Year 7
Unit 1#Tweens#Teens#Issues
In this unit, students will explore a range of short stories that represent teenage issues. Students develop an appreciation for literature style, aesthetic and language features of the short story genre. Students focus on reading comprehension skills.
They will engage in a group discussion around the construction of teenage identities in short stories. Students select a short story to support their point of view. Students focus on speaking and listening skills.
Unit 2: My Place in the World
In this unit, students will explore a range of advertising texts that reflect identities, both as an individual and as a collective. They will learn more about using persuasive devices including language and images. Through the lens of Australian identities, students will present an advertising pitch to attract tourists to the local community. Students focus on writing and creating.
Unit 3 Heroes, Victims and Villains
In this unit, students will explore a narrative to understand how authors create different characters that face ethical and moral dilemmas. Students will write a book review, discussing how the author uses language to create an engaging novel for young adult readers. Students focus on writing.
Class Novel selection:
- Once by Morris Gleitzman
- Wonder by R.J. Palacio
- Lockie Leonard: Legend by Tim Winton
- Detention by Tristan Banks
Unit 4: Poetry for a YouTube Generation
In this unit, students will explore a range of poetry texts to examine how language features and text structures create meaning and evoke feeling. Student explore how artists add layers of meaning by selecting images to convey mood. They will create a visual representation of a poem of their choice and write an artist statement to demonstrate their understanding of the combination of language features and images to create meaning for an audience. Students focus on writing, listening and creating.
Year 8
Unit 1: Breaking through Stereotypes
In Part A of the unit students learn about stereotypes and how they are shaped. Students explore teenage stereotypes in the media, questioning the representation and the impacts it has on young people in our society. explore, explain and express their point of view about other stereotypes made in the media (teenagers) in a discussion forum. Students focus on listening and speaking skills.
In Part B of the unit, students listen to, view and read a range of texts written by and about First Nation People. Students interpret texts that convey representations. They explore the way that ideas and viewpoints in texts are drawn from different historical and cultural contexts and how authors use a range of language features, images and vocabulary to represent different viewpoints. Students focus on writing skills.
Unit 2: Fitting in & Standing Out- Novel Study (Voices of Asia)
In this unit, students will complete a novel study, identifying different perspectives and issues related to the concept of fitting in or, standing out. Students will create a series of journal entries to provide a voice of a minor character in order to demonstrate their understanding of the author's style, characterisation and issues. Students focus on creative writing and reading.
Class Novel selection:
- Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman
- Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah
- Becoming Aurora by Elizabeth Kasmer
- Ground Zero by Alan Gratz
Unit 3: Get Up & Stand Up
Students analyse songs of social commentary. Through this they develop an understanding of how protest songs, poetry and multimodal texts represent historical, social and cultural perspectives over time. Students will learn more about constructing coherent paragraphs to communicate their ideas. Students focus on listening and writing skills.
Unit 4: Technology: Friend or Foe?
In this unit students explore the issue of technology usage by young people and question whether there are more benefits or drawbacks. Students examine how texts use persuasive devices, language and structural features to engage and persuade. They apply this knowledge to produce their own persuasive speech for their peers. Students focus on writing and speaking skills.
Year 9
Unit 1: Power corrupts Absolutely
In this unit you will listen to, read and view Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, to examine how authors present different perspectives on issues (e.g. dictatorship, control and poverty). Students will analyse the novel to show how authors use structural and language features to influence its reader. Students focus on reading, writing and speaking skills.
Unit 2: Truth is stranger than Fiction
In this unit, students listen to, read and view a variety of information texts and speculative fiction texts to create a speculative fiction short story. In particular, students experiment with the features of a short story allows authors to speculate “what if?" whilst entertaining readers. Students focus on reading and writing skills.
Unit 3: Media Watch: fact checking the news
In Part A: students view a range of news stories to develop an understanding of the use of structure and language position audience in particular ways to create bias and sensationalised news. Students are introduced to reader positioning to become more resistant readers of the news. Students focus on listening and writing skills.
In Part 2: students select an area of interest to investigate how the news has been produced to create bias/fake/ misinformed news. For example, students may investigate pseudoscience, celebrities, politics, environment issue, current event Students consider the question: How and why do different news platform represent versions of the truth rather than the truth. Students will also create their own digital opinion column developing an argument about the importance of fact checking. Students use their topic of interest to prove their point about how the news was represented and how young people can be more critical when viewing these texts on social media.
Unit 4: Judge and Jury- Play script study
In this unit students read Reginald Rose's play Twelve Angry Men or Black Diggers and examine how the playwright has explored a range issues including discrimination under the law, justice, and having the courage to speak up against injustice. Students consider the importance play's have as a form of social commentary.
Year 10
Unit 1: Texts and Perspectives (film study)
In this unit, students explore the film genre to develop an understanding of how director's use text structures to create innovative films that explore different representations of people, places and culture. The thematic elements of the film, students learn more about texts that reflect or challenge society's attitude and values towards societal issues. Students focus on writing and listening skills.
Class Film selection: The Merger(M)
Unit 2: Texts and Representations (The false hero- media)
In this unit, students listen to, read, view and discuss a variety of media texts about fallen heroes e.g. celebrities, sports stars and musicians They examine how text structures, language features and the arrangement of information within media texts position audiences to respond to these fallen heroes. Students focus on listening and speaking skills.
Unit 3: Texts and Connections: Loved to death
In this unit, students read and interpret the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Students explore the human condition. Students will consider the idea that love comes at a price. Students focus on reading skills.
In Part A, students evaluate Shakespeare's development of love through the play, considering the complexities of relationships (e.g. healthy, fractured and destructive). Students focus on listening and speaking skills.
In Part B, students learn more about the creative elements of the play. Students select a character to create an internal monologue, filling in the gaps that the audience doesn't get to hear. Students focus on writing and speaking skills.
Unit 4 Close study of literary text - Wild at Heart
In this unit, students read Animal Farm by George Orwell that explores the question 'Are humans wild at heart?' Students consider the Freudian structural model of the brain to analyse satirical allegorical novella which explores the condition of human experiences within a fictional setting. Students construct an analytical essay. Students focus on reading and writing skills.