Resilient Australia - Real Stories About Fire and Flood

Australian curriculum content descriptions: 

Year 7 English:

• Use prior knowledge and text processing strategies to interpret a range of types of texts (ACELY1722)
• 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 (ACELT1623).

Year 8 English:

• Apply increasing knowledge of vocabulary, text structures and language features to understand the content of texts (ACELY1733).
• Create literary texts that draw upon text structures and language features of other texts for particular purposes and effects (ACELT1632).

Syllabus outcomes: EN4-2A, EN4-1A.

General capabilities: Literacy.

Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability.

Relevant parts of Year 7 English achievement standards:
Students understand how the selection of a variety of language features can influence an audience. They understand how to draw on personal knowledge, textual analysis and other sources to express or challenge a point of view. They create texts showing how language features and images from other texts can be combined for effect.

Relevant parts of Year 8 English achievement standards:
Students understand how the selection of language features can be used for particular purposes and effects. Through combining ideas, images and language features from other texts, students show how ideas can be expressed in new ways. Students create texts for different purposes, selecting language to influence audience response.

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – teachers will need to support students in understanding the different parts of speech and facilitate a class discussion about the use of these in the focus story.

• Coloured highlighters
• Student Worksheets – one copy per student

This lesson is designed to build students’ competencies in the following skills:

• Communication
• Creativity
• Critical thinking
• Empathy

We encourage you to undertake the free PD Course How to teach a unit on fire and flood resilience for tips on how to best deliver this lesson.

If you’re concerned about the challenging nature of these topics, consider the free PD Course How to approach trauma in the classroom for information on how best to support your students.

This lesson was made in partnership with Minderoo Foundation (www.minderoo.org).