Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Unit Outline Unit duration

Students explore a range of texts that address environmental issues, including newspaper articles, editorials, blogs, advertisements, film trailers, poetry, drama, and film, and respond to these texts in different forms, with a focus on blog posts. Students work in groups to create environmental campaigns focused on an issue of their choice.

10 weeks

Big ideas/key concepts: Contextualisation Why does this learning matter?

Context and values:

Texts reflect different values depending on their context

Environmental issues are important to discuss in our society, and there are a range of views about these issues

Digital and online media allow individuals to express opinions about contemporary issues

Everyone can have a voice and can influence change

Issues around our environment, and human impacts on the environment, have enormous implications today and in the future. With sustainability a cross-curricular priority, environmental sustainability is one of the major challenges faced by society today. Students will consider a range of environmental issues, and, importantly, will be encouraged to develop opinions about these issues, through wide reading and viewing. This unit is also important as it teaches students that individuals have a voice in this age of online media, and that their voices can be shared with a wider audience. Students create real online texts to persuade a real online audience, which illustrates that anyone can influence change in contemporary society.

Target Outcomes Resources

A student:

EN4-2A effectively uses a widening range of processes, skills, strategies and knowledge for responding to and composing texts in different media and technologies

EN4-4B makes effective language choices to creatively shape meaning with accuracy, clarity and coherence

EN4-5C thinks imaginatively, creatively, interpretively and critically about information, ideas and arguments to respond to and compose texts

EN4-9E uses, reflects on and assesses their individual and collaborative skills for learning

Newspaper articles – relevant, current, online sourced by teacher

Film trailers – Born to be Wild, March of the Penguins, The 11th Hour

Drama - Lockie Leonard Scumbuster

Brochure – Greenpeace Sumatran Tiger Website – Greenpeace TV advertisement – “The Majestic Plastic Bag”

Literacy target areas Cross Curricular Priority ICT target areas Assessment

Sustained writing

Persuasive writing Reading

Spelling/grammar

Sustainability Online texts: Class blog: WordPress Websites: Weebly Other Web 2.0 tools

Formative:

Blog posts Summative:

Online environmental campaigns

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities

for students to demonstrate their understanding of these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

EN4-9E use and reflect on metacognitive processes used for planning, including brainstorming, mind mapping, storyboarding, role-play and improvisation EN4-5C express considered points of view and arguments on areas such as sustainability and the environment accurately and coherently in speech or writing with

confidence and fluency

Activity 1: Introduction, brainstorm, and mind map

Introduce the topic and the big ideas that students will be exploring throughout the unit. Emphasise the link to the cross curriculum priority of sustainability – in this case environmental sustainability, which impacts human sustainability.

Class brainstorm – environmental issues in today’s society. Create a tiered mind map on the board, grouping student responses into key issues, as below:

Activity 2: What is a blog post, and why are we blogging?

Use Resource 1 to answer these questions. Discuss the educational benefits of blogging.

Activity 3: Blog and comment

Teacher creates a blog post, and include the mind map created in class. (View a sample at http://7aqua.wordpress.com/what-environmental-issues-are-we-facing-today.) Ask students to comment on the post:

Which issue is most important to you, and why?

Which issues will have the biggest impacts on our lives in the future, and why?

Engagement in class discussion Mind Map Discussion Blog comments Engagement in online discussion

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement

What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of

these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

EN4-2A recognise the different processes required for responding and composing in a range of forms and media analyse and explain how language has evolved over time and how technology and the media have influenced language use and forms of communication (ACELA1528,

ACELY1729) EN4-4B explore and analyse the ways purpose, audience and context affect a composer's choices of content, language forms and features and structures of texts to creatively shape

meaning EN4-5C investigate and understand the ways web and digital technologies influence

language use and shape meaning

Activity 4: Sample Blog Post

Read a recent blog post about a current environmental issue. There are tons out there. Try the Greenpeace website blog, or just Google environmental blog posts. A sample has been included in Resource 2. Refer back to Resource 1 when analysing the post. Look at the structure and language:

Informational

Interactive Informal

Dynamic

Social

Subjective/Opinion Commentary

Democratic

Real Strong personal voice

Hyperlinks

Discuss the paragraph structure as being similar to any other type of sustained analytical writing (introduction, series of paragraphs, and conclusion).

Students annotate the post in pairs by identifying:

Factual information

Opinion

Conversational language devices Strong personal voice

Annotated blog posts

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement

What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of

these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

EN4-2A use a widening range of processes of composing and publishing sustained texts, including planning, drafting, rehearsing and

editing EN4-4B experiment with text structures and language features to refine and clarify ideas to improve the effectiveness of

students' own texts (ACELY1810) create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that raise issues, report events and advance opinions, using deliberate language and textual choices, and including digital elements as

appropriate (ACELY1736) EN4-5C Understand and apply knowledge of language forms and features

Activity 5: Current Enviro Issues – Articles

Ask students to find and bring to class (or locate online if using devices) a current newspaper article about an environmental issue. It is a good idea to bring a bunch of articles to class in case students forget/don’t have devices. The SMH or Guardian environmental sections online are a good starting point.

Set first blogging task. See Resource 3, and below:

Your task is to write your first blog post in response to an article that deals with an environmental issue.

Your post should be around 300 words, and should include:

a title that refers to the issue in your article

a summary of the main message of the article. You should concisely summarise the article in your own words, but you may include some direct quotes from the article to complete your summary (see Resource 2 for an example).

your personal response to the article – do you agree or disagree? Is there anything that we (humans, Australians, individuals) could do to address the issue? Should we address the issue? Does the article support or conflict with other views you have?

Note: See Resource 2 as a model. You may or may not choose to use first person. You will note that the writer’s personal opinion in Resource 2 is clear without using first person, but as the blog form is personal and reflective, you may choose to write in first person to convey your opinion. That is perfectly acceptable.

Blog posts

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement

What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of

these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

EN4-9E reflect on and assess their own and others' learning against specific criteria, using reflection strategies, eg learning logs, blogs and discussions with teachers

and peers EN4-2A recognise and practise responsible and

ethical digital communication consider and apply a range of strategies to improve their texts, including editing by rereading and peer editing, checking accuracy of paragraphing, grammar, spelling and punctuation, and considering relevance for purpose, audience and context EN4-5C describe and explain qualities of language in their own and others' texts that contribute to the enjoyment that can be experienced in responding to and

composing texts

Activity 6: The etiquette of commenting on blogs

Key question:

We know that blog posts are typically based on opinion, and that blogging encourages comment. What sort of interactions might occur in blog comments?

Ask students to think-pair-share their responses to this question. Answers should include that comments may be supportive, or that comments may vehemently disagree with the post, and everywhere in between.

How can we comment respectfully on each other’s posts, while presenting our own opinions?

Formulate some guidelines, as a result of this class discussion, for commenting on each other’s posts. This might be something like:

Something they liked about how the post was written

An idea that stood out for them in the post

Their own opinion about the issue A way the post might have been improved

Something they liked about the post in general

Or use CCCQ (Compliment, Comment, Connect and Question)

Ask the students:

What might be the etiquette if someone comments on your post?

Discuss the responses. Generally, it is etiquette to reply to comments on your posts, and to comment on the posts of people who comment on yours.

Then, provide some time for students to comment on their peers’ posts.

Engagement in discussion Class guidelines for commenting Comments and replies on blog posts

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement

What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of

these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

EN4-2A use comprehension strategies to interpret and evaluate texts by reflecting on the validity of content and the credibility of sources, including finding evidence in the text for the author's point of view (ACELY1723, ACELY1734) analyse and explain the effect of technological innovations on texts, particularly media texts (ACELY1765) use prior knowledge and text processing strategies to interpret a range of types of

texts (ACELY1722) reflect on ideas and opinions about characters, settings and events in literary texts, identifying areas of agreement and difference with others and justifying

a point of view (ACELT1620) EN4-4B analyse how point of view is generated in visual texts by means of choices, for example gaze, angle and social

distance(ACELA1764)

Activity 7: Viewing and listening skills

View trailers for the following environmentally-themed films:

Born to be Wild March of the Penguins

The 11th Hour

Use Resource 4 as a viewing/listening guide to identify:

Environmental issue

Key ideas Visual techniques

Sound devices

Language Activity 8: Drama – Lockie Leonard Scumbuster – the play

As a class, read Lockie Leonard Scumbuster, the play, adapted from Tim Winton’s novel. It’s an engaging, short script, which addresses some key environmental issues facing many of Australia’s coastal towns.

As they read, students should fill in the Lockie Leonard Scumbuster reading guide, Resource 5.

As a class, discuss student responses to reading guide. Were Lockie’s actions justified?

Optional activities:

Class debate: That Lockie’s criminal actions were justified.

Mock trial: Put the polluters on trial.

Viewing/listening guides Engagement in discussion Class reading Reading guides Engagement in discussion Engagement in debate Engagement in mock trial

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement

What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of

these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

EN4-4B plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, selecting aspects of subject matter and particular language, visual, and audio features to convey information and ideas (ACELY1725) EN4-5C share, reflect on, clarify and evaluate opinions and arguments about aspects

of literary texts (ACELT1627) explore the ways individual interpretations of texts are influenced by students' own knowledge, values and cultural

assumptions critically consider the ways in which meaning is shaped by context, purpose, form, structure, style, content, language choices and their own

personal perspective

Activity 9: Blog post - Review – Lockie Leonard Scumbuster

See Resource 6, and below:

Your next blog post will be a review of Lockie Leonard Scumbuster the play, by Garry Fry, based on the novel by Tim Winton.

Your review should present your perspective of the play, using a strong personal voice. You should evaluate the play’s effectiveness in exploring an environmental message for a teenage audience. Would you recommend the play to teens, to raise awareness of environmental issues?

You should discuss the ideas presented in the play about the environment, pollution, self-interest, and protest. You may like to discuss the characterisation, setting, use of humour, Aussie slang, stereotypes, structure, relationships, and any other aspect of the play that takes your fancy.

Was the exploration of environmental issues effective? Were the characters relatable? Were their actions justified? Are they good role models? What could teenagers learn from reading the play? Would you recommend it? Why/why not?

In writing a review to be posted on our blog, you want to engage, as well as inform and persuade our readers. You can be conversational, and use humour, emotive and descriptive language to present your ideas. Aim for around 300-500 words.

Blog post – review

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement

What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of

these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

EN4-5C critically analyse the ways experience, knowledge, values and perspectives can be represented through characters, situations and concerns in texts and how these affect responses to texts discuss aspects of texts, for example their aesthetic and social value, using relevant and appropriate

metalanguage(ACELT1803) EN4-9E discuss and explain the processes of responding and composing, identifying the personal pleasures and difficulties experienced

Activity 10: TV advertisement/mockumentary – “The Majestic Plastic Bag”

“The Majestic Plastic Bag” is a TV ad, in the form of a mockumentary, made by environmental groups in the US to persuade voters to vote for San Francisco to adopt a policy banning plastic bags. It can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw

Narrated by Jeremy Irons, it runs for four minutes.

View as a class and complete the guided annotation (Resource 7). Discuss techniques such as:

Mockumentary Irony

Voiceover narration

Camera shots and angles Group discussions: higher order thinking with Socratic questioning (Resource 8). Discussion questions:

1. Connections: What connections do you draw between the text and your own life, the wider world, and your other learning?

2. Challenge: What ideas, positions, or assumptions do you want to challenge or argue with in the text?

3. Concepts: What key concepts or ideas do you think are worth holding onto from the text? What makes you say that?

4. Changes: What changes in attitude, thinking, or action are suggested by the text, either for you or others? How does the text change your thinking about things? What do you take away as a lesson or key learning?

Guided annotations Engagement in discussion Engagement in Socratic discussion

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement

What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of

these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

EN4-2A understand and use the terminology associated with responding to and composing digital texts EN4-4B recognise and appreciate the ways a wide range of texts communicate by using effective language choices

Activity 11: Website analysis

Teacher select a website with an environmental focus, such as:

Greenpeace: http://greenpeace.org.au

WWF: http://www.wwf.org.au

Take 3 For the Sea: http://www.take3.org.au Two Hands Project: http://www.twohandsproject.org

As a class, analyse and discuss web design and persuasive techniques in one of the websites, such as:

Emotive language

Emotive imagery Second person and inclusive first person

Imperative verbs

Facts, statistics, and data Photographs

Colour

Students should then work in pairs to examine and analyse a different website, and note the use of the above techniques and others.

Write a structured analysis of how the website persuades its audience to empathise with the environmental issue.

Engagement in discussion Responses in pairs to websites – analysis

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement

What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of

these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

EN4-2A use a range of effective strategies for organising information, ideas and arguments, eg clustering, listing, compare and contrast, semantic chains, graphic and diagram outlines, and mind

maps EN4-5C explore the ways individual interpretations of texts are influenced by students' own knowledge, values and cultural

assumptions critically consider the ways in which meaning is shaped by context, purpose, form, structure, style, content, language choices and their own

personal perspective

Activity 12: Saving the environment – what can YOU do?

Hypothetical discussion: If there were no plastic bags tomorrow, what would we do? Could we do it? How would we change our behaviour?

Discuss in pairs, then as a class.

Create a table as below, and fill it in individually. In relation to improving our environment:

How can I change what I do? How can I change what others do?

Discussion around responses should highlight that in our society, individual can have a voice and make a difference. We have access to create:

Websites and blogs Petitions

Social media accounts

Consumer campaigns – influencing what people buy/don’t buy Youtube videos

Surveys

Letters or emails Apps for mobile devices

Infographics

Songs, poems, stories and cartoons

Engagement in discussion Tables completed

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement

What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of

these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

EN4-5C compose texts using alternative, creative and imaginative ways of expressing ideas, recognising, valuing and celebrating

originality and inventiveness compose a range of visual and multimodal texts using a variety of visual conventions, including composition, vectors, framing and reading pathway EN4-9E understand the demands of a task and the outcomes and criteria for planned assessment identify, plan and prioritise stages of tasks, making use of organisational strategies, eg drawing up a schedule, monitoring progress and meeting

deadlines understand the roles and responsibilities of individuals in groups, performing an allocated role responsibly in a group and

Activity 13: Group project – create a campaign

The remainder of the unit is devoted to group project where students select an issue of their choice and form groups to create a real campaign based on that issue.

An interesting way to allocate groups is to have students individually write the issue that they care the most about on a piece of paper, and match students with students with the same issue. Otherwise, allow students to form groups themselves.

We have been reading and writing about a range of environmental issues in

class, and on our blog. Now it’s time for YOU to create a campaign to

communicate an environmental issue to the world.

Choose the environmental issue that you feel most strongly about, find your

like-minded classmates, and start something big!

Your task is to create your own “organisation” dedicated to raising awareness

about your issue, by creating a media campaign to urge

individuals/corporations/governments to take steps to preserve our

environment.

See Resource 9 for the full task.

The campaigns will be self- and peer-assessed. Criteria included.

Environmental campaigns Engagement in groupwork

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement

What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of

these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

assessing the success of individual and collaborative processes EN4-2A use processes of representation, including the creative use of symbols, images, icons, clichés, stereotypes, connotations and particular

aural, visual and/or digital techniques use a range of software, including word processing programs, to create, edit and publish texts imaginatively (ACELY1728,

ACELY1738) use collaborative processes, eg playbuilding, performances and digital

compositions to construct texts EN4-4B combine visual and digital elements to create layers of meaning for serious,

playful and humorous purposes experiment with particular language features drawn from different types of texts, including combinations of language

Activity 14: Web 2.0 Tools

Support student projects by sharing useful Web 2.0 tools, such as:

Weebly for websites and blogs: weebly.com

Animoto for animations: animoto.com

Survey Monkey for surveys: surveymonkey.com

Remix-T has a great summary of tools: http://learning.nd.edu/remix/tools.html

Change.org for petitions

Pixton.com to create comics/cartoons

Prezi.com for presentations

Powtoon.com for presentation

Make sure students are sourcing photographs and images correctly. Use http://search.creativecommons.org/ to locate creative commons photographs. Students should always attribute image sources.

Activity 15: Campaign progress reflection blog post

Metacognitive task – informal assessment as learning. See Resource 10.

Engagement in discussion Exploration of web tools Reflective blog posts

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Syllabus Statement

What are the teaching and learning activities that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of

these ideas or concepts?

Evidence of Learning Reg/Date

and visual choices to create new

texts (ACELT1768, ACELT1805) plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content, including multimodal elements, to reflect a diversity of

viewpoints (ACELY1720, ACELY1731)

create literary texts that draw upon text structures and language features of other texts for particular purposes and

effects(ACELT1632) creatively adapt and transform their own or familiar texts into different forms, structures, modes and media for a range of different purposes and audiences respond to and compose new print and multimodal texts, experimenting with appropriations and intertextuality EN4-9E articulate and reflect on the pleasure and difficulties, successes and challenges experienced in their individual and collaborative learning

Activity 16: Campaign presentations

Groups outline the environmental organisation that they have created, the goal of the organisation, and the elements of their campaign. Other groups collaboratively peer assess them, and students self-assess, using the criteria.

<- understand and value the differences between their own and others'

ways of learning in English <- develop and use vocabulary for describing, analysing and reflecting on their learning experiences <- use and reflect on metacognitive processes used for planning, including brainstorming, mind mapping, storyboarding, role-play and improvisation

Campaign presentations Campaign texts

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Resource 1

What is a blog post and why are we blogging?

The characteristics of a blog post

Informational

Interactive

Informal

Dynamic

Social

Subjective/Opinion

Commentary

Democratic

Real

Strong personal voice

Often includes hyperlinks

The educational benefits of blogging

Writing:

o improved literacy outcomes

o improved writing quality as students know it is in the public forum

o development of personal voice

Collaborative Learning:

o increased skills in reflection and peer feedback

o increased engagement in learning

Real World Audience

o more highly developed understanding of audience, purpose and context

o increased engagement and autonomy

Thinking:

o higher order thinking

o complex thinking

Social Media:

o positive digital footprint

o online productivity

o increased engagement

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Resource 2

Air pollution is a major cause

of cancer Lisa Edwards / October 18, 2013 - http://7aqua.wordpress.com/air-pollution-causes-cancer/

It seems that not only is air pollution ugly, and generally bad for our health, but now it has been confirmed as a significant cause

of cancer.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday announced that outdoor air pollution

is a “leading cause of cancer in humans”. The SMH article is here.

WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) says there is “sufficient evidence” that air pollution causes lung

cancer, and increases the risk of bladder cancer, in addition to raising the risk of respiratory and heart diseases.

The IARC reviewed a range of studies of the effects of air pollution on humans, in order to reach these conclusions, and cite s

“transport, power generation, emissions from factories and farms, and residential heating and cooking” as the main sources of air

pollution.

This is a particularly interesting, and worrying, announcement, as the chemicals that we’re releasing into our atmosphere are

having increasingly detrimental impacts on our health. When the leading international health organisation cites air pollution as one

of the main causes of cancer, as well as other serious diseases. Surely we must be looking at ways to reduce it?

At a time where there are global concerns about climate change, and many governments and organisations are looking at ways to

cut carbon emissions to slow down global warming, it is clear that this WHO announcement is yet another reason to do so. Using

greener transport options, renewable energies, and cleaner industrial practices would all not only reduce carbon emissions, which

could slow human-induced global warming, but they would decrease air pollution, eliminating a range of chemicals that

contaminate our air, and reducing the number of cancer deaths, respiratory illnesses, and incidences of heart disease globally.

Reducing the pollutants that we pump into the air is not only good for our planet, but it is good for us.

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Resource 3

Blog Post 1:

Your task is to write your first blog post in response to an article that deals with an environmental issue.

Your post should be around 300 words, and should include:

a title that refers to the issue in your article

a summary of the main message of the article. You should concisely summarise the article in your own

words, but you may include some direct quotes from the article to complete your summary (see my post

above)

your personal response to the article – do you agree or disagree? Is there anything that we (humans,

Australians, individuals) could do to address the issue? Should we address the issue? Does the

article support or conflict with other views you have?

Note: You may or may not choose to use first person. In Resource 2, the writer’s personal opinion comes through

this post, without using first person, but as the blog form is personal and reflective, you may choose to write in first

person to convey your opinion. That is perfectly acceptable.

Resource 4

Viewing and Listening Skills

Trailer:

Environmental Issue:

Key Ideas

Visual Techniques:

Sound Devices:

Language

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Resource 5

Lockie Leonard Scumbuster - The Play – Reading Guide

Clarify: What words are you not sure of as you read? Look them up.

Question: What questions do you have as you read?

Language Techniques: What language devices do

you notice as you read? Give techniques and quotes.

Dramatic Devices: What features of drama/script

do you identify? Give examples.

Environmental Ideas: What are the key idea

explored in the play, relating to the environment?

Other ideas: What other ideas about life, growing

up, and society are explored?

Key scenes: List some key scenes and quotes that explore the environmental issues of the play.

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Resource 6

Blog Post – Review Lockie Leonard Scumbuster

Your next blog post will be a review of Lockie Leonard Scumbuster the play, by Garry Fry, based on the novel by Tim Winton.

Your review should present your perspective of the play, using a strong personal voice. You should evaluate the play’s effectiveness in exploring an environmental message for a teenage audience. Would

you recommend the play to teens, to raise awareness of environmental issues?

You should discuss the ideas presented in the play about the environment, pollution, self-interest, and

protest. You may like to discuss the characterisation, setting, use of humour, Aussie slang, stereotypes, structure, relationships, and any other aspect of the play that takes your fancy.

Was the exploration of environmental issues effective? Were the characters relatable? Were their actions

justified? Are they good role models? What could teenagers learn from reading the play? Would you recommend it? Why/why not?

In writing a review to be posted on our blog, you want to engage, as well as inform and persuade our readers. You can be conversational, and use humour, emotive and descriptive language to present your ideas. Aim for around 300-500 words.

Here are a couple of reviews from a book review blog http://samreads.wordpress.com/ to get you

thinking… Draft your post in class today, and post it to our class blog. Have fun!

“Matched” – by Ally Condie (2010)

The current trend in YA fiction (when you push past the entire sub-sections of vampire spin-offs in the book shops – assuming you still have book shops where you live) is an increasing interest in dystopian fiction. Since “Uglies” by Scott Westerfeld (2005), I have picked up YA SF books regularly, and the ones that are selling and working are all dystopias with a common theme – the idea that our future will be based around an information overload that has led to a complete control of ideas, knowledge and history. An al l-

controlling government makes decisions in people’s ‘best interests’ and everyone is so scared of the evils of the past that they ignorantly accept the control in their lives as being a great gift bestowed upon them.

Knowing too much terrifies them.

And this is “Matched” in a nutshell. Cassia is 17 and it is time for her Matching Banquet. This is the night

she will find out who The Society has selected for her to spend her life with. All the data has been entered and her perfect match across all the provinces has been decided. It is only the next day, when Cassia discovers that her Match was not as perfectly selected as she thought, that the adventure begins.

The Society has reduced information down to 100 songs, 100 poems, 100 books and 100 paintings. They

have created a society in which everyone is always busy, at work, study or organised leisure. This means no one has much time to think. And thinking is monitored. Each member of the family takes it in turn to wear sleep tags, so even when they are sleeping, The Society knows what people are doing.

What is really beautiful about this book is that the story unfolds around the discovery of Dylan Thomas’s poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night and all that it means for this poem to still exist. It is the idea

that Condie is showing her readers how beautiful poetry is, line by line, word by word – having the characters taste and mull over the real meaning of the words – that make this a wonderful book.

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

It peeved me a little that it was so obviously written as part one of a series. Now that I’ve been to

Condie’s website, I can see that it was always planned as book one of a trilogy. “Uglies” and “The Hunger Games” were too. The world around books now, online and across the world, is quite mind-boggling. If you

would like to know more about these books, you can go to www.allysoncondie.com and experience information overload… but there aren’t enough hours in the day for reading books, so don’t waste them exploring websites!

Cassia is a strong, intelligent and curious protagonist – just Like Tally in “Uglies” and Katniss in “The Hunger Games”. I really enjoyed reading the book, I know teenagers who would like to read it and I think it would make a great teaching text. That’s high praise, considering some of the YA fiction I read. But “The Hunger Games” is better.

“The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green (2012)

I haven’t been able to put my Kindle down much, these last couple of days. I have been out and about and I’ve ticked off quite a few things on my work and home ’to do’ lists, but the Kindle kept calling me back, and Hazel and Augustus were firmly in my head, cajoling me back.

“The Fault in Our Stars” is a beautifully written book, but its tale is a desperately sad one. I couldn’t put it

down, but I sobbed through most of it, and I honestly don’t think I can recommend it to you. It is a book about teenagers with cancer. It is insightful, clever, funny, literary and engaging. Nevertheless, it is heartbreaking and horrible in its inevitable tragedy. Hazel is pressured into attending a support group and it is here that she meets Augustus, a fellow cancer patient. It is impossible not to love them and cry for them.

I love that this book offers intelligent, well-read teenagers and that it makes consistent references to wonderful texts and authors. I love that, although this book is set in Indiana in the USA, a big chunk of the story is set in Amsterdam, a place I have been, a place I could properly picture. Hazel and Augustus even go to Anne Frank House and I have been there and been deeply moved by the same things that moved Hazel.

I cried a lot reading this book. I know that many of my students will love this book. It is already the talk of

the school. But I don’t think any of my friends would love this book. I want to recommend it … but I don’t think I can. Make of that what you will.

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Resource 7

“The Majestic Plastic Bag” – Guided Annotation

Clarify: What words, phrases or images do you not understand?

Question: What questions do you have after viewing the text?

Voice: Whose voice is heard? Are there multiple

voices? What perspectives are represented? How is the voice conveyed?

Language devices: Identify language techniques

used. Why have they been used? What is the impact?

Film techniques: What film techniques are used? Why have they been used? What is the impact?

Ideas: What ideas are conveyed? How do we come to understand the ideas? Why has the composer represented these ideas?

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Resource 8

Socratic Discussion – “The Majestic Plastic Bag”

Socratic discussion is a thinking tool designed to draw out deep ideas, and foster meaningful discussion.

You will form groups of four-five, and engage in a discussion based on “The Majestic Plastic Bag” based on

the following questions:

5. Connections: What connections do you draw between the text and your own life, the wider world,

and your other learning?

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6. Challenge: What ideas, positions, or assumptions do you want to challenge or argue with in the

text?

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7. Concepts: What key concepts or ideas do you think are worth holding onto from the text? What

makes you say that?

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8. Changes: What changes in attitude, thinking, or action are suggested by the text, either for you or

others? How does the text change your thinking about things? What do you take away as a lesson

or key learning?

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Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Resource 9

Our World, Our Future:

Create a Campaign

We have been reading and writing about a range of environmental issues in class, and on our blog. Now it’s

time for YOU to create a campaign to communicate an environmental issue to the world.

Choose the environmental issue that you feel most strongly about, find your like-minded classmates, and

start something big!

Your task is to create your own “organisation” dedicated to raising awareness about your issue, by creating

a media campaign to urge individuals/corporations/governments to take steps to preserve our

environment.

Target Audience:

You will need to be very clear on your target audience. Is it everyday individuals who can use their

consumer power, or put their name to a petition, or change their own habits? Is it our government, who

can establish laws, or limit development, to preserve our natural world? Is it particular businesses or

corporations, who can change their practices to be more environmentally friendly? Establish a clear target

audience before you start.

Aims / Goals:

Your campaign needs a clear aim. Write a mission statement about what you hope to achieve. Establish

two or three clear goals that outline specifically what you hope to gain as a result of your campaign. For

example, your overall aim might be to raise awareness of issue of air pollution and its dangers to our

health. Your specific goals might be to communicate the need to limit fossil fuel expansion to the

Australian government, or encourage individuals to switch to solar power, or reduce their car emissions.

Name / Logo / Slogan:

You’ll need to create a name for your organisation. Make it sharp. A catchy slogan that is memorable, will

help promote your cause. Creating your own logo will help give you a brand for your organisation – easily

recognisable across media.

Research:

You will need to research your issue in detail, to decide what information you need to publish in the

different media you will use.

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Promotional Materials:

The number of people in your group will determine how many promotional texts that you need to create.

Two members = at least two texts, three members = at least three texts. Be creative, and work to the

strengths of the members of your group when deciding what promotional materials you will design.

In class we talked about creating:

Websites (eg Weebly.com)

Blogs (eg Weebly, WordPress)

Petitions

Social media accounts

Consumer campaigns – influencing what people buy/don’t buy

Youtube videos

Surveys

Letters or emails

Apps for mobile devices

Clubs

Infographics

Songs

Poems

Stories

Cartoons

The language of your campaign:

You are aiming to inform, and persuade, your target audience, to care about your environmental

campaign. Remember we have discussed language devices that are aimed at engaging our emotions, in

addition to our intellect, to persuade us, such as:

Emotive language

Descriptive imagery

Facts and statistics – data can be persuasive when presented effectively

Second person language – speak directly to your audience

Imperative verbs – tell your audience to act – ‘sign’ the petition, ‘act’ now

Designing your texts:

If using images, think about emotive imagery in pictures – the demand of a caged orang-utan can be very

powerful, for example. You’ll need to think colour, layout, font, and size

Presenting your campaign:

At the end of term, we’ll do a campaign launch. You will present your organisation and campaign to the

class in a five-minute presentation. I will create a campaign launch info sheet prior to the day. You will self -

assess and peer assess your work.

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Self Assessment / Peer Assessment: Tick the applicable box

Criteria Highly developed

Well developed

Sound Developing Basic

Identifies a clear target audience,

appropriate to the environmental issue

Establishes clear aims and goals for the

organisation

Creates a memorable organisation “brand” across media – name, slogan, logo

Promotional materials demonstrate depth

and detail of research into the environmental issue

Promotional materials are effective in conveying the message of the organisation

Promotional materials use a range of media and work together to create a cohesive and

persuasive campaign to encourage action

Campaign presentation is effective – speakers are articulate and persuasive

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Resource 10

Blog Post – Reflecting on Campaign Progress

Your next blog post is a piece in which you should reflect on your group’s progress in creating your environmental campaign. This is a metacognitive task – that means that you are thinking about your

planning, thinking about decisions that you have made so far, thinking about what you’ll do next, thinking about how you’re working in a team, and thinking about your thinking.

Your post should address the following questions. You may use subheadings and images.

You selected an issue of importance to you for your environmental campaign. Why did you choose that issue? What makes it important to you?

What have you called your campaign? Who is the target audience? What is your main goal? What ideas do you want your audience to understand about the issue?

How many members are in your group? Is your group working well? What are the different elements of your campaign/tasks that need to be completed? How have you divided up the workload? How have you gone about making decisions about the project? Have you all agreed on everything? Have you allocated tasks and given autonomy to the individuals working on those tasks? Have you put things to a vote? Or a combination of these?

You have three weeks left to work on the project. What do you need to complete personally before

then? How are you going to make sure that all members of the group meet the deadlines?

Overall, what has worked well? Why have these things worked well?

What challenges have you faced? What has been difficult so far? How can you overcome these challenges going forward? Is there anything you would do differently next time?

What have you enjoyed so far? What have you not enjoyed? What would you change about the project

to make it better for the next Year 7 group?

What have you learned from working on the project so far, about the issue, and about teamwork?

Your post should be thoughtful, reflective, and honest. Don’t forget to proofread!

Happy blogging, team!

Year 7 Teaching Program: Our World, Our Future

Lisa Edwards – Bossley Park High School

Evaluation of Unit Teacher Evaluation Comments/Variations

How did the unit ‘rate’ in these areas?

Time allocated for topic

Student understanding of content

Opportunities for student reflection on learning

Suitability of resources

Variety of teaching strategies

Integration of Quality Teaching strategies

Integration of ICTs

Literacy strategies used

Numeracy strategies used

After you have taught the unit of work, record in this section your evaluation of the unit and any variations you implemented or would choose to implement the next time you teach the unit.

Date commenced: Date completed:

Teacher’s signature

Head Teacher’s signature