Links to the Victorian Curriculum – English
Reading and Viewing, Language: Expressing and developing ideas
Level 6:
- Identify and explain how analytical images like figures, tables, diagrams, maps and graphs contribute to our understanding of verbal information in factual and persuasive texts (Content description VCELA340)
Reading and Viewing, Literacy: Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
Level 6:
- Select, navigate and read increasingly complex texts for a range of purposes, applying appropriate text processing strategies to recall information and consolidate meaning (Content description VCELY346)
Speaking and Listening, Literacy: Interacting with others
Level 6:
- Participate in and contribute to discussions, clarifying and interrogating ideas, developing and supporting arguments, sharing and evaluating information, experiences and opinions, and use interaction skills, varying conventions of spoken interactions according to group size, formality of interaction and needs and expertise of the audience (Content description VCELY366)
Links to the Victorian Curriculum – English as an Additional Language (EAL)
Pathway B
Speaking and listening
Level BL:
- Participate in predictable social interactions appropriately
(VCEALA168)
- Construct two- or three-word utterances, with the support of actions, gestures or visuals
(VCEALL173)
- Use words from sets related to immediate communicative need, interest or experience
(VCEALL180)
Level B1:
- Use appropriate social formulas
(VCEALA247)
- Construct short utterances that use common adjectives to describe or add emphasis
(VCEALL252)
- Use learnt words in speech
(VCEALL260)
Level B2:
- Respond appropriately in some contexts
(VCEALA328)
- Describe and identify people, places and things using simple vocabulary for colour, size, place, location, time
(VCEALL333)
- Use, in speech, vocabulary and structures learnt from spoken and written texts
(VCEALL341)
Level B3:
- Respond appropriately during different classroom activities
(VCEALA408)
- Adapt speech to suit a variety of registers
(VCEALL413)
- Employ a range of vocabulary to convey shades of meaning
(VCEALL421)
Reading and viewing
Level BL:
- Acquire information from simple images, with teacher direction and support
(VCEALC186)
- Recognise and explore texts in different media and modes
(VCEALL199)
- Understand and explore the basic layout and conventions of simple texts
(VCEALL200)
- Build a vocabulary that draws on words of interest, learnt words and sight words
(VCEALL287)
Level B1:
- Acquire some information from a small range of images
(VCEALC266)
- Identify and compare differences between text types
(VCEALL279)
- Understand the purpose and basic organisational features of simple text types
(VCEALL280)
- Build a vocabulary that draws on words of interest, topic words and sight words
(VCEALL207)
Level B2:
- Acquire information from different types of visual representations in text
(VCEALC347)
- Identify informative, imaginative and persuasive texts when reading texts or listening to texts read aloud
(VCEALL360)
- Understand the purpose and organisational features of common text types
(VCEALL361)
- Build a vocabulary that draws on words of interest, topic words and sight words
(VCEALL287)
Level B3:
- Interpret and explain information from a range of images in text
(VCEALC426)
- Identify and compare a range of different text types
(VCEALL439)
- Interpret the purpose and organisational features of different text types
(VCEALL440)
Writing
Level BL:
- Use topic-specific vocabulary encountered in classroom activities
(VCEALL235)
Level B1:
Level B2:
Level B3:
- Use a range of key vocabulary appropriately
(VCEALL474)
Theory/practice connections
Searching for information will inevitably lead students to online research. Choosing sites, navigating pages, using hyperlinks are aspects to teach and explore with students. It cannot be assumed that all students have grown up with access to digital devices, nor can it be assumed that students know how to use digital devices to meet their academic needs. Websites can be examined during shared reading sessions. When teaching about websites, choose features that are strongly represented (Callow, 2012). Students will need to develop the metalanguage to talk about web-based texts, in order to effectively communicate and collaborate with peers.
Learning intention
We are learning to use sources and present information.
Success criteria
- I can use websites to find information about the facilities available in my local area.
- I can read and make inferences about population maps.
- I can create and administer a survey.
- I can present information in visual ways.
Role of the reader
Text participant: Synthesising what we know with new information from online sources.
Group size
Individual, partner, small group, whole class.
Learning sequence
- Students brainstorm the reasons we live in our local area. Refer to the local council website for more ideas about the affordances of the local area. Based on what students know about the area, they create a survey for their families to complete, investigating the reasons families live in the area. Consider how the data could be presented - Likert scale, questionnaire, Google form etc. Compare the results from the survey to the brainstorm.
- Use an online population map of Australia to initiate discussions about where people live. Explicitly teach the language to negotiate the map. Ask students to consider why certain areas are more populated. Begin a vocabulary list of the technical words needed to talk about population density - urban, urbanisation, rural, density, local etc.
- Create a class visual continuum from least populated areas to most populated areas, by finding images of the outback, pastoral areas, suburban areas, city areas and central business districts. Research 'liveability' and create a checklist for liveability and apply it to the areas on the continuum.
Assessment: Students participate in small group discussions to share their thinking. Anecdotal records can be taken on student participation, logical reasoning and use of language to explain thinking. - Look at the front cover of Armin Greder's The City. How does it compare with the urban areas we have examined? Students work with a partner to determine the place and time of the city depicted on the front cover. Read the text to students.
Differentiation
Activity 4, which asks students to consider time and place may be difficult for students who have little experience of European history. The teacher can scaffold this step by asking students to conduct an internet search on medieval instruments, the history of Carnevale in Italy and European cities in the 1600 and 1700s.
Able students can be afforded the opportunity to participate in data research about urbanisation and its social effects, present their findings through various written, visual or graphic texts. This task has strong curriculum links to Mathematics.