then they may not

be able to freely express their ideas. As Stefanou, Perencevich, DiCintio and Turner

(2004) demonstrated that student perceptions of classroom instruction are highly

associated with the motivational beliefs and behaviours that students embrace. The

K-10 NSW English Syllabus (n.d.) also says that

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“by engaging personally with texts, students should develop personal preferences in

what they hear, read and view. Therefore, students are also able to articulate their

preference in personal and critical responses”.

How it relates to your reading in this unit?

By creating these three lessons I have tried to identify that as a teacher, I can help

students understand that we study English so that we can find meaning in the texts

that we study (Boas and Gazis, n.d.). It is also my responsibility as a teacher to help

students understand that when it comes to English, their learning matters and the

significance of this lies in the connection between the individual and the work that is

to be studied (Quality teaching framework for NSW public schools, n.d.). Ultimately, I

am asking the students to tap in to their own life experiences when studying

narrative and discover how we, as humans, look forward and backwards when we

encounter stories.

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 References

Boas, E. and Gazis, S. (n.d.). The artful English teacher. pp.1-3.

Educationstandards.nsw.edu.au. (2019). English K–10 | NSW Education Standards.

[online] Available at:

http://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-

areas/english-year-10/english-k-10 [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].

English textual concepts. (n.d.). Retrieved March 21, 2019, from

fromhttp://englishtextualconcepts.nsw.edu.au/content/narrative

Lannan, J., & Mamchur, Carolyn. (2011). Using Narrative in the Classroom: A Pedagogy

to Promote Student Engagement, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Stefanou, C., Perencevich, K., DiCintio, M. and Turner, J. (2004). Supporting Autonomy in the

Classroom: Ways Teachers Encourage Student Decision Making and

Ownership. Educational Psychologist, 39(2), pp.97-110.

Quality teaching in NSW public schools. (n.d.). Retrieved March 21, 2019, from

http://www.darcymoore.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/qt_EPSColor.pdf

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