Looking at marriage equality and what has been said about it on Q&A (with some clips to watch). Another Q&A clip about Independent Candidate Bob Katter (in an episode about mental health) where he gets challenged by Josh Thomas about his homophobia and his denial that there are any gay people in his electorate. This lesson also looks at immigration (particularly illegal immigrants) and looks at the language used to label them. It also looks at newspaper articles and political cartoons about a drowned three year old Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, whose lifeless body was washed ashore in Turkey. It includes scaffolding to write an analysis of some of these political cartoons. PLEASE NOTE: this resource was made in 2016 before marriage equality was achieved in Australia. The discussion of refugee issues is still pertinent but much has happened since then thus have marked down the price

An introduction to the Liberal party and their ideology. A copy of one of their advertisements prior to the election. Some clips from the Chaser talking about the events in the lead up to the election. Looking at the Jobs and Growth slogan and what it meant. Looking at info on their website which explained how they were going to achieve this. Looking at the trickle down theory (and the flaws with this idea). A brief overview of the 14 election issues. Additional resource: voting in Australia booklet 2016 which explains the three levels of government in Australia, what electorates are, how federal elections work, how to enrol to vote, what a ballot paper looks like, how the results are counted, explaining what a referendum is and how to be an active citizen.

This is a history style lesson designed to help children understand the Stolen Generations before the next lesson where they will view poems about this issue and have to analyse them. It introduces students to the assimilation policy, includes images of newspaper advertisements at the time (selling half-caste children) and looks at the beliefs held at the time about this issue. It includes clips from the film Rabbit Proof Fence along with questions to help check for understanding and to develop empathy. Following this, information is provided about what the institutions were like as well as historical sources (testimonies of stolen children remembering the day they were taken). Finally, it looks at the effects and consequences of the stolen generation with information taken from the Creative Spirits website. Additional resources: A handout with the questions for the Rabbit Proof Fence viewing activity. A homework handout (mind mapping the effects of the stolen generation.)

1) A fun an engaging PPT designed to build up students' reading comprehension abilities. It includes a definition of war, a series of questions for classroom discussion (drawing on prior knowledge), a small clip from Forrest Gump for students to watch and discuss (questions included), info about who writes war poetry and the various reasons they have for doing so, an answer to the question 'why read poetry?' Following this the PPT encourages students to engage with three poetic texts and learn to read for meaning and to appreciate the emotions created by the author and how they achieve this. Each poem comes with questions to check for student comprehension and to begin scaffoldin their ability to analyse. 2) A handout with the words to each poem: Grandpa what did you do in the war?, Gaps in the ranks & And the band played Waltzing Matilda 3) A Poetry retrieval chart (homework) for students to complete to revise after the lesson -- I would send these out via email to be completed electronically.

1) An exemplar feature article 2) A PowerPoint designed to teach students about the genre they need to write for their assessment. It includes tips for the exam and the criteria students have to demonstrate. It specifies the codes and conventions of a feature article (in terms of structure, visuals, paragraph length, cohesive ties, vocabulary etc.) It includes a suggested structure followed by a student's example. Afterwards there are questions about the article's intended reading, tone, use of language features etc. Examples of types of statements they may come across in their exam. If time there is another feature article example (resource 1) also copied into the final few slides.

Prior to students learning about moral issues in The Hunger Games, they must first learn what morals are and have a chance to identify them in other texts. This PowerPoint teaches students what terms including moral, morality and immoral mean. Students are also introduced to the news genre and its purpose. They learn about how regular news stories are structured and their common language before reading a news story with a moral issue in it. After reading the article there are a series of comprehension questions which could be answered individually or as a class depending on the abilities of your learners. These questions increase in difficulty and were written using verbs from Bloom's taxonomy. Resource 2: A copy of the newspaper article students explored in this lesson (taken from an Australian newspaper in 2017).

This booklet has been designed as part of a unit of work on Catching Fire (the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy). It includes activities about characters, the setting and language features which students are to complete as they read the novel. There are also questions about the events/themes/character's perspectives et cetera for each chapter. This is all in preparation for a creative writing assessment where students take what they have learned to create two or three diary entries which provide insight into a minor character from the novel. In doing so they must reveal the personality of their character through what they see, think, feel, hope for and fear. Students were assessed on how purposefully they shaped their representations of people, places, events and concepts in the novel.

Hunger Games 1 Student Work Booklet. This booklet has been designed as part of a unit of work on moral issues. It includes activities about characters, the setting and language features which students are to complete as they read the novel. There are also questions about the events/themes/character's perspectives et cetera for each chapter. This is all in preparation for a feature article assessment where students respond to the following statement:‘In times of conflict people disregard the social and moral norms of the time. This has been reflected in various fictional texts.’ Students must form and argument and persuade their audience to accept your viewpoint. They also had to analyse quotes and examples from the novel and use them to justify their argument. Within their feature article they had to:  Use specific examples of moral issues from The Hunger Games.  Focus on one or two characters in the novel (and their perspective of the moral issue).  Quote from the novel and identify language features which help position readers to view the moral issue in a particular way. You must explain the effect of these language features  Include genre features such as a headline, by-line, two columns, images and captions  Write in 3rd person and use a range of language features to engage your readers (e.g. similes, metaphors, rhetorical questions etc.).

This lesson is designed as part of an Australian year 9 English unit. The first assessment for this unit is a persuasive essay. This PowerPoint first explains the assessment and the criteria students will be marked against. Subsequently, it goes through essay genre conventions (defining terms like thesis statement, explaining what should go in an intro, body and conclusion, explaining how texts should be referenced in text and in a bibliography). This PowerPoint also includes example paragraphs from a range of texts which show Australian stereotypes including The Simpsons Australia episode, Crocodile Dundee and men of the open spaces. Handout - planning steps to be completed prior to writing Handout - scaffolding for essay which tells students what they must write for each paragraph.

3 resources for a year 12 English unit. 1) A PPT for a mini lesson on nouns, verbs and adjectives + another mini lesson on adverbs. 2) A PowerPoint engaging with 2 WW1 poems: ‘I have a rendezvous with death’ and ‘In Flanders Fields. After reading the first poem there are discussion questions. I have also included some of my observations about each of the poem (modelling analysis), some info about the author, activities encouraging the students to consider how langauge features have been used in the text. Following this, students read the second poem on their own and complete the comparison activity (3rd resource). 3) A handout with the table for the comparison activity (for students to complete electronically)

A resource taken from an Australian 10 English Unit entitled 'Contemporary literature.' In this unit students compare and contrast the social, moral and ethical themes in a range of contemporary literature texts, including films and the close study of a novel. Students evaluate how text structures, language and visual features can be used to influence audience response. This PowerPoint provides a dot point summary of these chapters and is followed by chapter questions which could have been set for homework or could be used within the lesson to check for student understanding. I have added one YouTube clip showing a relevant scene but you could add more if your learners prefer the broadcast strategy.

Anyone who thinks that slavery went the way of the nineteenth century will be disabused of that belief when reading “Slave: My True Story”  written by Mende Nazer, a Sudanese Nuba, along with Damien Lewis, a British journalist. This book gives a chilling overview of the modern slave trade from the perspective of one who was victimized by it. Human trafficking, unfortunately, is alive and well as a weapon of war in the late twentieth and twenty-first century. This resource is a PowerPoint presentation designed for use in a 12 English Authority class in Queensland Australia. It introduces students to the concepts of cultural context and social situations and how both can influence the author. This lesson prepares students to answer the following question: What is the social impact of the text? i.e. is it recycling or reinforcing cultural assumptions? Within this lesson students will learn about the Nuba people – cultural practices e.g. scarification, beads, wrestling, religious beliefs, dwellings, diet, languages & female genital mutilation. In addition to information, images and videos of some of these are provided. It also includes some information about save trading in Sudan. At the end of the PowerPoint are some sample answers to the chapter questions for chapters 1-8.

Resource 1: PowerPoint This lesson introduces the concept of lying broadly before zooming in to focus on how the moral issue is shown in the novel. Students are introduced to the types of lie (white lie, fabrication, bold faced lies). Discussion questions are posed on the PowerPoint to encourage students to share their views on the issue. There is a short clip from the film Liar Liar to provide a humorous stimulus for discussion. Following this students will read the feature article 'Are white lies dead in the age of social media?' As they read the various language and visual features will be pointed out to them (as they will be writing a feature article for their mid term assessment). After reading the article there are activities for students to complete including defining some terms from the article and answering literal, inferred and applied level comprehension questions. Subsequently, the lesson introduces the various types of lies in the novel. The PPT includes extracts from the text where people are shown discussing lying or telling a lie. These extracts are followed by discussion/comprehension questions. Resource 2: a feature article taken from 'The Australian' (newspaper) in 2017 about white lies which students will explore in this lesson.

1) PowerPoint: The construction of characterization, plot and setting in Slave. This PowerPoint was designed to help prepare students for a short story assessment where they were to write from a marginalized character's perspective in the autobiography Slave. Within the lesson students will explore how Mende and her journalist co-write established characters and setting within the novel through the use of various writing techniques. 2) Document for students to take their notes into with extracts from the text for students to analyse.

A task sheet for a year 10 English assessment (Australian curriculum). Also provided is the planning and writing steps in a scaffolding document. The scaffolding is invaluable as it helps students to plan to address the key criteria prior to writing the task. In particular they evaluate how text structures and language features can be used to influence audience response.

6 resources utilised in a 12 English Authority unit in Queensland Australia. 1) A PowerPoint taking students through the history of Sudan. It begins by introducing students to key terms including: coup, constitution, fundamentalist, Islam, junta and secession. These terms are integral to understanding the events in Slave as the author's life was influenced by the political events occurring in society at the time. After a brief overview of the early history, it delves into the civil war (1980s-1990s). Lastly it looks at contemporary politics (since 2002). 2) A handout of the notes about the history of Sudan (which were taken from the Oxford dictionary of contemporary world history). This can be given to students who struggle to summarise or used for purposes of revision. 3) Further research about Slave and the Nuba culture. 4) A handout to be given to students at the beginning of the term explaining the purpose of the unit and outlining what the two items of assessment are. 5) A diagram which shows the various influences on the author as she wrote her autobiography.

Part of a set of resources created for a year 7 English class in Australia (ACARA syllabus). The other resources are also available in my store - lrigb4. Designed for use in 70 minute lessons (with extra activities as a back up if the class is advanced). The focus text is ‘Black Snake: The Daring of Ned Kelly’ by Carole Wilkinson. 1) Lesson PowerPoint The PowerPoint begins with teaching students some important features of narratives as students will be writing a short story {aka imaginative recount} for their first assessment task. There are slides on how to write in first person and the difference between first person and third person. The use of full stops to create short, sharp sentences in narratives (and the effect of this technique) is explored. As a class read the ‘what if you were there?’ section at the beginning of chapter 2. There are 5 ‘quick quiz’ questions and some discussion questions {related to the assessment}. An introduction to key narrative features {point of view, contrast & juxtaposition} with examples from what we just read. There are tips about how to write dialogue in a narrative and punctuate it correctly. There is some information about considering the aesthetic and social value of texts (to be discussed). Students read the remainder of Chapter 2. Finally foreshadowing is discussed with an example from Chapter 2. 2) A handout to be used in conjunction with the PowerPoint.

This 9-page booklet/resource provides 8 tips to improve your writing. These can be applied to a range of text types including narratives, essays and newspaper articles. Each tip comes with examples, activities or a suggested word bank for students to try to incorporate in their writing going forward.

Part of a set of resources created for a year 7 English class in Australia (ACARA syllabus). The other resources are also available in my store - lrigb4. Designed for use in 70 minute lessons. The focus text is ‘Black Snake: The Daring of Ned Kelly’ by Carole Wilkinson. 1) A PowerPoint for a lesson designed for the introductory phase of a 7 English unit on Ned Kelly. It is designed to provide context (teach students what Australia was like during Ned Kelly’s lifetime). By the end of the lesson, students should be able to explain what you think life would have been like for early settlers (and add some key points to the ‘L’ section of their KWL chart). There are slides on: what men and women wore, the various social groups {convicts/ex convicts, free settlers, selectors, squatters, troopers & hawkers}, bushrangers, transportation, housing and housekeeping, common foods, lifestyle, the gold rush and tools/resources. The slides include descriptions and images. Subsequently, students glue in the character table (retrieval chart) and begin reading the ‘What if you were there’ section at the opening of Chapter 1 of Black Snake. They should be recording key details about the various characters they come across as they read. The students should also be developing novel-specific vocabulary – keeping a track of any slang words, idioms or other language features we notice as they read. There are 3 checking for understanding questions at the end. 2) Character Retrieval chart (handout)

Useful resource for English or Theology classes. Defines key terms and presents students with scenarios to discuss.