Teaching Sequence

15 minutes	Part A: Overview of the Tasks
40 minutes	Part B: Considering the Options
30 minutes	Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

When considering the assessment options below, there is scope to modify to suit the needs and nuances of your students. Where relevant, tasks can be adapted to suite small group work, or modes can be adapted to be presented in spoken or written formats.

Before setting the assessment task/s with your class, consider your school context and alter task sheets, develop assessment criteria, scales or rubrics, etc. to suit the method and manner in which reporting usually takes place.

Part A: Overview of the Tasks

Explain to students that after studying a variety of ‘stories’ of Chasing Asylum and the issues and perspectives that arise from the documentary, they will now complete an assessment task to apply and demonstrate their knowledge and understanding. The way you introduce the tasks will depend on the approach to assessment you take with the class - some suggested assessment options are detailed below:

Option 1 - Persuasive Speech: read through the context, purpose and task description. Draw students’ attention to the thinking and planning prompts included on the task sheet. These can be modified at your discretion to support your students’ learning needs.
Option 2 - Biographical Piece: read through the context, purpose and task description. Draw students’ attention to the thinking and planning prompts included on the task sheet. Again, these can be modified at your discretion to support your students’ learning needs.
Option 3 - Narrative Piece: read through the context, purpose and task description. Again draw students’ attention to the thinking and planning prompts included on the task sheet. As with the other options, these can be modified at your discretion to support your students’ learning needs.

To support your students’ needs or to fit more effectively within your school’s assessment plan, each of these tasks can be modified. For example, a persuasive speech could be transformed into a written opinion column with some scaffolding to support that genre. Similarly, a short written biography could be transformed into be a multimodal biographical presentation.

Part B: Considering the Options

Step 1.

Explain to students that before they jump in and start the assessment task, they could start by considering the merits, challenges and expected outcomes of each task. Invite students to use about 10 minutes per option to re-read each task carefully and use their notebooks to individually brainstorm topics, people, issues or aspects of the topic that they could use as a focus for their response.

Step 2.

At the conclusion of this brainstorming process, invite students to share some of their ideas with the class and facilitate the sharing of ideas. This step could be enhanced by grouping students based on their selections. Once students are grouped, they could collaborate to extend their initial ideas.

If you have nominated to set a specific task, invite students to use this time to map out some different ideas for their response and consider where they might be able to find background information.

Part C: Completing the Assessment

After students have discussed their ideas, they can use the task description to guide them in the planning and drafting process. The task could be completed over the course of the next few lessons or weeks depending on students' needs and how this assessment is being implemented.

Reflection

Invite students to respond to the questions on the Student Worksheet after completing the assessment task to reflect on the process that they went through to brainstorm, plan, draft and complete the piece.

What process did you go through to produce this piece?
What resources did you use while working on this piece? Which ones were especially helpful? Which ones would you use again?
How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did you enjoy about this piece?
What did you learn about yourself as you worked on this piece?
Have you changed any ideas you used to have on this subject?
If you were assessing your work, what comments would you make about this piece?
What's the one thing you particularly want people to notice when they look at your work?
One thing I would like to improve upon is ...
What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?
What's the one thing that you have seen in your classmates' work or process that you would like to try in your next piece?

Assessment Options

Option 1 - Persuasive Speech

Throughout this unit we have been studying the experiences of people seeking asylum and the ‘stories’ that are inherent in these journeys and responses. We have examined how various texts communicate and represent these stories and how language and other features help shape meaning.

Purpose

To demonstrate and apply your understanding of persuasive writing and speaking by researching, planning, drafting, rehearsing and delivering an effective persuasive speech.
To take a stance and develop, demonstrate and apply your understanding about the challenges and experiences of refugees/people seeking asylum and what can be done about the associated issues.

Task

Write a persuasive speech about a topic related to the issues of seeking asylum or refuge in Australia. Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

Offshore detention conditions
Legal issues and challenges
Notion of limbo
Refugee/Asylum Seeker contributions
Political perspectives
Compassion and reason

Plan your speech using a Brace Map. In planning and drafting your persuasive speech, consider your role and audience carefully and use language choices accordingly. For example, are you a students speaking to your school’s P&C or are you a refugee advocate speaking to politicians?

REMEMBER!

Make sure you use a variety of persuasive devices:
- (tripling, repetition, knockdowns, comparisons, emotive language, rhetorical questions, etc.)
Consider the other language choices from the table below that can also be used in persuasive speeches.

Length: 4-5 minutes

Language choices that can also be used to engage audiences and persuade:

Emotive Language (strong adjectives and verbs that affect meaning when describing people, places, events, etc., language that appeals to emotions)

Intensifiers (usually adverbs that intensify or ‘ramp up’ meaning, such as ‘extremely’, ‘mostly’ etc., e.g. “the outcome was entirely shocking”)

Modality (language indicating a degree or scale of certainty, such as modal verbs [can, must, would, could, etc.] and modal adverbs [possibly, likely, definitely, etc.])

Evaluative Language (language that forms judgement, either implicitly or explicitly)

Figurative devices (such as metaphors, similes, personification, etc.)

Poetic language (such as alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyme, rhythm, etc.)

Option 2 - Biographical Piece

Throughout this unit we have been studying the experiences of people seeking asylum and the ‘stories’ that are inherent in these journeys and responses. We have examined how various texts communicate and represent these stories and how language and other features help shape meaning.

Purpose

To demonstrate and apply your understanding of biographical and reflective writing by researching, planning, drafting and polishing a short written biography.
To develop, demonstrate and apply your understanding about the challenges and experiences of refugees and people seeking asylum and their contributions and achievements to Australian society.

Task

Write a short biography for a well-known or notable Australian that tells their story of seeking asylum or refuge in Australia. Refer to the biographical writing factsheet below and be sure to include the following:

Basic details - name, date of birth, country of origin
Images and consideration of layout
Short written biography including:
- Early life/childhood/teenage/young adult years
- Life in their home country
- Challenges faced/endured
- Refugee/asylum journey
- Accomplishments/achievements/contributions
- Goals and ambitions
- Quotes from the individual about their experience
How their story/journey inspires hope through overcoming adversity and challenges

Possible subjects for a short biography include (but are not limited to):

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki (Radio and television personality/Scientist)
Frank Lowy (Property mogul)
Anh Do (Comedian, author and artist)
Les Murray (Sports journalist)
Majak Daw (AFL star)
Tan Le (Innovation and Technology)
Judy Cassab (Painter)
Deng Thiak Adut (Former child soldier, now refugee lawyer)

Length: 600-800 words

Biographical writing factsheet - Adapted from: Senior Text Types: A Writing Guide for Students 2nd Ed. by Elli Housden (Farr Books, published 2013).

Defining the genre	Organisation	Language
Biographies and biographical profiles are a story of a person’s life that is researched and written by other people. Often they are written about famous or prominent people, though because it is a personal story, anyone can be the subject of biographical forms of writing. The focus of a biography is typically the life achievements, accomplishments and experiences that have shaped an individual’s life. The role of the writer is predominantly to inform their audience about the subject’s life. Subsequent purposes might be to entertain, inspire or persuade.	Depending on length, divided into chapters or sections. Can be organised chronologically or thematically. Significant events from the subject’s life usually forms the content.	Formal, factual language, with appropriate use of quotes. Language might be moderated depending on the writer’s purpose. For example, selective or subjective language might be used to suit purposes to engage/position readers. Descriptive language is used to engage and emphasise aspects of the biography. Written in third person in complete sentences. Past tense is common, though can be altered to suit purpose.

Option 3 - Narrative (Short Story)

Throughout this unit we have been studying the experiences of people seeking asylum and the ‘stories’ that are inherent in these journeys and responses. We have examined how various texts communicate and represent these stories and how language and other features help shape meaning.

Purpose

To demonstrate and apply your understanding of creative writing and the experiences of refugees and people seeking asylum by planning, drafting and polishing a short narrative about these experiences and issues.

Task

Write a short narrative that communicates a ‘story’ of seeking asylum or refuge in Australia. You have some creative liberty in this task, though remember to plan your story around CHARACTERS, develop an appropriate PLOT and SETTING and use an appropriate variety of creative writing devices.

Your short narrative could be derived from your own knowledge based on studied content in the unit, OR you could take inspiration from one of the poems studied in the Stories of Fear lesson (or a similar poem about seeking asylum or refugee experiences) such as Escape by Mercedes Killeen (below).

If choosing the second option, consider some of the key events or feelings/emotions that are referred to and transform these into the narrative.

In your planning and drafting, pay close attention to the following:

Narration: first or third person
Principle of ‘Show don’t Tell’
- Suggesting what is taking place instead of stating it explicitly (e.g. “his hands trembled around the lock as it rattled against the cage” is more effective in communicating the character’s nerves and situation than simply writing “he was very nervous and his hands trembled on the lock.”)
Descriptive language
- Strong adjectives and verbs that affect meaning when describing people, places, events, etc.
Sensory language
- Language describing things by appealing to the five senses (touch, sight, sound, taste, smell).
Figurative devices:
- Such as metaphors, similes, personification, etc.
Variation in sentence structure
Using dialogue and punctuation appropriately.

Length: 600-800 words

POEM EXAMPLE: Escape by Mercedes Killeen (available here)

I could taste the flavour of our vivid nation on my tongue,
which the hostility and bloodshed managed to dilute.
For I cherished its warmth,
embraced the spirit,
and counselled its youth.

Yet with my entire body trembling,
I laid down on the racked surface I knew as the floor.
Tears streamed down my rueful face,
as the sun’s rays beat down on my broken body,
and I yearned to flee through the door.

The aching in my heart simply wanted relief-
for any remedy to chase away the fear.
Each day the tears became greater,
flooding my distressed soul that knew
of the heartless soldiers marching near.

With escape as my only choice,
my heart began to race.
I choked on my breath as sweat trickled down my skin,
and desperately prayed for grace.

My sister and I packed our entire lives,
into a mere few torn up bags.
Kissed the village goodbye,
and grasped each other’s shaking hands.

Stories of Chasing Asylum - Assessment Task

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