Teaching Sequence

15 minutes	Part A: Overview of the Task
30 minutes	Part B: Ideation: Thinking Through the Options

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 commencing the assessment, consider the imperatives of assessment in your context, include specific task sheets, criterion for assessment/assessment scales or rubrics etc., and the method and manner in which reporting takes place.

Part A: Overview of the Task

Explain to students that after considering a variety of ‘voices’ in Chasing Asylum and the issues and perspectives that arise from the documentary, they will now demonstrate and apply their knowledge and understanding. The way you introduce the tasks will depend on the approach to assessment you take with the class.

Project the following task description for students to see. (Also available on the Student Worksheet).

TASK DESCRIPTION
Context (hypothetical):	You have been invited to contribute to a large symposium about the status of people seeking asylum, related policies and both government and community perspectives about the issues. Members of the community and various organisations have been invited to attend. One of the key purposes of the symposium is to see and hear examples of the ways language and communication choices can be more effectively used to change attitudes and perceptions and compel people to take meaningful action to address the issues experienced by refugees and people seeking asylum.
Task:	Your task is to use language and communication skills in both meaningful and powerful ways in order to compel some kind of change in relation to attitudes and values towards people seeking asylum and/or related government policies.
You need to consider and choose:	Your MESSAGE: What is the attitude, value or belief you want to change? What is the message you want to send to change this? Your AUDIENCE: Who are you directly addressing with your message? Who are you indirectly addressing? Your GENRE and MODE: What is the most effective way to send your message to reach this audience? Would a creative, informative or persuasive text most effectively engage and compel your audience? Would a written, spoken, digital or multimodal text be the best way to communicate your message?
Length:	Variable depending on format (consult with teacher). Guidelines: Written: 800-1000 words Spoken: 5 - 7 minutes Multimodal: 5 minutes
Some suggested genres/modes:	Public speech Feature article Written opinion piece Persuasive essay Online medium - blog, vlog etc. Short advertisement with print campaign materials Short narrative, abstract or documentary film Biographical/autobiographical texts

Download a PDF version of this table here: Assessment Task Planning Tool. Students can use some of the Genre Tips provided to help them decide and plan their task.

Note: To support your students’ needs or to fit more effectively within your school’s assessment plan, the modes and genre students select to meet the requirements can be modified. For example, if you need to assess persuasive language or a public persuasive genre, students could be presented with some specific options such as a persuasive speech, opinion column, or feature article etc. with some scaffolding to support that genre.

Part B: Ideation: Thinking Through 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 their ideas. Invite students to use about 10 minutes to reread the task carefully and to brainstorm topics, people, issues or aspects of the topic that they could use as a focus for their message.

Once students have identified a message or attitude/value/belief they are interested in changing, they should think about what they can do with respect to language and communication in order to compel change. Part of this will require them to focus on how they can use the communication skills learnt throughout the unit.

Students can use the Assessment Task Planning Tool to brainstorm the contention of their piece, the genre they will present in, the facts/opinions they will include and the manner in which they will incorporate rhetorical devices into their piece.

Step 2.

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

If you have nominated to set a specific task, this stage of the lesson/process can be modified to allow for some preliminary planning time. 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 completed the ideation process and discussed their ideas they should begin to plan and draft their piece. The task could be completed over the course of the next few lessons or weeks depending on student 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/do you enjoy about this piece or work?
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 on 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?

Voices of Chasing Asylum - Assessment Task

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