Life After The Oasis - Telling a Life Story

Australian curriculum content descriptions: 

Year 9 English:

• Explore and reflect on personal understanding of the world and significant human experience gained from interpreting various representations of life matters in texts (ACELT1635)
• Analyse text structures and language features of literary texts, and make relevant comparisons with other texts (ACELT1772)
• Create literary texts, including hybrid texts, that innovate on aspects of other texts, for example by using parody, allusion and appropriation (ACELT1773)
• Review and edit students’ own and others’ texts to improve clarity and control over content, organisation, paragraphing, sentence structure, vocabulary and audio/visual features (ACELY1747)

Year 10 English:

• Evaluate the social, moral and ethical positions represented in texts (ACELT1812)
• Analyse and evaluate text structures and language features of literary texts and make relevant thematic and intertextual connections with other texts (ACELT1774)
• Create literary texts with a sustained ‘voice’, selecting and adapting appropriate text structures, literary devices, language, auditory and visual structures and features for a specific purpose and intended audience (ACELT1815)
• Review, edit and refine students’ own and others’ texts for control of content, organisation, sentence structure, vocabulary, and/or visual features to achieve particular purposes and effects (ACELY1757)

Syllabus outcomes: EN5-7D, EN5-6C, EN5-2A, EN5-3B.

General capabilities: Literacy, Ethical Understanding, Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability

Relevant parts of Year 9 achievement standards: Students analyse the ways that text structures can be manipulated for effect. Students understand how to use a variety of language features to create different levels of meaning. In creating texts, students demonstrate how manipulating language features and images can create innovative texts. Students create texts that respond to issues, interpreting and integrating ideas from other texts. They edit for effect, selecting vocabulary and grammar that contribute to the precision and persuasiveness of texts and using accurate spelling and punctuation.

Relevant parts of Year 10 achievement standards: Students evaluate how text structures can be used in innovative ways by different authors. Students show how the selection of language features can achieve precision and stylistic effect. They develop their own style by experimenting with language features, stylistic devices, text structures and images. Students create a wide range of texts to articulate complex ideas. They demonstrate understanding of grammar, vary vocabulary choices for impact, and accurately use spelling and punctuation when creating and editing texts.

Unit of work: Life After The Oasis – English

Time required:  180+ mins. This lesson should be delivered over several sessions.

Level of teacher scaffolding: High – facilitate class discussion and support students in the creation of a biographical text

• Student Worksheets – one copy per student
• Device capable of presenting a video to the class
• Handling Sensitive Topics And Controversial Issues Factsheet (optional)
• Steps To Creating A Biography Factsheet

• Communication
• Creativity
• Empathy
• Ethical understanding
• Initiative
• Social skills

This resource has been adapted from ‘Teaching Social Issues Through English’ developed with the English Teachers Association NSW and the ‘Youth Homelessness Matters Resource’ developed by Janice Atkin. You can find these resources here.